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Famous for designing New York City's Central Park, Frederick Law Olmsted (1822 - 1902) was the first person ever to describe himself as a "landscape architect." In Boston, however, Olmsted will forever be remembered as the visionary designer of The Emerald Necklace, a system of parks and parkways that wind through and around the city of Boston. While Olmsted designed similar extensive park systems for other major cities, for us, it's The Emerald Necklace that makes Olmsted rank with Paul Revere and Henry Thoreau as a local hero.
"An artist, he paints with lakes and wooded slopes; with lawns and banks and forest covered hills; with mountain sides and ocean views," wrote Frederick Law Olmsted's friend and colleague Daniel Burnham in 1893. Olmsted and his firm Fairsted (pictured at right) were also responsible for designing huge open spaces in places like Chicago, Buffalo and Atlanta.
Although the first "public" open space in the New World would technically have to be the Boston Common, from 1634, Olmsted believed that green spaces should be public, and that everyone should have access to them. This may not seem so unusual to some of you, but to those of us who struggle to garden in the highly industrialized Northeast, or the smoggy West coast, having public gardens to enjoy from time to time keeps us all more sane. Having them look wild and natural without actually being totally impenetrable is an added gift Olmsted left us.
While Olmsted hired gardeners to work for him, he did not think of himself as a gardener. He considered himself an architect, using the outdoors instead of buildings, and was the first to call himself a professional "landscape architect". Many, if not most of the areas he worked with in Boston were previously considered unsuitable for human habitation. Marshy areas, called 'fens', were unbearably humid and muggy in the summer, as well as filled with mosquitos and the diseases they carried. Sometimes open sewage ran in the streets. [Interestingly, the word FENS is anEnglish or Welsh word, from which we in Boston get our beloved Fenway Park!]
The visionary Olmsted filled in the Boston fens, creating sloping grass-lined boulevards through them. Thinking on a huge scale, Olmsted connected a series of small andlarge parks, one large pond and Harvard's Arnold Arboretum with green parkways, most including areas for vehicular traffic as well as pedestrians. The resulting park system spans 1,000 acres - in the middle of a city - starting at the Boston Common and ending at the Franklin Park Zoo.
Controversy exists today. While cleaning up and filling in the brackish unhealthy fens, Olmsted did destroy native wetlands. Still, in the 19th century, Olmsted was progressive even to think of the common person's need for open space in crowded cities. If he had not replaced boggy unhealthy areas with beautiful public gardens and parks, someone else would surely have stepped in with apartment buildings and shopping centers.
Boston's Emerald Necklace is truly one of our jewels. People from all walks of life encounter one another on its parks and paths. Every day, I drive past the field where my daughter attempted (unsuccessfully) to learn soccer as a four year old; at seventeen, she still treasures the tiny T-shirt. Nearby, adults practice Tai Chi in slow, graceful movements.
There is a "Lantern Walk" around Jamaica Pond every year on a Sunday night before Halloween. While local bands play world music and street vendors sell snacks, the area's children make lanterns from recycled soda bottles decorated with tissue paper and stickers. With adult help, they put a candle inside, hang their lantern from a wire coat hanger, and carry it on a stick. It sounds precarious and dangerous but the worst that happens is that the candle blows out and the best - oh! the best is when families parade around the mile-and-a-half long pond with their lanterns, so that the whole pond lights up with a ring of lanterns bobbing all the way around! Olmsted's necklace shimmers every day, but its gems glow particularly brightly that night.
For more information about Frederick Law Olmsted and Boston's Emerald Necklace, please contact The Emerald Necklace Conservancy at emeraldnecklace.org. They graciously allowed me to use photos from their archives, for which I thank them.
About Carrie Lamont
Carrie has two teenage daughters, which is exhausting all by itself. She has been married for seven delightful years to her husband, who works for an airline, facilitating Carrie's frequent need to travel. She is forever coming up with crazy and irreverent schemes and trying to get others to do it her way, but is learning to be humble as she ages. Carrie has a masters degree in Music, and sings as she gardens a small urban plot from her wheelchair.
Posted by apurplefoxglove (from Ashby, MA) on May 20, 2008 at 2:03 PM:
Really enjoyed you're article. I live outside Boston (North Central MA) once lived in Newton. Anyway although I've always thought Boston a beautiful city and with beautiful parks I didn't know Olmstead designed the green necklace. I have a new appreciation, thanks.
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Posted by carrielamont (from Milton, MA) on May 20, 2008 at 4:08 PM:
Glad you enjoyed it - you could come visit Boston some time, you know. I don't know if this link will work. Anyway, Olmsted also did the Arnold Arboretum, in fact, he really had a lot to do with why Boston looks the way it does today (the Charles River and the Esplanade, etc.). (Not with the Government Center nonsense!)
[HYPERLINK@davesgarden.com]
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Subject: Chicago Worlds Fair
Posted by AntChewy (from Bakersfield, CA) on April 29, 2008 at 8:55 PM:
I just finished reading "Devil in the White City" and enjoyed the story within about Olmsted's landscape history and work
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Posted by carrielamont (from Milton, MA) on April 29, 2008 at 9:07 PM:
I haven't read Devil in the White City but I have read a lot about it. I think that might even be where the quote by David Burnham originally was cited, but I'm not positive. There is a glut of information about Olmsted out there, and I only touched on a fraction of it! The book is fiction mixed with facts, right? xx, Carrie
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Subject: nice to know
Posted by 1happymom (from Acworth, GA) on April 22, 2008 at 10:22 AM:
thank you for taking the time to enlighten
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Posted by carrielamont (from Milton, MA) on April 22, 2008 at 10:31 AM:
My pleasure - I'm serious, everyone around here knows about him. There are some crappy little houses going up near the Arborway called Olmsted Estates or Olmsted Manors or Olmsted Tenements. He would have HATED them. So sad. xx, Carrie
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Subject: never knew
Posted by littlemick (from Maryville, TN) on April 15, 2008 at 10:58 PM:
I loved your article Carrie. I used to live in N.Y. and knew he had designed Central Park. but I never knew about the Emerald Necklace. It sounds charming. I try to go to Biltmore House in Ashville every spring to see his magnificent gardens there. It is a very beautiful place. Have you ever been there?
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Posted by carrielamont (from Milton, MA) on April 16, 2008 at 9:25 AM:
No, I have never even been inside Central Park. He did other stuff around here, too. The Mount Auburn Cemetery, in Cambridge, is very famous, and people go there for picnics. The Forest Hills Cemetery in Jamaica Plain is right around the corner from where I lived when my kids were little, and I would take them there to feed the ducks (there's a pond) and run around and act like kids. Thanks - I'll have to keep an eye out for the Biltmore Estate if I am ever in Ashville! xx, Carrie
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Posted by Dollykat (from Lucasville, OH) on April 21, 2008 at 10:14 AM:
I visited Biltmore several years ago. Although the time of year was right between spring and summer garden planting, the azaleas were still in bloom. I highly recommend a visit to both the house, gardens, and the rest of the estate (part of George Vanderbilt's property was sold by his widow and is now a national forest.) The house and the property that remains is still owned by Vanderbilt's descendants, the Cecils, who are also descended from Queen Elizabeth I's father-and-son advisors. George Vanderbilt's only child, his daughter, married a Cecil, a British subject. Her wedding breakfast was held in the glass-ceilinged garden room right inside the front door of Biltmore House. Not all rooms are open to the public, but enough of the rooms are available to the public gaze. Don't miss the former stable in back of the house, now housing gift shops and a restaurant. Other restaurants are located on the grounds, such as the winery restaurant.
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Posted by littlemick (from Maryville, TN) on April 22, 2008 at 10:04 PM:
Dollycat, Isn't it an amazingly beautiful place. I try to visit at least once a year. I haven't seen the azaleas in several years. Going in May with my grandaughters.Hope they are still blooming. I'd like to go to Boston and see the Emerald Necklace. Olmsted was just brilliant wasn"t he?
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Posted by carrielamont (from Milton, MA) on April 23, 2008 at 8:48 AM:
The thing about the Emerald Necklace - I guess I should have made this clearer - there's not an entrance and an exit. It really is integrated right into the traffic of the city. There are signs along the side of the road "this part of this road is part of the emerald necklace". You can go to The Zoo or Jamaica Pond or absolutely to The Arboretum - the zoo might have an admittance fee though. Boston is neat. xx, Carrie
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Posted by littlemick (from Maryville, TN) on April 23, 2008 at 11:56 PM:
Hey, thanks Carrie. My husband and I really have talked about going for a long weekend. I used to go when I was little and we lived in New England, but that was long, long ago and I really don't remember. I didn't know anything about the Necklace , but now I know what to look for. I bet it's beautiful. We have landscaped trails that wind all through our town called the Greenbelt. I also want to go to Boston to EAT! Thanks for the great article and the info. Your butterfly piece was nice too. I have so many, wish I could share.
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Subject: Nice
Posted by phicks (from Lakeland, FL) on April 15, 2008 at 12:29 PM:
I grew up in Mass and spent a lot of time in thoose parks
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Posted by carrielamont (from Milton, MA) on April 15, 2008 at 1:39 PM:
Hi, phicks: yes, most of us local kids did. Stay tuned... next I plan to write a whole article about the Arnold Arboretum! Thanks for reading. ~Carrie
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Posted by phicks (from Lakeland, FL) on April 15, 2008 at 2:32 PM:
Hey i Thought Franklin Park Was Closed??
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Posted by carrielamont (from Milton, MA) on April 15, 2008 at 3:20 PM:
Not anymore - when did you leave the area?
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Posted by phicks (from Lakeland, FL) on April 15, 2008 at 4:42 PM:
mmmmmmmm 1966
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Posted by carrielamont (from Milton, MA) on April 15, 2008 at 5:02 PM:
Oh it's much better now! xx, Carrie
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Posted by phicks (from Lakeland, FL) on April 15, 2008 at 5:38 PM:
where did you grow up carrie?
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Posted by carrielamont (from Milton, MA) on April 15, 2008 at 6:23 PM:
I grew up in Brookline, lived in JP as a "independent" young person and now I live in Milton with teenagers. Carrie
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Posted by phicks (from Lakeland, FL) on April 15, 2008 at 6:52 PM:
i know all those places know miltion and quincy well
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Subject: Olmstead
Posted by swlms1955 (from Gore, OK) on April 15, 2008 at 12:05 PM:
Thanks, Carrie, for such an informative article. The pictures are breath-taking. In Robert Parker's Spencer books, he often writes about the Boston Gardens, and I've wanted to see them. I believe Olmstead also designed the gardens and grounds at Biltmore.
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Posted by carrielamont (from Milton, MA) on April 15, 2008 at 1:37 PM:
Robert Parker's Spencer books are absolutely set in Olmsted's Boston, from Spencer's Comm Ave office, to jogging along the Charles River, to shoot-outs in the Fens. I forgot to mention that the Emerald Necklace, as shown in that 19C. map, goes from the Boston Common, through the Public Garden, down Commonwealth Avenue before it turns down the Fenway, the Riverway, the Jamaicaway and the Arborway (named for the Fens, the Muddy River in Brookline, Jamaica Pond and the Arboretum, respectively). I'm not sure about the Biltmore but there is lots of information about Olmsted online! xx, Carrie
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Posted by Seandor (from Springfield, MA) on April 15, 2008 at 8:09 PM:
Olmstead designed Forest Park, which is about six blocks from my home. The idea of a necklace of parks is a wonderful image, and I agree . . . given the attitudes towards development in the 1950s and 1960s, all the wetlands would be highrises.
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Posted by carrielamont (from Milton, MA) on April 15, 2008 at 10:06 PM:
Thanks, Seandor. I'm glad you liked it. This article took me an unusually long time to complete because right as I was finishing it up, my husband took his one required science course. He learned all about wetlands and the Boston Harbor Cleanup and the fact that Olmsted's planning did destroy systems they didn't even realize were important back then. But I had ethical writer's block - how could I talk about what a genius the guy was if he had done so much harm? I actually went to the Emerald Necklace Conservancy office (it was across the street from one of my doctors) and got one of the ladies there to talk me back into being pro-Olmsted! xx, Carrie
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Subject: What a wonderful place
Posted by cathy4 (from St. Louis County, MO) on April 15, 2008 at 9:14 AM:
Thank you for sharing this, I must make the trip someday soon.
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Posted by carrielamont (from Milton, MA) on April 15, 2008 at 10:05 AM:
Cathy, if you make it to Boston, be sure to let me know!!! xxx, Carrie
gardener. He considered himself an architect, using the outdoors instead of buildings, and was the first to call himself a professional "landscape architect". Many, if not most of the areas he worked with in Boston were previously considered unsuitable for human habitation. Marshy areas, called 'fens', were unbearably humid and muggy in the summer, as well as filled with mosquitos and the diseases they carried. Sometimes open sewage ran in the streets. [Interestingly, the word FENS is an English or Welsh word, from which we in Boston get our beloved Fenway Park!] 
