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Olmsted Park

Field	Value
image	Wards Pond panorama, June 2014.jpg
image_size	300px
image_alt	A small pond surrounded by trees
image_caption	Wards Pond in Olmsted Park in 2014
location	Boston and Brookline, Massachusetts
coordinates
designer	Frederick Law Olmsted
embed	yes
name	Olmstead Park System
refnum	71000086

Olmsted Park is a linear park in Boston and Brookline, Massachusetts, and a part of Boston's Emerald Necklace of connected parks and parkways. Originally named Leverett Park, in 1900 it was renamed to honor its designer, Frederick Law Olmsted.

Olmsted Park can be roughly divided into two parts. In the south, bordering Jamaica Pond, it includes athletic fields and three ponds: from the south, a small kettle pond called Ward's Pond, the tiny Willow Pond, and the much larger Leverett Pond. The northern section of the park, above Route 9, is a narrow corridor through which the Muddy River flows on its way to the Charles River. The northern edge of Olmsted Park connects to the Back Bay Fens and the western edge of the Mission Hill neighborhood.

History

Olmsted, who had made a reputation designing New York City's Central Park, suggested in 1880 that the swampy and brackish Muddy River be included in Boston's park plan. Beginning in 1890, the river was dredged into a winding stream, a large swamp converted into Leverett's Pond, and Ward's Pond was connected with a small outflowing stream.

Following completion of the Emerald Necklace Parks Master Plan in 1989 (updated in 2001), a number of improvements have been made in Olmsted Park. Riverdale Parkway, originally designed as a carriage road, was transformed into a bicycle and pedestrian path in 1997–98. The Allerton Overlook at the foot of Allerton Street in Brookline was recreated, footbridges re-pointed, and a boardwalk placed at the south end of Wards Pond.

In 2006, Brookline restored Olmsted's "Babbling Brook" (a section of the Muddy River in the park), resetting stones, clearing out invasive knotweed, defining the streambed, and replanting trees and shrubs to inhibit future invasives growth.

References

"Olmsted Park". Emerald Necklace Conservancy.
"The Emerald Necklace Master Plan".
(May 2006). "Olmsted Park: An Emerald Necklace Park". Friends of Leverett Pond.
(2006-03-11). "Babbling Brook Restoration". High Street Hill Association.

Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

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