Brooklyn Botanical Gardens

Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Current logo
Brooklyn Botanic Garden
Date opened	Founded in 1910
Location	990 Washington Avenue, within Prospect Park, Brooklyn, New York 11225 United States
Coordinates	40°40′7.32″N 73°57′52.92″W / 40.6687000°N 73.9647000°W / 40.6687000; -73.9647000Coordinates: 40°40′7.32″N 73°57′52.92″W / 40.6687000°N 73.9647000°W / 40.6687000; -73.9647000
Land area	52 acres (21 ha)
No. of species	12,000 [1]
Annual visitors	725,000 [2]
Website	http://www.bbg.org/

Brooklyn Botanic Garden (BBG) is a botanical garden in the borough of Brooklyn in New York City. Founded in 1910, and located in the Prospect Park neighborhood, the 52-acre (21 ha) garden includes a number of specialty "gardens within the Garden", plant collections and the Steinhardt Conservatory, which houses the C. V. Starr Bonsai Museum, three climate-themed plant pavilions, a white cast-iron and glass aquatic plant house, and an art gallery. The Garden holds over 14,000 taxa of plants and each year has over 900,000 visitors.

Early plans for Prospect Park called for the park to straddle Flatbush Avenue. The City of Brooklyn purchased the land for this purpose in 1864. When Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux brought their final plans to the city for approval in the 1860s, they had eliminated the problematic division along Flatbush. The northeast portion went unused, serving as an ash dump. Legislation in 1897 as the city moved toward consolidation reserved 39 acres (16 ha) for a botanic garden, and the garden itself was founded in 1910. The garden was initially known as the Institute Park. It was run under the auspices of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, which included (until the 1970s) the Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn Children's Museum, and Brooklyn Academy of Music. It opened as the Brooklyn Botanic Garden on May 13, 1911, with the Native Flora Garden being the first established section.

Harold Caparn was appointed as the landscape architect in 1912. Caparn designed most of the rest of the grounds over the next three decades, including the Osborne Garden, Cranford Rose Garden, Magnolia Plaza, and Plant Collection. Construction of the Laboratory Building and Conservatory began in 1912, and the building was dedicated in 1917. The building—now simply the Administration Building—was designed in the Tuscan Revival style by William Kendall for McKim, Mead & White, the architectural firm that built the Brooklyn Museum, Manhattan Municipal Building, and many other prominent New York City buildings. It was designated a New York City Landmark in 2007.