The borough has an extensive system of parks and recreational areas totaling some 1689 hectares (about 4170 acres). Most notable is Prospect Park; a landscaped area of broad drives and wooded hills, it contains a restored (1912) carousel and the Lefferts Homestead (1783), a Dutch colonial farmhouse. Part of the Gateway National Recreation Area is located along the Atlantic coast here; it includes Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge. Other major parks are Brooklyn Marine Park on Jamaica Bay and Dyker Beach Park, which adjoins Fort Hamilton, a United States Army reservation. The beaches and amusement area of Coney Island are also well known. Among the borough's many churches are the Plymouth Church of the Pilgrims (1846) in Brooklyn Heights, of which the American clergyman Henry Ward Beecher was pastor and which was the center of activities of Abolitionists before the Civil War (1861-1865), and Brooklyn's oldest church, the Flatbush Reformed Protestant Church (built in 1654, rebuilt 1796).
