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New Grilling Area Coming to Prospect Park for Memorial Day Weekend

 Grills like those at Brooklyn Bridge Park, top, will be installed in a new grilling area near the Lincoln Road entrance of Prospect Park this summer.
Grills like those at Brooklyn Bridge Park, top, will be installed in a new grilling area near the Lincoln Road entrance of Prospect Park this summer.
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Composite: Etienne Frossard/Brooklyn Bridge Park; Prospect Park Alliance

PROSPECT-LEFFERTS GARDENS — Get ready for more grilling.

Starting Memorial Day weekend, a newly designated grilling zone will open on the east side of Prospect Park in an area Prospect Park Alliance officials say has been in need of extra barbecue space for some time.

The new grilling spot will sit just north of the park's Lincoln Road entrance, becoming the 13th location in the 585-acre greenspace that's set aside for barbecue lovers to legally fire up their grills. The Alliance also hopes to eventually install three new “grilling pods” that each include a trio of grills, bringing the total number of grills in the park to 27, up from 18, president Sue Donoghue said.

“We’re people’s backyards and we realized that grilling is something that’s really important," she said. "It’s something that we very much support and want to make available.”

The new grilling area is part of a larger effort to bring more “resources and amenities” to the east side of the park, which currently has only one grilling station, near the new Lakeside skating rink, Donoghue said. All 11 other grilling stations are found on the west side of the park.

Locals who have lobbied for more east side cookout areas for nearly two years said they're excited the new grill zone will be open by summertime.

“This really makes access to community cookout areas more consistent in the park,” said Prospect-Lefferts Gardens resident Seth Kaplan said. “It’s something our neighborhood has asked for. And we’re excited about the possibility of building grills, as well.”

Donoghue said the search for a new grilling area was hampered by the design of the park on the east side, which doesn’t have a lot of open space suitable for cookouts.

“The main driver of the decision was, 'Where do we have enough open space to support new grills that would be convenient for people, that would be easily accessible?'” she said. “We were somewhat limited in where we could go."

She said the Alliance sees this season as a “pilot summer” for the new grills  which are identical to those used in Brooklyn Bridge Park  with the possibility of adding more in the future.

“We would love to, down the road, expand, if these grills work well,” she said.

Barbecuing is allowed only in designated areas in city parks; a permit is needed for groups of 20 people or more. For more information, visit the Parks Department website.