Venue: Concert Grove
Town: New York, US

The Concert Grove is a section of Prospect Park, Brooklyn, New York City, that historically functioned as an outdoor music venue. It still serves as a sculpture garden lined with busts of musical figures, largely put up by German American Sängerfest participants and other cultural groups. The Concert Grove also includes the Concert Grove Pavilion, formerly known as the Oriental Pavilion, and adjoins a Lincoln sculpture facing the lake. The Concert Grove is located on the northeast edge of the Prospect Park Lake, featuring a terrace garden above an esplanade. Originally completed in 1874 in a design by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, with the assistance of Jacob Wrey Mould and Thomas Wisedell, it was laid out so park patrons could hear music being played from a bandstand on the later-demolished Music Island. The audience was expected to enjoy the outdoor setting and walk around during intermissions, in the style of a promenade concert. The Concert Grove served as the "artistic center" for Prospect Park, and in the 19th century, hosted German choral groups. However, as the area was considered to have had bad acoustics, concerts were moved to the nearby Music Pagoda in the Nethermead section of Prospect Park when that structure opened in 1887. After this, the Concert Grove became known for a period as the Flower Garden. The southern part of the Concert Grove was later modified to make way for an ice skating rink called Wollman Rink, which was approved in 1960 and opened the following year on the site of the Music Island. The grove was renovated in the 2010s, which also saw the opening of the Shelby White and Leon Levy Esplanade and the island restored as Chaim Baier Music Island, with the demolition of the rink and the construction of the LeFrak Center, a year-round sports facility. The grove's style complements that of the Central Park Mall; however, unlike the elongated, rectangular Mall, the Concert Grove was laid out radially, in order to blend more smoothl