Ocean Parkway is a boulevard in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. Designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, it was built between 1874 and 1876. Ocean Parkway runs roughly north to south from the intersection with Prospect Park (Machate) Circle, at the southwestern corner of Prospect Park, to the Atlantic Ocean waterfront at Brighton Beach. The section between Church Avenue and the Atlantic Ocean is maintained by the New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) as New York State Route 908H (NY 908H), an unsigned reference route.
In general, Ocean Parkway is wide and consists of a main roadway, two landscaped medians, and two service roads flanking the main road. The western median contains the United States' first bike lane, which opened in 1894, while the eastern side of the parkway contained a bridle path until the 1970s. Commercial vehicles are prohibited from Ocean Parkway, and there is limited public transit. Much of the original parkway remains intact, but the section north of Church Avenue was mostly replaced with the Prospect Expressway in the 1950s; the service roads continue to Park Circle, the original northern terminus. The section south of Church Avenue is a New York City scenic landmark and on the National Register of Historic Places.
Olmsted and Vaux designed Ocean Parkway, along with Eastern Parkway, in the 1860s to connect Prospect Park with neighborhoods further afield. The section north of Kings Highway was constructed from 1873 to 1874, while the section south of Kings Highway was constructed in 1876. Over the years, a variety of building styles including single-family homes, mansions, and apartment buildings were developed along the parkway. Ocean Parkway was originally a dirt road but has been modified several times over the years. The boulevard first received a macadam pavement in the 1920s and was renovated in the 1970s. Ocean Parkway was one of Brooklyn's most dangerous roads by the 21st century.
Route description Ocean Parkway is a boulevard within the New York City borough of Brooklyn, which is coextensive with Kings County in western Long Island, New York. It runs from Prospect Park in the north to Brighton Beach and Coney Island in the south. Though Ocean Parkway is almost entirely a surface street, the New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) maintains the segment south of Church Avenue as a state highway and oversees the design of the parkway's intersections. The New York City Department of Transportation (NYCDOT) is responsible for the maintenance of traffic lights and crosswalks there. The NYSDOT designates the section south of Church Avenue as an unsigned reference route, New York State Route 908H (NY 908H).
Ocean Parkway begins at Prospect Park (Machate) Circle at the southwestern entrance of Prospect Park, where it intersects with Coney Island Avenue and Fort Hamilton Parkway. At Park Circle, the parkway is divided into four roadways. The outermost roadways are service roads; the inner westbound roadway carries traffic to Ocean Parkway and Fort Hamilton Parkway, and the inner eastbound roadway carries traffic from the Prospect Expressway (New York State Route 27). Ocean Parkway travels west for about before curving southward. There is a pedestrian overpass over the parkway at Sherman Street, just east of this curve. West of the overpass, ramps from Ocean Parkway merge into the Prospect Expressway, which runs in a trench. Due to the presence of the expressway, the western or southbound service road is split into two sections between Prospect Avenue and Fort Hamilton Parkway, while the eastern or northbound service road remains intact.
At Church Avenue, a streetcar tunnel crossed under Ocean Parkway from the 1890s to the 1950s. After Prospect Expressway ends at Church Avenue, Ocean Parkway passes through the neighborhoods of Windsor Terrace, Kensington, Midwood, Homecrest, and Sheepshead Bay. The parkway crosses over the Long Island Rail Road's Bay Ridge Branch in Midwood, and it passes underneath the Belt Parkway in Sheepshead Bay. It runs parallel to Ocean Avenue for much of its route. Ocean Parkway ends at Surf Avenue in Brighton Beach, close to the Riegelmann Boardwalk and Atlantic Ocean. Near its southern end, the parkway divides Brighton Beach to the east and Coney Island to the west.;
Design The landscape firm of Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux designed the parkway, while John Y. Culyer was the chief engineer. Olmsted's landscape design firm, the Olmsted Brothers, regarded Ocean Parkway as a "formal pleasure drive" and thus a boulevard; this contrasted with parkways, which the firm defined as "informal pleasure drives". A New York Times article from 1980 characterized Ocean Parkway as "New York City's closest equivalent to a strictly residential boulevard in the European style". According to the historian Elizabeth Macdonald, Ocean Parkway was intended to be a recreational space, as opposed to traditional spaces, which were meant for reflection.
The parkway is similar to Eastern Parkway in its layout. It includes a central roadway, two grassy medians on each side with bike and pedestrian paths, two service roads on the periphery, and two exterior sidewalks, for a total width of 210 feet (64 m). As designed, there were six rows of trees: two on each median and one on each outer sidewalk. The Brooklyn Parks Commission initially controlled another outside either outer sidewalk, and all buildings on either side of the parkway had to be recessed 30 feet from the sidewalk. The neighborhood's zoning still requires that buildings have a 30-foot-deep lawn.
The parkway's roads were originally paved with gravel and had stone curbs and gutters. By the late 20th century, the roadbeds and sidewalks had been rebuilt in concrete. At intervals of every , there were formerly engraved milestones. Only one of the original 11 milestones remains: the 3-mile marker between Quentin Road and Avenue P. There are also traffic signs along the main roadway, which indicate whether drivers must exit onto a service road if they want to make a turn.
Medians
As part of the 1869 legislation that established the parkway, the medians were to be used for trees, plazas, and other ornamentation. As such, chess playing tables and benches line the medians.; There are also elm, oak, maple, and sycamore trees along the medians and outer sidewalks, interspersed with some ginkgo trees. Residents along the parkway have used the medians as gathering spaces. North of Church Avenue, the western median has been severed by the Prospect Expressway, while the eastern median has been replaced with pavement.
A bike lane extends along the parkway's length. The bike lane uses the western median south of Church Avenue; north of that intersection, there is a bike path next to the eastern service road. When the western median's bike path opened in 1895, it was paved with crushed stone. At each intersection, a macadam crosswalk was provided for cyclists, and bollards were also installed to discourage horse-drawn vehicles. Another path opened in the eastern median in 1896. During the bike paths' heyday, there were roadhouses and repair shops along Ocean Parkway. The original bike path was repaved with concrete by the 20th century. A pipe-rail fence was added next to the bike lane as part of a renovation in the late 1970s. By the 2000s, the western median south of Beverley Road was divided into a bike path and a pedestrian path. North of Beverley Road, pedestrians and cyclists share the median, which narrows to at Church Avenue. Cycling is not allowed on the east mall south of Church Avenue, which has a walkway measuring wide.
A bridle path formerly existed within the eastern mall; it was paved in cinder and clay. Equestrians could rent horses near Prospect Park and ride them as far as Coney Island. There were also horse stables near the northern end of the parkway in Kensington. Both the Gravesend Race Track and Brighton Beach Race Course were adjacent to Ocean Parkway, and horse racing took place there as well. A ban on open betting took effect in either 1908 or 1910, and horse races stopped at all of these facilities. Horseback riding in Brooklyn declined during the 20th century as people switched to automobiles, and equestrian activities became more of a hobby. After the parkway's northern section was replaced by the Prospect Expressway, the remainder of the bridle path was severed from Prospect Park, and equestrian traffic disappeared almost entirely. The bridle path was largely removed in 1978, but a short section of bridle path still exists east of East 8th Street, where the eastern median's bike path ends. The nearby Kensington Stables also remain in operation.
Southern end At the southern end, facing the Atlantic Ocean, there was originally a concourse, which traveled around along Coney Island Beach. The concourse extended west to the Prospect Park and Coney Island Railroad terminal and 1,400 feet east to Engleman's Oceanic House.; As built, it included a roadway measuring wide and a walkway wide, with a breakwater sloping down to the ocean. The concourse also had two large bathing shelters, which were cited as measuring wide. By 1922, the Riegelmann Boardwalk had been built at Ocean Parkway's southern terminus.
Traffic and safety Commercial vehicles are not allowed to use Ocean Parkway. By the late 1990s, the parkway was used by 42,040 vehicles a day, traveling at an average speed of . Since 2015, the parkway has had a speed limit of .
By the late 20th century, Ocean Parkway was one of Brooklyn's most dangerous streets. Between 1988 and April 1994, thirty-one people had been killed in vehicular incidents on the parkway, more than any other street in the city except for Grand Concourse and Queens Boulevard. Another report, in 2001, found that drivers had killed 13 pedestrians on the parkway between 1995 and 2000, an average of 2.6 deaths per mile ( deaths per kilometer). By the 2010s, the advocacy group Transportation Alternatives had ranked Ocean Parkway as Brooklyn's most dangerous road. According to the group, six pedestrians had been killed on the parkway from 2009 to 2011. Overall, 64 people were injured or killed on the parkway from 2009 to 2013. The intersection with Church Avenue was among the city's most dangerous, and five people had been killed there from 2007 to 2011. Because of the high number of traffic incidents on Ocean Parkway, the parkway is designated as a Vision Zero traffic safety "priority corridor". After traffic speed cameras were added in 2015, vehicular crashes on the parkway decreased by 16%, while pedestrian injuries were reduced by 23%.
In the parkway's early years, horse-and-sleigh racing took place on the bridle paths. Horse-and-sleigh races often originated in Prospect Park and ended at the Atlantic Ocean. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the parkway was sometimes used for races and events. These included horse races organized by the Parkway Driving Club, races along the parkway's central roadway, and vehicular excursions organized by the Long Island Automobile Club. It was also part of the route of the Brooklyn Marathon until the marathon was canceled in 1915. By the 21st century, the Brooklyn Half Marathon also used the parkway for part of its route.See, for example: ;
Transportation
The Ocean Parkway station of the New York City Subway's BMT Brighton Line, served by the , is located in Brighton Beach. The Ocean Parkway station is situated on a masonry viaduct, with three groin vaults spanning the parkway and colorful ceramic tiles on its facades. During the construction of the Independent Subway System in the 1920s, local groups also advocated for the construction of a subway line under Ocean Parkway, which was not built.See, for example: ;