Aside from my Greenmarket forays, I tend to avoid the Grand Army Plaza entrance to Prospect Park; it is, well, grandiose, and from a distance the space can appear sterile and intimidating.
Behind those belligerent columns, however, lies a genteel corridor of villa-like garden that looks little changed since the turn of the last century.
The fanciful handles on the flower urns are entwined snakes; their serpentine heads poke out from under the salvia and canna. 
For the first time, I noticed that the bases of the lamp-posts have toenails (a detail already observed, I am sure, by the intrepid lamp-post aficionado who presides over Forgotten New York).
Lovely details, but most striking was the visible change in people as they moved through the transition from workday to evening in the sultry twilight.
A chorus line of joggers limbered up against the elegant stone wall.
A mom and kids headed home, wheels and all, as the first drops of rain fell.
Friends lounged with bikes under the benign gaze of the esteemed James S.T. Stranahan, 
who would have loved every bit of it.
Around the corner, along Prospect Park West, more folks picked up their pace (or, in one case, did a few more push-ups). In the trees overhead, the lamps lit up, one by one.
Outside the wind was loud and there was a faint flow of thunder
along the Sound. All the lights were going on in West Egg now; the
electric trains, men-carrying, were plunging home through the rain from
New York. It was
the hour of a profound human change, and excitement was generating on the air.
—F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
Olmsted and Vaux would agree with your initial feeling. They didn't want any fancy-pants entrances. (Or no pants at all, like the Horse Tamers.) Those came later, in the 1890s, when Beaux Arts took America by storm.
Posted by: M.Thew | July 24, 2008 at 02:24 PM
Horse tamers...no pants...hee hee hee!
Posted by: Brenda from Flatbush | July 24, 2008 at 03:47 PM