Olmsted, the park's creator

Franklin Park was created by Frederick Law Olmsted, a famous landscape architect and park builder in the late 1800s.  He believed parks were a necessary oasis for city dwellers.  He's most famous for creating Central Park in New York City.

Franklin Park was designed as part of Boston's Emerald Necklace, a series of parks that parade through the city: Franklin Park, the Arboretum, Jamaica Pond, the Riverway, and the Back Bay Fens, which connect to the Commonwealth Avenue Mall, the Public Garden, and the Boston Common to create a seven-mile stretch of green. Franklin Park was one of Olmsted's last large urban park projects and one he considered to be the result of years of experimentation and learning. For more about Olmsted's work, you can visit the National Park Service, that operates the Olmsted National Historic Site in Brookline, Olmsted's Boston home and his firm's studio. To learn more about the Emerald Necklace park system, visit our partner organization, the Emerald Necklace Conservancy.

To learn more about the history of Franklin Park, read the carefully researched  articles and stories written for the Jamaica Plain Citizen by one of the Franklin Park Coalition's founders, Richard Heath, in 1981.

 

Shaping Franklin Park

Olmsted wanted Franklin Park to soothe city residents who were stressed by modern life. He created a vast country meadow (now the golf course), and nurtured the 200 acres of forest in the park. You can see some of the trees and plants Olmsted planted on the Emerald Necklace Plant List. As you walk the woodland paths, you can see outcroppings of Roxbury Puddingstone, which is unique to the Boston area.  (Created by the glaciers, the puddingstone has small pebbles crammed into larger boulders, making it look like porridge with nuts and raisins). The park has huge rock cliffs and valleys, which lend a feeling of being in a much larger, deeper woods. Olmsted's design included active use areas for recreation and sports, and more passive walking "the country park." He tapped local family names and historical events to identify different areas of the park. The Coalition is working to revive use of these names today.

 

History of a few highlights of Franklin Park:

Scarboro PondScarboro Pond, was designed by Olmsted after the public demanded a waterway at Franklin Park. It took two years to excavate the pond, but plans to connect it to Ward's Pond failed and it remains isolated and stagnant, though quite beautiful. Water for the pond comes from underground pipes leading from Jamaica Pond, a natural body of water. No one knows the condition of the pipes today. 

 

Schoolmaster HillSchoolmaster Hill is where Ralph Waldo Emerson lived for two years in a small cabin before the park was created. He was an unhappy  schoolmaster in Roxbury, but loved the outdoors and began writing nature poetry and essays. At the far end of the stone walkway, past the arbor, there is a plaque with a segment of his poem, Good Bye. For a more detailed history and old photographs of this hidden park treasure, read Ralph Waldo Emerson: The Schoolmaster of Franklin Park.

 

99 StepsThe 99 Steps,at one edge of the Wilderness, near the Williams Street entrance, show a classic Olmsted design.  The steps he built into steep areas of the hillside were made from native stone, blended well with the surrounding landscape, and curved in different directions so the stairs would fit into the natural scenery without being conspicuous.

 

old Bear DensThe old Bear Dens in Long Crouch Woods don't have any bears now!  But there are beautiful stone carvings of bears and a broad, staircase leading up to a pavilion and the old cages. The exhibit was built in 1912 and opened with the Zoo in 1913. The bears were moved out in 1970.

 

 

Overlook ruinsThe Overlook ruins are where Elma Lewis built her summer stage.  Originally the Overlook Shelter, this is one of the few buildings Frederick Law Olmsted ever designed. The ground floor was used as a changing area for boys playing sports on the Playstead and the upper floor had large windows for spectators to view the playing field. In the 1920's and 30's the Overlook was a park police station.  It burned in the 1940's just before the money to build White Stadium became available.

You can read details about different sections of the park and a chronology of park history at the Heart of the City website.

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