Environment

Emerald Necklace Conservancy Wants to Hear From You

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The Emerald Necklace Conservancy wants to know about your parks experience and insights to help plan for its future. How do you use the Emerald Necklace? Do you bicycle, walk, play on athletic fields, walk your dog? Take this brief anonymous survey (about 5 minutes) to say what you want to see in the parks. Through the survey, the Emerald Necklace Conservancy is hoping to learn about how Boston area residents – ages 15 and older – use the park and how it can be even better. The Emerald Necklace Conservancy is a non-profit that works with communities, government and funders to improve the Olmsted-designed Emerald Necklace parks for all.

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City Services

City’s JP Better Bike Lanes Plan Includes Changes to Green, Boylston, Seaverns, and McBride

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Boston's Public Works Department will be reconstructing several Jamaica Plain streets this year to grow the city's network of low-stress bike routes, and community feedback is wanted to shape the projects. This year's JP Better Bike Lanes projects include Green Street and Seaverns Avenue/Gordon Street, Eliot Street, McBride Street, and Boylston Street. There are two upcoming open houses on May 3 and May 11 (more info below) to discuss and learn more about the proposals. There will also be community walks to physically go to the streets to discuss the proposals with city personnel. Eliot Street
The Public Works Department is planning to allow bicycling in both directions on Eliot Street between the Emerald Necklace and Centre Street.

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Animals

Olmsted Park Spring Bird Walk This Sunday

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Do you see pretty birds and want to know their name? Or maybe you've already got a pair of binoculars and a keen eye for springtime warblers. This weekend's spring bird walk is for both beginner and more seasoned ornithological enthusiasts. The 90-minute free walk will be led by local birding expert Bob Mayor, and focus on migrating warblers and other spring species at Leverett, Willoe and Ward's ponds, as well as the woods of the Emerald Necklace Olmsted Park. Meet at the Olmsted Park Daisy Field parking lot on Willow Pond Road between Pond Avenue and the Jamaicaway.

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From the Community

First Emerald Necklace Parkfest Spanning Parks on Sept. 24

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The first-ever Emerald Necklace Parkfest will be the year’s biggest event for Olmsted Now, which is Greater Boston’s Olmsted Bicentennial. This free event will on Sept. 24 will span across parks of the Emerald Necklace, and will include free performances, kids' activities, art, games, dancing, and more. There will be picnic zones, parade decorating, data "community listening boards", and Necklace-wide scavenger hunts to prompt exploring the parks. Community groups and organizations will also be showcasing the ways they make the Greater Boston a great place for parks and public spaces.

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Arts

‘Never Too Much, Always Enough’: Mayor’s Mural Crew Art Installation Celebrates Olmsted Bicentennial

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Boston's Mayor’s Mural Crew and the National Park Service created a series of temporary chairs across the Emerald Necklace to commemorate the bicentennial celebration of Frederick Law Olmsted. The park furnishings, named “never too much, always enough,” features 24 chairs in six sites across the Emerald Necklace, which was designed by Olmsted. The chairs were built by repurposing the distinctive white spruce-pole fence that was designed by Olmsted, to surround the Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site in Brookline (Fairsted). Jamaica Plain resident Heidi Schork, who founded The Mayor’s Mural Crew, designed the chair with an inspiration to use the same curves found in Fairsted’s beautiful fence, according to a press release. The chair are at the following locations:

Jamaica Pond, in the southwest corner overlooking the pond and in the northwest corner amongst the trees

Franklin Park, to the left of Franklin Park Golf Course Clubhouse and at the top of Scarborough Hill (by Hole 12 of the golf course)

Allerton Overlook, off of Pond Avenue by Olmsted Park’s Leverett Pond

Back Bay Fens, off of Park Drive behind the James P. Kelleher Rose Garden

 

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This project was conceptualized and brought to life by a group of youth artists employed through Boston’s Department of Youth Employment, together with adult artists employed for the Boston Parks Department, including: Aiyanna Canty, Aminah Yahya, Bobby Zabin, Camila Aguilera-Steinert, Eli Swanson, Emmett Hughes, Heidi Schork (Program Director, The Mayor’s Mural Crew), Inez Bendavid-Val, Jamar Joseph, Jerome Jones (Lead Artist, The Mayor’s Mural Crew), Kayla Depina, Laniya Harding, Liz O’Brien (Program Manager, The Mayor’s Mural Crew), Lucy Edelstein-Rosenberg, Maia Poremba, Madalen Bigsby-Licht, Nalani Reid, Niamh Mulligan, Tony Depina, Xavier James, Xzavier Santiago, and Zariyah Wilkerson.

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From the Community

Emerald Necklace Bridges Aglow Until March 31

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Since mid-February and through March 31, select bridges in the Emerald Necklace will be awash with an emerald glow – thanks to battery-powered LED lights. Lights in the Necklace will celebrate the power of Boston and Brookline’s urban parks to bring visitors together, inspire and light the way in challenging times. Free and open to the public, enjoy the lighting on a series of iconic Emerald Necklace bridges, daily from dusk to 9 pm. The Emerald Necklace’s 1,100 acres are home to more than 30 bridges. Connecting neighbors and bridging communities is what the Necklace was designed to do nearly 150 years ago by famed landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted.

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History

‘Jamaica Plain Through Time’ Takes Readers on Historical Tour of Neighborhood

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Historian Anthony Sammarco's newest book Jamaica Plain Through Time chronicles the neighborhood from the late 19th century through to the 21st century. The following is from Sammarco's book with contemporary photographs by Peter B. Kingman. Known in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as the Jamaica End of Roxbury, the neighborhood of Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, evolved from agrarian farmland for over 200 years into one of the more dynamic and inclusive neighborhoods of twenty-first century Boston. Jamaica Plain became one of the earliest streetcar suburbs of Boston with various forms of transportation linking it to downtown Boston. With horse drawn streetcars, the Boston & Providence Railroad as well as the Boston Elevated Railway, by the turn of the twentieth century, the ease of transportation allowed a thriving nexus of cultures to move to a community that not only saw tremendous residential and commercial development, especially with the numerous breweries along the Stony Brook, but also green space and open lands that were laid out by Frederick Law Olmsted as a part of the "Emerald Necklace" of Boston.

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Environment

JP Has Highest Tree Canopy, According to City

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Jamaica Plain and surrounding neighborhoods in southwestern Boston have the highest tree canopies in the city. Generally speaking, the tree canopy is the part of the city shaded by trees. The city recently released a tree canopy assessment for 2014-2019. This year's worth of analysis is from high-quality, high resolution LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) images captured during airplane flyovers of Boston, according to a press release. Boston's Parks and Recreation Department commissioned the report to understand which areas have the most potential for increased tree cover, and analyze how the city's canopy cover has changed.

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Emerald Necklace

Tour: Historic Gems of the Back Bay Fens

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From foul muddy flats to the parkland of today, the Fens has undergone many transformations in the last 125 years. Join Emerald Necklace docents as they talk and walk the historic landscape. Stops include the Kelleher Rose Garden, with 1,500+ roses and a reconstructed fountain, as well as the oldest WWII Victory Gardens in America. Register on our website! Limited spots!

Emerald Necklace

Evening Garden Stroll

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After decades spent underground beneath a parking lot, a portion of the Muddy River has been uncovered to see daylight once again. Hear the story of how river and parkland were reclaimed and how the vision of Frederick Law Olmsted is being restored for the 21st century. Register on our website! Limited spots! Meet at REI, 401 Park Drive, Boston, MA 02215.