Authorities are closing parts of Brooklyn's Prospect Park Friday for security associated with President Barack Obama's visit to a nearby high school.
The Prospect Park Alliance initially said the entire 585-acre park would be closed but issued a correction Thursday, saying only portions of the park will not be accessible.
Obama is visiting the Pathways in Technology Early College High School on Friday that he mentioned in his State of the Union address earlier this year.
The school is about 2 miles away from Prospect Park, where several helicopters landed on a ball field earlier in the week in a security drill.
The park, which has seven playgrounds, horse trails, a zoo, a carousel, a boathouse and 150 acres of woodlands, attracts more than 10 million visitors a year.
Parts of the park will be closed from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Friday.
According to the South Slope News, nearby Green-Wood Cemetery will be opening its gates from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m. to joggers whose routes would be cut short by the park closure. Normally, joggers aren't allowed there.
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In his yearly address, Obama praised P-Tech for graduating students with a high school diploma and an associates degree. The school was opened in 2011 in a rough stretch of Crown Heights.
At the school students are assigned a mentor and many start taking college courses in the 10th grade, said Stan Litow, one of the architects for the idea for the school. After they graduate, many of the students have the inside track to a job at IBM.
