Mini-Profile: Preserving Prospect Park

Richard Engquist, 75, is a devoted volunteer at Prospect Park. For 35 years, the Brooklyn resident has been keeping the park's trails and grounds looking their best. Engquist volunteers three times a week, with duties ranging from planting and mulching, to picking up litter to removing exotic plants that are taking over native flora. On Sunday, September 21 he showed off a nearly full trash bag, the sixth bag he had filled in just 3 hours by picking up trash along the walking trails, and laughed, "I'm keeping busy."

When Engquist first started volunteering with Prospect Park, there weren't many others dedicated to keeping the area clean. Now he says there are lots of volunteers and a variety of jobs for them to fill, from operating the carousel in the children's area to running the historic Leffert House. With his woodland crew focusing on keeping the natural areas of the park in good condition, Engquist shows no sign of stopping soon; as he puts it, "There's always something to do."

Memorable Moment: Fisherman in Lullwater Pond

Rapidly peddling on one side of the two-seat boat, the fisherman was in constant motion - casting his rod, reeling it back then moving on to a new location in quick succession. Lullwater Pond, part of the watercourse in Prospect Park's 585 acres of urban green space, wasn't very crowded on the last official weekend of summer; the fisherman only had to share the waters with the occasional tour boat leaving from the Audubon Boat House. However, he still didn't seem to be having much luck in his search for the pond's elusive fish. Peddling over to the dock opposite the Boat House, he explained that earlier in the day he had caught a 4-pound, large mouth bass that was over a foot long, but added that he threw it back because of the park's catch-and-release policy. After hearing admiration from the observers on the dock, the fisherman seemed to gain back his confidence and cast again - only to have his line land squarely in the branches of a low-hanging tree.