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Boston Public Garden

Coordinates: 42°21′15″N 71°4′12″W / 42.35417°N 71.07000°W / 42.35417; -71.07000
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Boston Public Garden
The Public Garden looking east from the Arlington Street entrance, with the skyline of Boston's financial district, 2007
Boston Public Garden is located in Boston
Boston Public Garden
Boston Public Garden is located in Massachusetts
Boston Public Garden
Boston Public Garden is located in the United States
Boston Public Garden
LocationBoston, Massachusetts
Area24 acres (97,000 m2)[1]
Built1837
NRHP reference No.72000144 (original)
87000761 (new)
Significant dates
Added to NRHPJuly 12, 1972 (original, in NRHP also including Boston Common)
February 27, 1987 (new, as NHL of Boston Public Garden alone)[2]
Designated NHLDFebruary 27, 1987[3]

The Public Garden, also known as Boston Public Garden, is a large park in the heart of Boston, Massachusetts, adjacent to Boston Common. It is a part of the Emerald Necklace system of parks, and is bounded by Charles Street and Boston Common to the east, Beacon Street to the north, Arlington Street and Back Bay to the west, and Boylston Street to the south.

History

Boston's Back Bay, including the land the garden sits on, was mudflats until filling began in the early 1800s. The land of the Public Garden was the earliest filled, as the area that is now Charles Street had been used as a ropewalk since 1796.[4] As part of the conditions of its use, the ropewalk's proprietors were required to build a seawall and fill in the land which is now Charles Street and the land immediately bordering it (now a part of the Public Garden).

Much of the landfill material came from Mount Vernon, formerly a hill in the Beacon Hill area of Boston. Initially, gravel and dirt were brought from the hill to the landfill area by handcart. By 1804, a gravity railroad had been constructed to rapidly bring material from the top of the hill to the marsh; and today, Mount Vernon no longer exists, having been completely removed to be used as landfill for the Back Bay.

The Public Garden was established in 1837, when philanthropist Horace Gray[5] petitioned for the use of land as the first public botanical garden in the United States. By 1839, a corporation was formed called Horace Gray and Associates, and made the "Proprietors of the Botanic Garden in Boston."[6] The corporation was chartered with creating what is now the Boston Public Garden. Nonetheless, there was constant pressure for the land to be sold to private interests for the construction of new housing.

While most of the land of the present-day garden had been filled in by the mid-1800s, the area of the Back Bay remained an undeveloped tidal basin. In 1842, the state legislature created The Commissioners on Boston Harbor and the Back Bay, in order to determine how to best develop the land; the state wanted to control the lands and to build an upper class neighborhood in the area beyond the Public Garden. The City of Boston petitioned the state to grant control over the basin (which was controlled by the then-independent city of Roxbury), in hopes of generating significant revenue from any developments that would be built after filling it in. When the state commission rejected Boston's petition, the Boston City Council threatened to sell the garden to housing developers, which would have significantly reduced the desirability of the area for the upper class elite that the state was hoping to attract.

The conflict between the City of Boston and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts was finally resolved when the Tripartite Indenture of 1856 was agreed to by both parties and passed a general vote of citizens 6,287 to 99.[7] In the agreement, Boston gave up its rights to build upon the Public Garden; in return, it received a strip of land which is now a part of the garden, abutting Arlington Street.[8]

Drawing of the Public Garden in 1850, facing east. Note the empty foreground: where the Back Bay is today, are flats in this drawing.

In October 1859, Alderman Crane submitted the detailed plan for the Garden to the Committee on the Common and Public Squares and received approval.[9] Construction began quickly on the property, with the pond being finished that year and the wrought iron fence surrounding the perimeter erected in 1862. Today the north side of the pond has a small island, but it originally was a peninsula, connected to the land. The site became so popular with lovers that John Galvin, the city forester, decided to sever the connection with the land.[10]

The 24 acres (97,000 m2) landscape was designed by George F. Meacham. The paths and flower beds were laid out by the city engineer, James Slade and the forester, John Galvin. The plan for the garden included a number of fountains and statues. The first statue erected was that of Edward Everett by William Wetmore Story, in November 1867, on the north part of the Garden near Beacon Street. The bronze statue of George Washington by Thomas Ball, which dominates the west side of the park, was dedicated on 3 July 1869. The signature suspension bridge over the middle of the pond was erected in 1867.

An 1899 drawing of the Common and garden. Compared to 49 years earlier, the Back Bay is now completely filled in, and the garden much more closely resembles that of today.

Originally, the Charles Street side of the Public Garden (along with the adjacent portions of Boston Common) was used as an unofficial dumping ground, due to being the lowest-lying portion of the Garden; this, along with the Garden's originally being a salt marsh, resulted in this edge of the Public Garden being "a moist stew that reeked and that was a mess to walk over, steering people to other parts of the park". Although plans had long been in place to regrade this portion of the Garden, the cost of moving the amount of soil necessary (approximately 9,000 cu yd (6,900 m3), weighing 14,000 short tons (13,000,000 kg)) prevented the work from being undertaken. This finally changed in the summer of 1895, when the required quantity of soil was made available as a result of the excavation of the Tremont Street Subway, and was used to regrade the Charles Street sides of both the Garden and the Common.[11]

The Public Garden is managed jointly between the Mayor's Office, The Parks Department of the City of Boston, and the non-profit Friends of the Public Garden. It was designated a Boston Landmark by the Boston Landmarks Commission in 1977 and declared a National Historic Landmark in 1987.[1][3]

Description

"Maid of the Mist" statue of Venus and behind it of George Washington in a stereoscopic image by John P. Soule

Together with the Boston Common, the parks form the northern terminus of the Emerald Necklace, a long string of parks designed by Frederick Law Olmsted. While the Common is primarily unstructured open space, the Public Garden contains a pond and a large series of formal plantings that are maintained by the city and others and vary from season to season. Mostly flat and varying in elevation by less than five feet, the garden is designed in the style of an English landscape garden. A straight pathway, including a bridge that crosses over its pond, spans the two main entrances of Charles and Arlington streets; but its pathways are otherwise winding and asymmetrical.[12]

The Public Garden is rectangular in shape and is bounded on the south by Boylston Street, on the west by Arlington Street, and on the north by Beacon Street where it faces Beacon Hill. On its east side, Charles Street divides the Public Garden from the Common. The greenway connecting the Public Garden with the rest of the Emerald Necklace is the strip of park that runs west down the center of Commonwealth Avenue towards the Back Bay Fens and the Muddy River.

The pond

During the warmer seasons, the 4 acres (16,000 m2) pond is the home of a great many ducks, as well as of one or more swans. A popular tourist attraction is the Swan Boats, which began operating in 1877.[13] For a small fee, tourists can sit on a boat ornamented with a white swan at the rear. The boat is then pedaled around the pond by a tour guide sitting within the swan.

The current pair of swans are mute swans named Romeo and Juliet after the Shakespearian couple, however, it was found that both are female.[14]

Being no more than a few feet in depth at its deepest point, the pond easily freezes during the colder months. In 1879, the Boston City Council passed an order to maintain the pond for skating during the winter;[15] today, there is an official skating rink maintained at Frog Pond on the Common, instead.

The pond represented a significant health concern shortly after it was constructed, as it was fed by a combination of salt water from the Charles River, sewer water, and fresh water from Frog Pond in the Common.[16] As a result, there was often a thick slime present in the pond, and an accompanying stench. Consequently, the caretakers of the garden drain and clean the pond annually.[17]

Plantings

Permanent flower plantings in the garden include numerous varieties of roses, bulbs, and flowering shrubs. The beds flanking the central pathway are replanted on a rotating schedule throughout the year, with different flowers for each season from mid-spring through early autumn. Plantings are supplied from 14 greenhouses the city operates at Franklin Park for the purpose.[13]

The Public Garden is planted with a wide assortment of native and introduced trees; prominent among these are the weeping willows around the shore of the lagoon and the European and American elms that line the garden's pathways, along with horse chestnuts, dawn redwoods, European beeches, ginkgo trees, and one California redwood. Other notable trees include:[18]

Statues and structures

Several statues are located throughout the Public Garden.

Statue of George Washington
  • Located at the Arlington Street gate and facing Commonwealth Avenue is the Equestrian Statue of George Washington, designed and cast by Thomas Ball. Unveiled on July 3, 1869, the statue itself is 16 feet tall and made of bronze, and stands upon a granite pedestal of 16 feet, for a total height of 38 feet. The statue was funded mostly by donations from local citizens, and was constructed entirely by Massachusetts artists and artisans.[19]
  • Just north of the Equestrian Statue is Mary E. Moore's "Small Child Fountain".[20]
  • The Ether Monument, located towards the corner of Arlington and Beacon streets in the northwest corner of the garden, commemorates the first use of ether as an anesthetic.[21] Designed by John Quincy Adams Ward and gifted to the city on June 27, 1868 by Thomas Lee, it is the oldest monument in the garden.[22] Standing 30 feet tall and made of granite and red marble, the statue's carved figures tell the Parable of the Good Samaritan.[23]
  • Just north of the Ether Monument is Daniel Chester French's memorial to the Boston philanthropist George Robert White entitled "The Angel of the Waters", created in 1924.
  • The first statue in the Garden that was made by a woman was Anna Coleman Ladd's Triton Babies Fountain[24] on the east side of the garden. Though some people think the children are a boy and girl, they are in fact her two daughters. It was acquired by the garden in 1927.
  • Bashka Paeff's "Boy and Bird",[25] in the fountain on the west side of the garden, was made by a Russian immigrant who did the model of it while she was working as a ticket taker at the Park Street Station of the MBTA.
  • Lillian Saarinen's fountain piece, "Bagheera",[26] a dynamic statue of the panther from Kipling's Jungle Book, is nearly hidden by a tree.
  • A set of bronze statues based on the main characters from the children's story Make Way for Ducklings is located between the pond and the Charles and Beacon streets entrance.
  • At the east gate on Charles Street is a bronze statue of Edward Everett Hale by Bela Pratt in 1869.
  • Along the south walk in the park is a statue of Wendell Phillips (1811–1884), an orator and abolitionist.
  • Colonel Thomas Cass, commander of the 9th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry which served in the American Civil War is also memorialized on the south walk.
  • Next to the statue of Cass is Thomas Ball's statue of Charles Sumner, a senator from Massachusetts during the Civil War era.
  • The walk also has a statue of Tadeusz Kościuszko, a Polish citizen who fought in the American Revolution as a Colonel.
  • The bridge crossing the lagoon, designed by William G. Preston, opened in 1869.[27] It was the world's shortest functioning suspension bridge before its conversion to a girder bridge in 1921. Its original suspension system is now merely decorative.[citation needed]
  • In July 2004 a memorial was dedicated to the 206 people from Massachusetts who died in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. It is located just inside the Public Garden, at the corner of Arlington and Newbury streets.

Care and upkeep

The park is maintained by the City of Boston, which in 2005 spent $1.2m to keep up its three parks.[28] The city's efforts are supplemented by a charitable organization known as the Friends of the Public Garden, also known as the Rose Brigade. The charity helped finance the repair of the Ether Monument in 2006, and hires specialists to help care for the trees and bushes.[28] Volunteers meet regularly to prune and maintain bushes. Financial support also comes from private sources such as the Beacon Hill Garden Club.[29]

Films and TV

Literature

Painting, photography, and visual arts

  • Scenes from the Public Garden have been painted by notable artists including Edward Brodney.

See also

References

  • Stevens, Charles W. "Boston Public Garden". New England Magazine. Boston: Warren F Kellogg. pp. 343–356. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |month= and |coauthors= (help); External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)
  1. ^ a b James H. Charleton (November 1985), National Register of Historic Places Inventory-Nomination: Boston Public Garden (pdf), National Park Service and Accompanying five photos, from 1985 and undated (32 KB)
  2. ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. January 23, 2007.
  3. ^ a b "Boston Public Gardens". National Historic Landmark summary listing. National Park Service. Retrieved 2008-04-16.
  4. ^ Newman, William A. (2006). Boston's Back Bay: The Story of America's Greatest Nineteenth-Century Landfill Project. Boston: Northeastern University Press. p. 20. ISBN 1555536808.
  5. ^ Horace Gray: Father of the Boston Public Garden
  6. ^ Newman p 23
  7. ^ Stevens p 345
  8. ^ Newman, p.64-65
  9. ^ The New England magazine, Volume 24. p.346. New England Magazine Co., 1901
  10. ^ Stevens p 347
  11. ^ Most, Doug (2014). The Race Underground: Boston, New York, and the Incredible Rivalry that Built America's First Subway. St. Martin's Press. pp. 233–234. ISBN 978-1-250-06135-5.
  12. ^ Boston Landmarks Commission Study report on the Public Garden, 1975. p12
  13. ^ a b Davenport, Arthur (27 September 1964). "Boston's Uncommon Park". New York: New York Times. Retrieved 21 April 2010.
  14. ^ Slack, Donovan (2005-08-12). "Thou art no Romeo". The Boston Globe. Retrieved 2009-12-26.
  15. ^ Reports of the Proceedings of City Council of Boston; 1879.
  16. ^ Reports of the Proceedings of the City Council of Boston; 1882.
  17. ^ Reports on the Proceedings of the City Council of Boston; 1992
  18. ^ City of Boston. Public Garden. Notable trees. Retrieved 2011-10-16
  19. ^ Bacon, Edwin (1883). King's Dictionary of Boston. Boston: Moses King. p. 495.
  20. ^ Boston Art Commission: Small Child Fountain
  21. ^ Boston Public Garden | Boston Sights
  22. ^ "Sculpture & Memorials | Friends of the Public Garden". friendsofthepublicgarden.org. Retrieved 2017-03-18.
  23. ^ Bacon p 169
  24. ^ Boston Art Commission: Triton Babies Fountain
  25. ^ Boston Art Commission: Boy and Bird Fountain
  26. ^ Boston Art Commission: Bagheera Fountain
  27. ^ Boston Landmarks Commission Study Report on the Public Garden, 1975. p18
  28. ^ a b Mohl, Bruce (13 August 2006). "Can a park have too much money?". Boston Globe. Retrieved 28 January 2010.
  29. ^ Friends of the Public Garden. Beacon Hill Garden Club to Donate $55,000 to the Friends. Nov. 17, 2010
  30. ^ "Movies Filmed at Swan Boats (Boston Public Garden) — Movie Maps". moviemaps.org. Retrieved 2017-03-15.

Further reading

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Boston Public Garden.


42°21′15″N 71°4′12″W / 42.35417°N 71.07000°W / 42.35417; -71.07000

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