Jun 9, 2015 7 min read

Here’s What’s Happening In Prospect Park This Month

It’s summer time and that means there’s a lot going on in Prospect Park this month — whether you want free concerts, hiking, roller skating disco parties, Shakespeare, or some al fresco food truck dining, there’s something for every member of the family to enjoy.

Here’s a list of the upcoming events in the park through the end of the month:

Wednesday, June 10

Green Market at Bartel-Pritchard Square
Every Wednesday, 8am-3pm
Nestled inside Prospect Park’s tree-shaded southwest corner, the offerings range from a selection of vegetables, fruits, baked goods, plants, and flowers, to fresh-caught fish and organic baked goods. For a full calendar of events and a list of sellers, visit GrowNYC.

Shape Up NYC: Glutes in Gear
Every Wednesday, 6-7pm
Focus on your lower half in this belly busting, booty shaping, two-part class. The first part builds endurance with heart-pumping cardio. Part two uses mat work to build your core and flatten and tighten your abs and glutes. Please bring your own workout mat.

Thursday, June 11

Fledglings: Early Childhood Program
Every Thursday, 9:30-10:30am
Join the Prospect Park Alliance for a new early childhood program for parents and care-givers with children 18-36 months in age. Children will develop self-reliance, creativity, and problem-solving skills through outdoor play-based activities. Advance registration required.

Nature Exploration
Every Thursday, 2-4pm
Join the Prospect Park Alliance for nature education programs at the Prospect Park Audubon Center, the first urban Audubon Center in the nation.

Celebrate Brooklyn!: Krosfyah
7:30-10:30pm
Barbados’ legendary Krosfyah “plays speedy, exhilarating soca, calypso’s uptempo party-music descendant,” with irresistible energy.

Friday, June 12

Shape Up NYC: Cardio Training
Every Friday, 12-1pm
An exercise class focusing on your core through a combination of strength, balance and toning exercises that raise the heart rate to burn calories and strengthen the cardio-respiratory system. Workout mat recommended.

Nature Exploration
Every Friday, 2-4pm
Join the Prospect Park Alliance for nature education programs at the Prospect Park Audubon Center, the first urban Audubon Center in the nation.

Celebrate Brooklyn!: Esperanza Spalding
7:30-10:30pm
The captivating bassist and singer Esperanza Spaulding’s “sprawling collage of jazz fusion, Brazilian, and even a touch of hip-hop” has earned her critical acclaim, universal love, and four GRAMMYs—including Best New Artist in 2011, making her the first ever jazz artist in the category.

Lola Star’s Dreamland Roller Disco
7:30-10pm
Straight from the Coney Island boardwalk, Lola Star’s Dreamland Disco brings a vintage vibe and stellar entertainment to the LeFrak Center at Lakeside. This week, Freddy Mercury and Queen.

Saturday, June 13

Greenmarket at Grand Army Plaza
Every Saturday, 8am-4pm
At what other market can you do all your food shopping, sample local wine and explore Brooklyn’s favorite park? Established in 1989, the Grand Army Plaza greenmarket is the flagship Brooklyn market.

Shape-Up NYC: Cardio Sculpt
Every Saturday, 11am-12pm
Pump up your workout routine with this exercise class focusing on cardio and sculpting moves to help build endurance and strength.

Pop Up Audubon
Every Saturday and Sunday, 11am-4pm
Join the Alliance for this roving nature education program that explores a different area of the Park each month. In June, explore the Park’s freshwater ecosystems.

Flax To Linen
Every Saturday, 2pm-4pm
Join the Prospect Park Alliance at Lefferts Historic House to check on the flax crop you planted in the spring and try out the tools used to process flax fibers into linen cloth. Touch different pieces of linen cloth to compare the weaves and sew a small linen pouch to take home. $3 suggested donation.

Pop Up Dinner Brooklyn 2015
5-10pm
PopUp Dinner Brooklyn presented by Acura is back for another unforgettable evening under the stars in Prospect Park. Imagine thousands of people, dressed in white, flocking to a secret location in the Park for a dining experience unlike any other. Admission: $35.

Celebrate Brooklyn!: Lucius
7:30-10:30pm
Lucius traffics in “seemingly impossible harmonies with flawless grace” and “brings delicate b.eauty to even the most bombastic moments.” This all-Brooklyn triple bill finds them sharing the stage with the maverick experimentalist Luke Temple of Here We Go Magic and the enchanting indie folk outfit Pavo Pavo.

Sunday, June 14

Family Bird Watching
10-11am
Looking for a fun way to spend time with your family outdoors? Join the Prospect Park Alliance for its monthly family bird watching tours. After learning how to use binoculars, join our naturalists to identify some of the 250 species of birds that call Prospect Park home. Please note this tour leaves promptly at 10 am.

Weekend Volunteer Corps
10am-1pm
Get involved in your community! Help spruce up gardens; paint fences & benches; weed; spread mulch; clean and maintain pathways. We can accommodate any group ranging from just a few people to up to 40 volunteers.Advance registration required.

Bones of an Old Dutch Farmhouse Tour
12-1pm
Examine the white oak timbers (the bones) of Lefferts Historic House and the many layers that were added, subtracted and changed over the past 230 years. Climb the staircase for a view of the attic’s smokehouse and descend into the cellar for a look at the foundation. For adults and teenagers. Only 10 people per tour. Reservations required: call (718)789-2822 ex. 304. $10 suggested donation.

Monday, June 15

Monday Eastside Revival
Saturday, April 11, 10-11am
The East Side Revival helps beautify two of the Park’s most elegant locations: the Vale of Cashmere and the Rose Garden. Tasks may include raking, sweeping, path edging, and litter removal. Register online.

Wednesday, June 17

Celebrate Brooklyn!: Damien Rice
7:30-10:30pm
Damien Rice performs at the Bandshell as part of Celebrate Brooklyn!, presented by BRIC in partnership with the Prospect Park Alliance. This is a ticketed event which helps support free Celebrate Brooklyn! programming. Tickets and up-to-date information are available on the BRIC website. Tickets are $48.

Thursday, June 18

Celebrate Brooklyn!: eighth blackbird
7:30-10:30pm
A double bill of extraordinary collaborations: the Grammy winning “super-musicians” (LA Times) of eighth blackbird, an impeccable sextet with the energy and audacity of a rock band, team up with revered singer-songwriter Will Oldham. The other half features Bill Frisell, who “plays the guitar like Miles Davis played the trumpet” and folk revivalist Sam Amidon, whose “highly personal approach opens a window on the American past and lets us feel it like nothing else around.”

Friday, June 19

New York Philharmonic: Parks 50
6:30-10pm
Join the New York Philharmonic to celebrate their 50th summer of free outdoor programming. Charles Dutoit leads the Orchestra in Berlioz’s Roman Carnival Overture; Saint-Saëns’s Violin Concerto No. 3, with Renaud Capuçon as soloist; Stravinsky’s Petrushka (1911 version); and Ravel’s La Valse. The Brooklyn Interdenominational Choir will open the night as part of Share the Stage, a program that invites local musicians to play before the Philharmonic performance in their home boroughs. The performance will be followed by fireworks.

Saturday, June 20

Waterfall Hike
1-2:30pm
Hiking is the ultimate way to enjoy the outdoors and a fun way to reduce stress. Urban Park Ranger hiking guides will introduce you to the hidden gems of New York City. This will be a light exploration through Prospect Park to see the natural areas and waterfalls that were part of the park design by Vaux and Olmstead to imitate the serenity of mountains upstate. This tour leaves promptly at 1 pm.

Celebrate Brooklyn!: DanceBrazil
7:30-10:30pm
The dancers in artistic director Jelon Vieira’s DanceBrazil “glow enthusiastically as they let rip at highest energy,” fusing contemporary movement with the dance/ martial arts form of capoeira.

Sunday, June 21

Make Music New York: Gongs
12-12:45pm
The Prospect Park Alliance partners with Make Music New York to present the ensemble Loop 2.4.3, which will perform an original work on a four-octave set of Tuned Thai Nipple Gongs. The gong has strong magical powers and is said to heal sickness and banish demons from the body. Assembling under the Arch at Grand Army Plaza, an improvised meditative performance will bring happiness and strength to the performers and audience.

Make Music New York: Groupmuse
4-6pm
The Prospect Park Alliance partners with Make Music New York and Groupmuse to present the Britpop Choir, which performs a cappella versions of British pop and rock songs. Groupmuse is an online platform that connects local classical musicians to living room house party concerts hosted by people in the Groupmuse community.

Tuesday, June 23

The Taming of the Shrew
Tuesday and Wednesday, 7-9pm
Nothing is as it seems when a group of travelling players enact a famous comedy for a drunken tinker. In this play within a play, Katherine, overbearing and intractable, is married off to the madcap Petruchio. Whilst at the same time, Kate’s sister, Bianca, is pursued by two rival suitors in disguise. The story of these unconventional couples, subverts issues of identity, gender, and power dynamics, and shows in the end that all we need are love and compassion.

Thursday, June 25

Celebrate Brooklyn!: Lucinda Williams
7:30-10:30pm
Last year’s Down Where the Spirit Meets the Bone, “a career highlight,” (Pitchfork) solidified Lucinda Williams as perhaps America’s greatest barroom storyteller—a singer-songwriter of fierce honesty and conviction, articulate and rough in equal measure.

Friday, June 26

Celebrate Brooklyn!: Paris is Burning
7:30-10:30pm
PARIS IS BURNING, Jennie Livingston’s Sundance Grand Jury Prize-winning documentary, is an intimate and moving portrait of the Harlem drag balls of the 1980s which were held between rival “houses” that served at once as intentional families, social groups, and performance teams.

Saturday, June 27

Celebrate Brooklyn!: Jason Moran’s Fats Waller Dance Party
7:30-10:30pm
The astonishingly inventive pianist and composer Jason Moran unleashes his fun side in this event, a hip-shaking, eye-popping spectacle complete with dancers and costumes that takes the stride innovator Fats Waller as a jumping off point to dig into grooves that flirt with everything from Motown to house to hip-hop.

Sunday, June 28

Food Truck Rally
11am-5pm
The Prospect Park Alliance and Dispatch NY present a sampling of cuisines from around the world from New York’s best food trucks.Trucks in attendance will include DUB Pies, Kelvin Natural Slush Co, Carpe Donut NYC, Toum, Kimchi Taco Truck, Neapolitan Express, Coolhaus, The Taïm Mobile, Snowday, Red Hook Lobster Pound, Brooklyn Organic Coffee & Tea Truck, Papaya King, Nuchas II, Milk Truck, Phil’s Steaks, Ponti Roissi, Gorilla Cheese NYC, Andy’s Italian Ices, and Carl’s Steaks. Please note that the trucks will vary every weekend.