I know I’m not crazy, however every time I visit Paris I feel like I’m back in Brooklyn and people look at me like I’m nuts. As a boy I lived adjacent to Prospect Park and here is why I see there are similarities.
The Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Arch in Grand Army Plaza at Prospect Park are derived from François Rude’s high-relief sculptures on the piers of Paris’s Arc de Triomphe. The quadriga, or four-horse chariot (1898), atop the arch echoes the horses by Bosio on the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel. Convinced yest? No! Here is another tidbit. Ocean Parkway was designed after The Avenue des Champs-the Elysee’s and so was Eastern Parkway another Brooklyn byway. Ocean Parkway used to have a bridle path giving it even more of a French feel and saw many people horseback ride there.
America is very thankful to the French. Benjamin Franklin, one of our founding fathers spoke French and convinced the King of France to finance the American Revolution to oust the English. This was just one of the ways America won their independence from The British.