Cuyler Gore Park

What was here before?

This site was once owned by real estate developer George S. Howland (1801-1866) and his wife. Howland was instrumental in developing the neighborhoods now known as Brooklyn Heights and Dumbo. 

How did this site become a park?

The western portion of this property was purchased by the City of Brooklyn in 1845 for one dollar.  For the next 100 years, it consisted of a well-maintained lawn, flowering shrubs, and adult trees, surrounded by an iron fence and benches outside.  By the 1960s and 1970s the park deteriorated and many of the trees were gone. The park reopened in 1981 after reconstruction with new landscaping, play areas, seating, and trees.  The park was expanded in 1983 when a portion of Cumberland Street closed and the parcel on Carlton Avenue was assigned to Parks. The park’s entrances, playground, and passive recreation area were reconstructed in 2025.

Who is this park named for?

This park is named for Dr. Theodore Ledyard Cuyler (1822-1909) a prominent local minister born in Aura, New York. Initially educated by his mother, Cuyler graduated from the College of New Jersey (later known as Princeton University) in 1841 and Princeton Theological Seminary in 1846.  He served as a minister to a series of congregations in Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey. In 1853 he married Annie E. Mathiot in Ohio.

Dr. Cuyler assumed the leadership of the Park Presbyterian Church in the City of Brooklyn in 1860.  His earnest work and dynamic personality attracted so many congregants that a new building, renamed the Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church, was erected on South Oxford Street (just a block to the northwest) in 1860-62.  Throughout his distinguished career, Dr. Cuyler delivered more than 3,000 sermons, gave almost 2,000 addresses, and wrote between 3,000 and 4,000 articles and more than 60 books.  A patriotic man, he had the Union flag hoisted atop the church steeple for the duration of the Civil War. 

The park was named for Dr. Cuyler prior to 1901, and in that year Brooklynites planned to erect a monument to the esteemed minister in Cuyler Gore.  With characteristic modesty, Dr. Cuyler declined their offer.  He wrote, “If my most esteemed friend the park commissioner will kindly have my name visibly and permanently affixed to that little park and will direct that it be always kept as bright and beautiful with flowers as it now is, I shall be abundantly satisfied.” When renovations began in 1980, ground was broken with the same shovel that Dr. Cuyler had used for the church groundbreaking 120 years before.