In the regular patterns of Brooklyn’s street grid, there’s a slight deformity near Prospect Park that makes one block slightly larger than the ones around it. On this block of brownstones in Park Slope, the streets give the houses a little more breathing room for their backyards. And for more than three decades, the community here has gone one step further, turning that space into a sprawling private park of their own creation.
The result is a communal yard, divided only by unlocked fence gates. Playing here as a kid, it felt like magic—my own little corner of a city that’s not known for quiet spaces. With no streets or strangers to pose a threat, parents blessed their children with free rein of the space. It remains beloved today, especially in the warmer months, with the children lucky enough to live on the block running around in the yards—just as its creators hoped.
Back in 1983, Timothy and Sealy Gilles wanted a quicker way for their daughter to get to her friend’s house around the corner. “It was a pain in the neck to walk around the block to connect the kids’ playdates,” Timothy Gilles told me. The backyards were close, but divided by fences, which, as they do in most Brooklyn yards, serve to divide land and discourage entry. That’s why his family and another sought permission from their neighbors to connect the yards.
[For more on this story by HANNAH FRISHBERG, go to https://www.citylab.com/life/2...ns-backyards/561608/]
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