Get to know the history of Fort Greene Park!
Fort Greene Park is a landmark, cherished for its history, rolling landscape, trees, and monuments. For 150 years, this noble park has served as a rus in urbe - a country in the city - for Brooklyn. In 1776 American Major General Nathanael Greene supervised the construction of Fort Putnam on high ground that is now part of the park. During the Battle of Long Island, the Continental Army withdrew from the fort and retreated to Manhattan. The British held thousands of captives on prison ships anchored in the East River. Over 11,500 men and women died of overcrowding, contaminated water, starvation, and disease aboard the ships, and their bodies were hastily buried along the shore. These brave patriots represented all thirteen colonies and at least thirteen different nationalities. In 1808 the remains of the prison ship martyrs were buried in a tomb on Jackson Street (now Hudson Avenue), near the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
The Brooklyn fort was renamed for General Greene and rebuilt for the War of 1812. When the threat of war passed, locals enjoyed visiting the grounds of the old fort for recreation and relaxation. The City of Brooklyn designated the site for use as a public park in 1845, and newspaper editor Walt Whitman rallied popular support for the project. From the pages of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, he appealed for a pleasant retreat for city dwellers, "a place of recreation. . .where, on hot summer evenings, and Sundays, they can spend a few grateful hours in the enjoyment of wholesome rest and fresh air." In 1847 the legislature approved an act to secure land for Washington Park on the site of the old fort. The improvements were complete by 1850.
In 1867 landscape architects Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, designers of Central and Prospect Parks, were engaged to prepare a new design for Washington Park and a crypt for the remains of the prison ship martyrs. At the top of the hill was a trellised walk approaching two flights of steps that led down to a circular parade ground in the northwest corner of the park. Olmsted and Vaux proposed that the rest of the hilly site would be "somewhat closely planted, and . . .so laid out that it will offer a series of shady walks that will have an outlook over open grassy spaces." Washington Park was renamed for Fort Greene in 1897, less than a year before Brooklyn was consolidated into greater New York City. The street that bounds the park on the east is still known as Washington Park.
One of the park's distinctive features is the Prison Ship Martyrs' Monument. During the Revolutionary War, the British had kept American prisoners on ships in Wallabout Bay under terrible conditions. Around 11,500 prisoners died from disease and malnutrition. Olmsted and Vaux envisioned a crypt to hold their remains, with an appropriate monument. The crypt was built, and the remains of the prisoners were re-interred there in 1873. There was also a small monument. Eventually, funds were raised for a larger monument. The architectural firm of McKim, Mead, and White won a design competition, and the monument was unveiled in 1908 by President-elect Taft. It is a 149 foot (44 m) high granite Doric column over the crypt. At the top is an eight ton bronze urn. At night the monument is illuminated by four electric lights set in four granite shafts. Bronze eagles graced each shaft, and two cannons guarding the plaza and the Martyrs crypt below.