OWNERSHIP
CONDITIONS AND CONTEXT
CONNECTIONS
HISTORY
ENVIRONMENTAL AND DESIGN ISSUES
PLANNING PROCESSES
TESTIMONIES

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OWNERSHIP:
The southern section of the Emerald Necklace, where the majority of the greenspace lies, is located in the Heart of the City. According to the Emerald Necklace Conservancy, the Emerald Necklace stretches from Charlesgate in the north to Franklin Park in the south, and includes six parks: Back Bay Fens, the Riverway, Olmsted Park, Jamaica Pond, the Arnold Arboretum, and Franklin Park. The City of Boston Department of Parks and Recration includes the Boston Common, the Boston Garden, and the Mall as part of the Emerald Necklace system, although none of these were designed by Olmsted. 

-- Franklin Park, Jamaica Pond, Back Bay Fens, and most of Olmsted Park are under the jurisdiction of the City of Boston Department of Parks and Recreation.
-- Arnold Arboretum is owned by and partially managed by the City of Boston. It is leased to and mostly managed by the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University.
-- About 30 acres of land along the Riverway, Jamaicaway, and Arborway, as well as the parkways themselves are under the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan District Commission (MDC).
-- West bank of Olmsted Park and the Riverway is under the jurisdiction of the Town of Brookline.

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CONDITIONS and CONTEXT:
The Emerald Necklace refers to the linear Boston park system that was designed in the late 19th century by renowned landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted and his colleagues. The parks designed by Olmsted were approximately six miles in length and 1,000 acres in area. Franklin Park comprises about half of the total area of the Emerald Necklace. The park system is based on a watercourse that runs more or less north-south, and individual parks are connected by parkways. Jamaica Pond, the Arnold Arboretum, and Franklin Park are connected by a parkway designed by Olmsted called the Arborway.

Although the Emerald Necklace system continues to be used and enjoyed by many, in 2003, the necklace is plagued by a polluted waterway choked with invasive species and sections of broken pathway. Parkways that were originally designed for carriages handle more traffic than any other roads in the Heart of the City. When some sections of parkland were sold and paved, gaps were created in the otherwise continuous park system, making biking and walking the necklace more difficult and dangerous. Flooding of the Muddy River has caused expensive damage to homes and businesses in Boston and Brookline.

Olmsted's original plan for the Boston park system extended east of Franklin Park along Columbia Road and the Dorchesterway to Marine Park/ Castle Island. Although certain sections of this stretch have been lined with trees and grass at certain points over the last 120 years, this vision for the necklace was never fully realized.

The Emerald Necklace as a whole is beyond the scope of the Heart of the City database. However, many environmental resources in the Heart of the City are crucial elements of the larger citywide parks system, which is widely known as one of the best in the nation.

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CONNECTIONS:
The Emerald Necklace Conservancy, the Boston Department of Parks and Recreation, and BikeBoston have promoted the Emerald Necklace Greenway concept in recent years. Not only have these groups sought to make the Emerald Necklace itself stronger, they have also sought to improve connections between the Emerald Necklace and the Southwest Corridor Park through the greening of major east/west corridors that connect the two.
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HISTORY:
Frederick Law Olmsted was hired in 1879 to prepare a design for the Boston parks system and worked in Boston until 1885. The Olmsted firm transformed a number of previously unconnected features to create a linear park system along a continuous waterway. Toward the end of his life, Olmsted referred to the "Boston work" as the most important in his career. It included the first public arboretum in the nation, as well as the first parks designed to provide public open space while inexpensively and beautifully solving public health and engineering problems in the city. According to an 1893 report of the board of the Metropolitan Park Commissioners, the Boston Parks system cost $11 million to establish, with yearly expenses of $100,000.

The first park Olmsted designed in Boston was the Back Bay Fens. He designed the park to be a storm drainage basin, planting gently sloping banks with marsh grasses and other plants that could tolerate changing water levels. This design for a public park provided an alternative to an unattractive and expensive masonry basin. The parks of the Emerald Necklace were designed landscapes "shaped by troops of workers and teams of horses" as much as they were by nature (Spirn, A.W., "Reclaiming common ground: the future shape of Boston," 1985).

When the parks were first created, they were well maintained by a staff of hundreds. Since that time, maintenance of the Emerald Necklace Parks has declined. According to Justine Liff, the Commissioner of the City of Boston Department of Parks and Recreation, for many years the Department of Parks and Recreation did little more than "pick up the trash and mow the lawn." In recent years, however, the Parks Department has focused on restoration of woodlands and extensive restoration of the Muddy River (Justine Liff, Boston Parks Commissioner, from an article by Beth Daley, "City embarks on restoring the necklace," The Boston Globe, Sept. 27, 2000).

Efforts to address the damage done by years of neglect have required significant capital expenditure. In 1988, the City of Boston designed and implemented a sign system for the entire Emerald Necklace. Between 1990 and 2001, about $60 million in capital expenditures were spent on parks and waterways in the Emerald Necklace by the City of Boston and the Town of Brookline. Investments have been made in improved pathways, plantings and signage, bridge repairs, and the restoration of boardwalks and buildings to address the decades of neglect (City of Boston Parks and Recreation).

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ENVIRONMENTAL and DESIGN ISSUES:
-- A common problem throughout the entire Emerald Necklace is the lack of capacity for active management of the landscape, for example forestry, weeding, and planting. Landscape management issues include overgrown woodlands that inhibit access, invasive species, clogged waterways, stands of singled-aged trees that are dying simultaneously, and overgrown overlooks that afford no view of the surrounding area. 

-- The lack of regular maintenance and regular replacement of infrastructure such as some bridges, sidewalks, boardwalks, and signs has in some areas led to their deterioration and the need for significant capital expenditure to bring the Necklace back to a safe, well-managed state. 

-- The Emerald Necklace was designed to provide an uninterrupted flow of greenspace for all of Boston to enjoy. In 2002, there are several breaks in the Emerald Necklace, one of which is in the Heart of the City (the link between the Arnold Arboretum and Franklin Park in the Forest Hills area).

-- The abuse of parklands by motor vehicles is widespread, but has been limited by the edges that are blocked or partially lined by hunks of concrete or stone. 

-- The Muddy River, which runs through much of the Emerald Necklace, including part of Brookline, has been plagued by poor water quality and clogging, which leads to destructive floods. In 1996 and 1998, flooding resulted in major damage to the Kenmore Square MBTA station and major losses. 

-- The Emerald Necklace and Boston as a whole lie along the Atlantic Flyway, which is a major traveling pattern for migratory birds. The greenspaces in the area are thus used by a wide variety of birds, including many species of songbird. 

-- Four different entities have jurisdiction over the Emerald Necklace -- the City of Boston, the Town of Brookline, the Metropolitan District Commission, and Harvard University. Some individuals make a compelling case for formalized interjurisdictional management along the Muddy River area of the Emerald Necklace. In these areas, the City of Brookline and the City of Boston must work together to manage the park. The case for interjurisdictional management is weaker for other sections of the Necklace, such as Franklin Park, which is completely within Boston.

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PLANNING PROCESSES:
-- The Emerald Necklace Master Plan has been produced in distinct chunks. In 1991, the Franklin Park Master Plan was published. In 2001, the Emerald Necklace Master Plan, which includes the parks from Back Bay Fens to Jamaica Pond, was published. The Arnold Aboretum underwent an internal master planning process in 2001 and 2002, the results of which will not be made widely accessible. In the spring of 2002, the Arborway Master Planning process was publicly initiated. 

-- A Citizen Advisory Committee (CAC) participates in decision-making processes relating to the Emerald Necklace. Through 2002, the committee has focused almost exclusively on the Muddy River section of the Emerald Necklace. State and local officials signed a memorandum of understanding committing $7.1 million for the first phase of the Muddy River Restoration Project. State and local agencies, along with the CAC, produced a phase one plan for "Muddy River flood control, water quality, habitat enhancement, and historic preservation project" in December 2001. The restoration project, which will cost an estimated $90 million, has the goal of restoring the historic landscape rather than completely remaking the park system. 

-- The Emerald Necklace Conservancy, led by Simone Auster, takes a long-term view of the Emerald Necklace and has been actively involved in all planning processes that relate to the Emerald Necklace parks.

-- In 2003, the Emerald Necklace Conservancy created the Justine Mee Liff Fund, a fund used for ongoing maintenance of the city's Emerald Necklace sytem, in memory of the late Boston Parks Commissioner. Of the tasks set forth by the Justine Mee Liff Fund, two were recently completed; restoration of the Jamaica Pond Boathouse and the Perkins Street stairs. (Dana Bisbee, "All That Glitters; Park Lovers' Support Keeps 'Emerald Necklace' Glistening," The Boston Herald, May 28, 2006.) 

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TESTIMONIES:
"Priorities: Create linkages/ greenways between the Southwest Corridor and the Emerald Necklace at major cross streets, particularly those where MBTA Orange Line stops are located. Use as a potential model the ISTEA-funded project Connecting the Corridors, which enhances Forsyth Street to connect the Southwest Corridor and the Emerald Necklace," (City Open Space Plan, 2003, p158).

"It will not, I trust, be thought beyond my duty if I point out a circumstance which appears to me to be operating as yet not a little to the disadvantage of Boston. It is that the Boston of today is largely made up of what were formerly a number of distinct local communities, each habituated to regard its public affairs from an independent point of view, and sometimes in a spirit of competition and jealousy towards the others" (Frederick Law Olmsted, Seventh annual report to the commissioners of the Department of Parks for the City of Boston for the year 1881).

"[The Emerald Necklace] was meant to stretch green, half wild, to the grounds of the Arboretum, Jamaica Pond, the Muddy River, Fenway, to the Boston Common on one side, and in the opposite direction down a shady arbor of trees, a stately, wooded Columbia road, to the open blue Atlantic" (M.J. Mirsky, "Who lost the Emerald Necklace? In search of Franklin Park," The Boston Globe Magazine, 1979).

"The Emerald Necklace is a work of art of national importance. But people misunderstand it; they think its just a meadow and if the bramble grows, so what? If we don't restore it, it won't be here in the future" (Justine Liff, Boston Parks Commissioner, from an article by Beth Daley, "City embarks on restoring the necklace,"The Boston Globe, Sept. 27, 2000).

"[The Emerald Necklace is] the sad relic of a synthetic landscape infrastructure in Boston, barely discernible among its poisoned waterways, broken parkways, and listless governing authorities" (Gina Crandell, professor of landscape design at Harvard University, from an article by Alex Beam, "Slinging Mud at the 'little dig,'" The Boston Globe, March 11, 2003).

"The Emerald Necklace was a Brownfields project of the 19th century. Every bend in the river, every tree is a human creation. It is a wonderful park system with flood storage function and a highway threaded through it" (Jay Wickersham, director of the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act (MEPA) Office, lecture for the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston, Nov. 4, 2002).

"The Emerald Necklace was a way of unifying this new city of Boston, drawing Roxbury, West Roxbury, Dorchester and Boston proper together in green leading strings" (M.J. Mirsky, "Who lost the Emerald Necklace? In search of Franklin Park," The Boston Globe Magazine, 1979).

"We've had lots of experience in human use, but not the expertise in horticulture" (Justine Liff, Boston Parks Commissioner, from an article by Beth Daley, "City embarks on restoring the necklace,"The Boston Globe, Sept. 27, 2000).

 "We had a choice of either reclaiming the landscape or doing something new. We could have done avant-garde parks and open spaces, but I am not sure they are vastly more successful for people than the Olmsted original. Is there anything that people love more in a park than the sense of being out of the city, in a landscape of grass and trees and water?" (Margaret Dyson, director of historic parks for Boston's Department of Parks and Recreation, from an article by Alex Beam, "Slinging Mud at the 'little dig,'" The Boston Globe, March 11, 2003).

"Oncoming cars pass dangerously close to one another on the narrow, four-lane stretch. And there is no shoulder where police can safely detain speeders" (Written by a woman who lives on the Jamaicaway regarding Emerald Necklace parkways, "Dangerous necklace," The Boston Globe, Dec. 27, 2002).

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