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Perhaps more than
anyone else, Frederick Law
Olmsted (1822-1903) affected the way America looks.
He is best known as the creator of city parks, including
Central Park and Prospect Park in New York and the Emerald Necklace
here in Boston. In
fact, Olmsted was America’s first landscape architect!
Olmsted made parks because he wanted a place for relaxation in the middle of a city.
No one knows who
named the park system, but if you look at it on a map it looks like
a string of green, making an “Emerald
Necklace.” Work
on the Emerald Necklace began in 1878 and was not finished until
1896. That’s 18
years! It runs through
both the City of Boston
and the Town of Brookline.
There are six parks in the Necklace: Franklin Park, Arnold Arboretum, Jamaica Park, Olmsted Park, the
Riverway and the Back Bay Fens. There
are thousands of trees, shrubs and flowers in the park system, as
well as wildlife habitat! It
is the only remaining, intact “string” of parks designed by
Olmsted and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
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