Prospect Park Zoo

[5][6] The closure signaled the start of a five-year, $37 million renovation program that, save for the exteriors of the 1930s-era buildings, completely replaced the zoo.[a] Located at 450 Flatbush Avenue, across from the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, the zoo is situated on a 12-acre (4.9 ha) plot[2] somewhat lower than street level in Prospect Park.The trail begins in the World of Animals building, but visitors quickly pass to an outdoor path that winds through the southern third of the zoo.Visitors may find along the trail black-tailed prairie dogs, porcupines, red pandas, emus, dingos, North American river otters, and other animals.[12] The Prospect Park Zoo is engaged in breeding species in captivity, a part of the larger wild life recovery program of the Wildlife Conservation Society.These revolve around the Discovery Center, a building with classrooms and laboratories designed to introduce school-age children to investigative practices of environmental and wildlife scientists.[18] The facility consists of six red brick and lime-stoned trimmed buildings grouped in a semi-circular arrangement around a central courtyard with the sea lion pool occupying the center of the court.A Wild Fowl Pond, once occupying the northern quadrant of the zoo grounds, served as a haven for water birds.In addition, a flock of sheep regularly maintained the grass in the park meadows and were kept in a paddock on the eastern flank of Sullivan Hill, near the now-demolished Dairy Farmhouse."[22] The animals were kept in pens on Sullivan Hill, situated across the East Drive from the zoo's present location, near the sheep paddock and northeast of the Dairy Farmhouse.These were generally donated by prominent individuals and institutions and formed a varied collection of specimens both native to North America and other regions of the world.[28][29] After assuming office in January 1934, New York City mayor Fiorello La Guardia hired Robert Moses to head a newly unified Parks Department.[18][34][36] Built of red brick with limestone trim, the buildings featured bas-relief scenes from Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book.[18] Five sculptors executed a total of thirteen such scenes, not only on the front and back walls of zoo buildings, but also on all four sides of both brick entrance shelters at Flatbush Avenue.[53] Within two years of the zoo's opening, numerous animals joined the collection, such as elephants,[54] a buck and doe,[55] a boa constrictor, anteaters, and lizards.[78] In response to a 1967 report in the New York Daily News, the city doubled the number of security guards at the zoo at night."[51] He reported that one of the zoo's earliest residents, a Southern United States black vulture, "…is still there, looking down his beak at visitors littering the walks, and celebrating his 35th anniversary in the same old cage.[18] The May 1987 mauling death of Juan Perez, an 11-year-old boy scaling the fence to the polar bear pit, underscored the difficulties with the fifty-year-old facility.Prospect Park Zoo was slated to specialize in children programs and house smaller, non-aggressive animal species.[88] The exteriors of the Aymar Embury buildings were preserved, but badly deteriorated interiors were gutted, pits and cages were demolished, and new structures were built.[92] Though the work was substantially complete in April, a further six months were needed to repopulate the zoo, prepare exhibits, and ready the facility for the public.[93] The Zoological Society hoped that the new name would suggest that the "Wildlife Conservation Center" was far more than a mere "zoo"; it was indeed a facility designed to preserve animal species.[104] That June, the city government ultimately agreed to restore $4.8 million for the Prospect Park and Queens zoos,[105] though the WCS had to fire staff, discontinue programs, and double admission fees.[110][111] In March 2020, the Prospect Park Zoo and the WCS's other facilities were shuttered indefinitely due to the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City.