TIMELINE: IRREGULARITIES, DANGERS & UNANSWERED QUESTIONS

Elementary school murals near Mount Prospect Park (above) say “Global warming is real,” and “Always remember the choices you make today shape your world tomorrow.”

The plan to build a regional-scale poured-concrete skateboarding facility on beloved urban green space in Mount Prospect Park has triggered objections about secret decision-making, influence by monied lobbyists, contradictions with sound urban planning, and site-specific hazards connected with the construction plan. The project runs afoul of core environmental health priorities for New Yorkers – undermining City policies and established science designed to address urban heat dangers, to ensure effective investments in climate-conscious infrastructure, and to promote the wellbeing of all, including vulnerable communities who rely on public green space. The plan faces unaddressed detailed, substantive objections from thousands of park-lovers; community board leadership; and a diverse array of organizations focused on climate and green space, historic spaces, and neighborhood wellbeing – including young environmental leaders and climate-conscious skateboarders.

Numerous community members volunteering with Friends of Mount Prospect Park continue organizing and speaking out, seeking to deconflict the situation through sound urban planning that would shift any poured-concrete construction to already-paved space – before historic green parkland is destroyed.

Friends of Mount Prospect Park has assembled a timeline of key events related to Mount Prospect Park and its fate:

1930’s

Built on the second-highest point in Brooklyn, Mount Prospect Park is dedicated on May 27, 1939, in a ceremony attended by Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia. The Mayor calls Mount Prospect Park “our monument to the City of New York,” and says the completion of Mount Prospect Park and the library together represent the “contrast between the old partisan, grafting form of government and the present non-partisan, scientific form of government.” Recognizing the environmental health benefits of public green space, Mayor LaGuardia had earlier in his administration kept City parks open overnight – allowing New Yorkers sweltering through a July heatwave to sleep outdoors, taking cool refuge in urban green spaces like Mount Prospect Park. 

Nearly a century later, Friends of Mount Prospect Park’s network and allies continue the campaign to protect public urban green parkland for everyone’s wellbeing.

April 2021

City Council District 39 uses its Participatory Budgeting program to provide $300K, characterized as “downpayment” (partial funding) for a skate facility. Of note:

  • Proponents’ publicity highlights support from a Change.org petition with over 5000 signatures. Proponents admit – years after the vote – that the petition signatories were mostly from people outside New York City.

  • District 39 reportedly logs 3057 votes for a skate facility. Brooklyn Paper covers outcomes, noting District 38 voting irregularities (e.g., reported double voting) in the same cycle that votes skate facility for District 39. What verification was used for District 39?

  • Participatory Budgeting, designed to showcase “direct democracy” to serve a particular district constituents’ choice of priorities, is subsequently diverted from District 39 to out-of-district use in District 35 – without discussion in that district 

  • Environmental inequity: District 39 is 6% Black (per most recent Census figures by Council district, published by The City). District 35, which did not consider the project, is 35% Black – and is now slated to have its park paved. 


May 2021

Lobbying database starts reflecting lobbying expenditures by Tony Hawk’s foundation, The Skatepark Project (TSP), targeting NY officials. By Fall 2025, expenditures exceed $350,000.

October 4, 2023

Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso releases a Comprehensive Plan for Brooklyn to provide data-driven recommendations on land use, budget, health, etc. It includes: “It should be noted that all parks are not created equal. Many City parks are too small for active recreation or covered in blacktop or concrete, meaning access to open space does not imply availability of green space.”

November 2023

  • Tony Hawk appears as featured speaker at Climate Action Day, where he tells young people, "I am thankful to know that you are working on important problems that benefit the world we live in…I realize you are taking on a big challenge, one of the biggest of our time, climate change.... But you have to stay the course, and find purpose in what you are doing, even if you aren't getting the accolades for it 'cause it will be some of the most rewarding work in the end…Your potential for success in this field could impact future generations much more than skateboarding itself.” Closes with appreciation for "their mission of climate action education for all.”

  • NYC enacts Local Law 1065 to increase New York City’s tree canopy coverage from 22% to 30%. Legislation includes prioritizing nature-based solutions, and requires the City to create a comprehensive Urban Forest Plan to prevent canopy loss and encourage tree growth. (Brooklyn consistently lags behind other boroughs in tree canopy coverage.)

January 2024

In his State of the City address on January 24, 2025, Mayor Eric Adams announces four new skateboarding facilities to be constructed – two in Brooklyn and two in the Bronx.

  • Three of the four – all but Mount Prospect Park – use already-paved sites, and as of the time of publication of this timeline do not appear to face opposition. 

  • NYC Parks agreement signed January 24, 2025, by the Executive Director of Tony Hawk’s TSP foundation states that the Mount Prospect Park project construction site is “in the oval lawn in Mount Prospect Park” and describes it as “a 40,000 square foot custom poured-in-place concrete skatepark.”

  • Rollout materials and publicity (reportedly using public relations firm BerlinRosen, hired by The Skatepark Project) discuss “investment,” “support” and “partnership” with multimillionaire celebrity skater Tony Hawk, leading to common misconception that construction is privately funded. But construction of the facilities, including more than $11M just for Mount Prospect Park – is actually publicly funded. (That said, private funding would not justify paving the historic green parkland.) 

  • At the time of the Mayor’s announcement, Brooklyn has more skate sites than any other borough, per NYC Parks public records, and Brooklyn also is the borough with the most skate sites per capita. NYC Parks skate sites minutes from Mount Prospect Park include, for example, Thomas Greene skatepark, with very few features. Poorly reviewed by skaters, it was termed “interim,” due to lack of funding — but fifteen years later remains unimproved. NYC Parks’ Brower Park skate facility, also near Mount Prospect Park, has been unskate-able for years, with broken-up concrete, perhaps partly due to tree roots. 

  • Brooklyn has the least amount of green space per person of all NYC boroughs, according to the Wilderness Society.

  • Following Mayor Adams’ announcement, facility proponents alter the text in their Change.org petition – after gathering and presenting the signatures (including more than half from people outside NYC). The retroactively altered petition text makes it appear that people signed to promote Mount Prospect Park as the site for the concrete facility. (After multiple objections from FoMPP, proponents in March 2024 add a note that they changed the text after people signed.)

February 2024

At a public meeting of the Cultural Row Block Association, District 35 Council Member Crystal Hudson’s Communications Director asserts that the City conducted a Feasibility Study that determined Mount Prospect Park is the best location for a 40,000-square-foot regional-scale custom poured-concrete skate facility.

The first Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request by Friends of Mount Prospect Park to NYC Parks — for the Feasibility Study — reveals “no responsive records.” Officials later acknowledge lack of a Feasibility Study.

February-March 2024

As news coverage raises awareness, people begin probing of the project. Here is a small sampling of publicly posted comments:

“i was a hippy-kid skateboarder in the 70's jumping over home made ramps in the street. For the past 38 years i have worked as a professional urban landscape architect designing parks and recreation facilities for the NYC Parks Department, including in Prospect Park and Mt. Prospect Park. And I have designed concrete plaza-style skate parks in my career. In my professional opinion, Mt. Prospect Park is an absolutely TERRIBLE location to construct a skate park, for SO MANY reasons, many, but not all, of which have already been eloquently described in this forum. There are so many other superior locations to choose from.”

“I am a young person and have skated a bit in my life, and I just do not think this is a good place for a skate park. It’s a small park and none of it should be taken.”

“where did the voting take place? In district 39, not district 35 where the skate park is planned to go… There was no outreach to the prospect heights and crown heights communities who use the park daily. None.”

“I do not support voters from another district forcing destruction of green space in my district.”

“As a local resident who frequents Mount Prospect Park, I am against the plan to sacrifice scarce open space for a concrete skate park. Call me a NIMBY if you must. It just really seems like the overwhelming share of people who use this park -- the dog-walkers, parents, runners, children, loungers -- oppose this development and have been given the run-around by its proponents. Where is the community engagement, transparency, or democratic input?”

“With all the already-paved lots around, why attack a park for this? There really isn’t any other spot in the whole of Brooklyn to put this?”

“They paved paradise and put up a…skate park? Mount Prospect Park is a rare, tranquil, green escape in our concrete-filled city, and Eric Adams and Tony Hawk (seriously?) want to destroy it. …There are plenty of other good options in the area for a skate park… Mount Prospect Park should not be on the short list.”

“This seems like classic municipal laziness. Instead of finding a new space, or building a new space, they just want to take a part of the tiny sliver the public does have.”

“I've skated for over half of my life and I'm now in planning and urban design. As a result, I feel qualified to add some input here. I don't believe that green space should be sacrificed for a skatepark. Skating is an inherently urban activity meant for the built environment and we live in NYC. Green space is already an incredibl[e] resource that is relatively scarce in Brooklyn and as a result I don't believe it should be sacrificed.”

March 2024

  • Despite the January 2024 agreement stating that the project will be built in the center oval heart of the park, funding officials and TSP publicly present a rendering – with branding from NYC Parks, the Mayor’s Office and TSP – portraying a relatively small skate facility in a back corner of Mount Prospect Park. (They mark the image as non-binding.)

  • Executive Director of Tony Hawk’s Skatepark Project, per Gothamist, states the concrete skate facility “will be built in an unused, muddy section of the greenspace” of Mount Prospect Park.

April 2024

  • Acknowledging that ”Big problems require big solutions, and few problems are as massive as climate change,” Mayor Adams announces climate budgeting

    requirements for NYC infrastructure projects: “Climate budgeting is a process that incorporates science-based climate considerations into the city’s budget decision-making process by evaluating how actions and spending today contribute to meeting longer-term climate targets and needs. The process will allow New York City to understand the climate impact of the dollars New York City spends, identify where more effort is needed to tackle climate change, and champion forward-looking investments.”

  • City rejects Earth Month donation of free professional soil aeration and reseeding of bare patches in the well-used central oval of Mount Prospect Park. (See June-September 2024 note, below.)

  • Development Framework for Council District 35, designed and published by Hester Street and “commissioned by Council Member Crystal Hudson and City Council through discretionary funding” confirms access to public green space is a top priority both district-wide (second only to affordable housing) and specifically for Prospect Heights (following housing and sanitation). See screenshots, below.

May 1, 2024

NYC Parks holds a single zoom session on the proposed Mount Prospect Park construction – specifying that the input is to be directed toward designing the skate facility. 

Site-specific problems regarding poured-concrete skate construction in Mount Prospect Park expand to include not just green space and climate concerns, but also emerging safety issues, based on expert and professional skate materials. Site-specific safety issues have been included in written public comments submitted to NYC Parks (May 2024); presented in videoconference with Parks Commissioner and Mayor’s representative (November 2024; presenters include experienced NYC skateboarder), as well as written follow-up to videoconference; detailed letter to board and staff leadership of Tony Hawk’s Skatepark Foundation (April 2025; also submitted to officials involved in funding the construction and the NYC Parks legal office); and web postings excerpting professional guidelines. Safety issues and liability risks raised in skate expert and professional materials and commentary – including but not limited to specific observations from Skatepark Project experts – have not been publicly addressed as of publication of this timeline (November 2025).

Issues raised by expert materials include but are not limited to the following:

  • Drawing skateboarders into four-lane traffic on Eastern Parkway

  • Dangerous access points: The park has two access points — a ramp and a granite staircase — both observed by experts/experienced practitioners to pose dangers for skateboarding. The ramp access point, used by children going to the playground, people walking pets, and people pushing strollers and using mobility devices, raises the issue of collisions due to skateboarders “hill-bombing” down slopes from the raised park — leading into the Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s entrance and Eastern Parkway’s sidewalk and four lanes of traffic. Experts also caution that even attempting to skate the granite staircase and railings down from the park would be prohibitively dangerous. One warns of potential “organ-level impalement” on the iron-pointed fence. Online, skaters have posted that the granite staircase looks “juicy!”

Below:

  • screenshots from professional skate facility design “best practices” publication emphasizing that proper site selection requires clear sightline from the street to avoid what the manual terms “significant delinquency” — according to police the professionals claim to have surveyed. Placement without good visibility is termed “INCORRECT.”

  • photo of Mount Prospect Park from street level, the unusual raised park (no sightline from street) posing the danger of foreseeable police encounters that should be avoided through proper site selection

Below:

  • screenshot from professional “best practices” skate facility design manual cautioning designers to avoid “shedding” tree species that endanger skateboarders by dropping what skaters refer to as “stop rocks” and “danger pebbles”

  • photo of a few of the acorns that Mount Prospect Park’s many decades-old oak trees routinely shed by the thousands

June-September 2024

Park-lovers using the City’s 311 system to record requests for standard reseeding/lawn maintenance for bare patches in the park receive notices that the City has closed their complaints. The closure notices for the complaints falsely assert, “NYC Parks has completed the requested work order and corrected the problem” – when in fact no work was done.

June 24, 2024

Brooklyn Community Board 9 votes a 25-point resolution opposing poured-concrete construction on Mount Prospect Park’s parkland as “bad public policy” for green space/climate, health, process and safety flaws. The resolution specifically welcomes construction on already-paved space “with open arms.” Subsequent to the CB9 resolution, NYC Parks deletes CB9 from its official website entry on Mount Prospect Park. (CB9 has for years served and shared Mount Prospect Park with CB8, with both officially listed – prior to the CB9 resolution.)

June 26, 2024

New York State Historic Preservation Office releases official determination of Mount Prospect Park as eligible for the National Register of Historic Places.

Summer 2024

NYC experiences record-breaking high temperatures and heatwaves, tree-killing drought, and NYC parks catch fire.

July 2024

NYC Parks cuts ribbon on additional skate facility in Brooklyn, with a publicly funded pricetag of approximately $4.35M.

Below, screenshot of Googlemaps search for skate facilities in Brooklyn indicates deeply inequitable distribution of these recreational facilities:

September 2024

Marking Climate Week 2024, FoMPP submits an extensive letter to Mayor’s Office of Climate and Environmental Justice Executive Director Elijah Hutchinson and NYC Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner and Chief Climate Officer Rohit Aggarwala, detailing climate flaws riddling the Mount Prospect Park plan. Citations also include studies on vulnerable populations, including youth experiencing “climate grief” and anxiety due to officials’ failures to take action, environmental health disparities for urban Black communities, documented green space crisis affecting elders who rely on the park, etc., etc.

April 2025

Groups including Citizens’ Climate Lobby, Sunrise, 350BK, Historic Districts Council, World on Wheels/2030 or Bust climate-conscious skateboarders and neighborhood organizations sign public statement urging officials to protect Mount Prospect Park’s historic green space, and shift any poured-concrete construction to already-paved space.

May 2025

  • NYC Parks Commissioner Sue Donoghue resigns, states in interview with Brian Lehrer on WNYC, "We feel strongly that literally every blade of grass, every tree is sacred ground. It is incredibly important, as I said, to the health and livability of this city."

  • Experts assert in major news outlets the “certainty” that cities face simultaneous extended heatwaves and power outages. Well-sourced references continue to mount regarding the paved heat-island effect in cities, the need to protect mature tree canopy, priorities for de-paving urban spaces, unmet green space needs affecting health, naturally lower temperatures in green spaces (often at least 10 degrees cooler than paved), climate change crises and impacts, vulnerable populations, the correlation of urban heat with increased urban aggression and the correlation of green space with reduced urban violence, etc.

June 2025

Comptroller Brad Lander issues “Record Highs” report showing 580 NYC deaths annually due to extreme urban heat, including due to lack of access to cool spaces.

July 7-11, 2025

Heavy machinery and contractors enter Mount Prospect Park to conduct unannounced soil testing, borings, etc. – with no community notice, under police presence. (Click below to watch and hear video.)

September 2025

  • AM New York reports on the Global Citizen Festival, including the following: With tens of thousands gathered in the most visited urban park in the U.S., NYC Parks Commissioner Iris Rodriguez-Rosa made an appearance to remind the crowd of what’s at stake: “We are committed to protecting and preserving our city’s parks and green spaces. These spaces not only bring us joy and community, but also make our city healthier, more livable, and more resilient in the face of global warming.”

  • City Council “livable future” bill package introduced, including climate/environmental provisions – prominently supported by some of the same elected officials contributing fractional funding to Mayor Adams’ Mount Prospect Park paving project.

October 2025

After months of requests to NYC Parks and NYC Economic Development Corporation (EDC), EDC spokesperson working with NYC Parks as “lead agency,” writes as follows:

  • “The concept design is still in progress and will be presented to the Community Board when ready to share.”

  • “The environmental assessment study (EAS) process for the proposed Mount Prospect Skate Park is being led by EDC. It started in spring 2025 and will be completed ahead of final design.”

  • “A design engineer and construction manager have been contracted for the project via existing retainer contracts held by NYC EDC. These retainer contract RFPs were released publicly, and the firms were selected through a competitively bid selection process.”

  • “The next step in the EAS process, as it relates to public presentations with Brooklyn Community Board (CB) 8, is to present the conceptual design and accompanying summary of environmental assessment studies for CB review and feedback. This is anticipated for Q1 2026.”

  • “The DEP Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan (SWPPP) permitting process will begin once the 50% design drawings are completed, anticipated in Q2/Q3 2026.”

Excerpt from a letter submitted to local official and shared with FoMPP: “I have lived in Prospect Heights since 1997. I know of no other public green-space of comparable size in the area which is used by such a diversity of residents and families -- diverse in age, ethnicity, language, and economic status. This is particularly true since the start of the pandemic. You are doing a real disservice to this community with this astonishingly bad idea, and I urge you to have the integrity to change your position.”

Friends of Mount Prospect Park and allies continue advocating to solve the conflict. We are a community-powered network of volunteers. Do you have additional ideas and connections? Reach out to FriendsofMountProspectPark@gmail.com!

We thank Mount Prospect Park neighbor Katie Jo Benjamin for creating and donating the art below.