McDonald Playground

What was here before?
Prior to the arrival of European settlers, this area was inhabited by the Canarsee. Lady Deborah Moody (c.1583-1659), the first woman to be granted a land patent in the new colonies, founded the town of Gravesend in 1643 and created a four-square plan surrounded by protective walls. The plan included a school, church, and cemetery. The Gravesend town charter was one of the first documents in the New World to grant freedom of religious beliefs to its inhabitants. For more than 200 years, Gravesend Avenue was a key route through the county, connecting the City of Brooklyn, and all towns on its way, to Gravesend. 

Prospect Park Fair Grounds, a small racecourse for harness racing, opened on this parcel in the 1860s and continued to operate until the Brooklyn Jockey Club built a larger racetrack in its stead in 1886. The Gravesend Race Track was a premiere track and hosted many notable races, including the Preakness Stakes from 1894 through 1908. The betting pavilion and grandstand were erected in this spot, and even allowed for passengers on the neighboring Prospect Park & Coney Island railroad line to disembark directly into the grandstand. A New York State law banned racetrack betting in 1908 and doomed this facility, which closed in 1910. 

In the 1920s developers purchased the land and demolished the track. Detached homes and apartment buildings increasingly lined the streets, but this lot remained vacant. However, by 1940 a one-and-a-half-story frame building was on the property. Later deemed an “encumbrance” by the City, the site was condemned and the building demolished nearly a decade later.

How did this site become a playground?
NYC Parks acquired this site in 1949 through condemnation and opened a playground in 1951. 

In 1987, the playground adopted its name from the adjacent McDonald Avenue. Three years later, the ballfield inside the park was named in honor of slain Police Officer Jeff B. Herman. The playground included adventure play equipment, basketball, handball, and tennis courts. In 1998, the park’s New York Junior Tennis League courts were renovated. 

In 2023, play and bocce areas on the northern end of the park were redesigned as a universally accessible play space for children 2 to12 years old. A second entrance was added to McDonald Avenue, fences were lowered to improve visibility into and through the site, and the entire playground was regraded to make it universally accessible to parkgoers.

Who is this playground named for?
This playground takes its name from the adjacent avenue, once called Gravesend after the historic town that existed here. In 1933, the City changed the street name to honor John R. McDonald (1871-1932), who served as chief clerk at Brooklyn Surrogate’s Court.

McDonald began his career in the Surrogate’s Court in 1893, as an attendant. He rose through the ranks, serving as deputy chief and ascending to chief clerk. Two years later, McDonald swallowed a small piece of chicken bone that fatally punctured his intestine. The West Flatbush Civic League prompted local Alderman Gustav Hartung, a member of the thoroughfares committee, to propose re-naming Gravesend Avenue in McDonald’s honor. This proposal had opposition—the Gravesend Chamber of Commerce believed that re-naming Gravesend Avenue erased an important link to Brooklyn’s past.