The entrance to Prospect Park at Third Street in Park Slope was closed off to car traffic in April 2009. Since then it’s been graced by these barricades. With the completion of the Prospect Park West re-design, there’s even more reason to make this a welcoming entrance for people walking and biking to Brooklyn’s flagship park.

The Park Slope Civic Council is putting on a design competition and looking for entries that “provide an attractive, contemporary, contextually appropriate, and visually clear entrance gateway, with a sculptural, graphic, and functional contribution to the Park perimeter.” The new gateway has to maintain access for bikes, keep cars out, yet be flexible enough to allow access for emergency vehicles.

The PSCC is accepting submissions until October 25, and they’ll announce the winner on November 15. Two of the jurors are staff members of the Prospect Park Alliance, and we hear that if the winning design is realistic enough, it could be used as a prototype for this entrance and, possibly, for other gateways to the park.