Franklin Park (as a whole - ENTRY #1)

ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES
DESIGN ISSUES
SOCIAL ISSUES
PLANNING PROCESSES
TESTIMONIES

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ENVIRONMENTAL
ISSUES:
Diseased hemlock trees:
An insect known as the hemlock wooly adelgid is attacking and killing a stand of old growth hemlock trees in the Wilderness area of Franklin Park and beyond. According to Bernard Lynch, director of maintenance for the Boston Parks Department, the department has a plan for planting and for dealing with hemlock trees under attack from the insect, but implementation of the plans are subject to the availability of funding and as of the summer of 2002 no such funding was available.

Drainage:
The pipes in the Franklin Park system are undersized and operate poorly due to erosion, the infiltration of high volumes of groundwater, and lack of adequate maintenance. Periodic flooding of Franklin Park has been the norm. In 2002, the City invested in a new drainage system for the Franklin Park golf course.

Poor drainage also affects areas outside the park. Along Seaver Street after a rain, water from the park seeps through the rocks and onto the street causing large puddles to form, sometimes creating icy conditions for drivers. The flooding is most severe at the intersection of Seaver Street and Blue Hill Avenue, as well as at the intersection of Seaver Street and Walnut Avenue. Minor flooding also occurs at the Williams Street entrance on Forest Hill Street.

Trees and soils:
Tree diversity is low in Franklin Park, with five oak species making up approximately 73% of the trees in the Wilderness area (Kelty, 1998). In 1991, fire damage to trees was evident in over 40% of park area. Soil compaction is problematic in areas where the trees are sensitive to root damage, such as hemlock groves in the woodlands.

Invasive species:
Several invasive species affect plant diversity and human health in Franklin Park. The Department of Parks and Recreation is most concerned with poison ivy, which causes some people's skin to form an itchy rash and is prolific in Franklin Park. In 2002, workers from Zoo New England identified "giant hogweed" in two areas of the Franklin Park Zoo. Giant hogweed exudes a clear sap that makes skin unusually susceptible to UV radiation. Exposed skin may experience severe, painful blistering that can develop into purple or black scars. The weed raises alarm wherever it is discovered, although in this case the weed appears to be under control and harmless to visitors. Greenbriar, which is resistant to herbicides, is the most pervasive invasive species in the Wilderness area of the park. Glossy buckthorn and Japanese knotweed are also found in significant quantities and can crowd out other native vegetation.

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DESIGN ISSUES:
Lack of a center:
Frederick Law Olmsted's design of the main section of Franklin Park (the Country Park -- now the golf course) did not have a "center" -- a place where people could gather and become better oriented. Rather, Franklin Park was designed to be an expanse of unbroken, rolling green.

In a 1987 survey, 85% of those surveyed wanted a meeting place in Franklin Park where they could find information and food (Halvorson, 1987). Four years later, the Franklin Park Master Plan concluded, "Franklin Park lacks a center, a place where people can go to orient themselves to the park as a whole and what it has to offer, to learn of park history and ecology, and to meet friends and have something to eat. The first-time visitor does not know what to expect, and can be discouraged from further exploration because of uncertainty about the park and about what he might do there. This caution is fueled by the park's lingering reputation of being an unsafe place" (1991 Franklin Park Master Plan, p65).

In 2002, these same concerns are echoed by first time visitors who have no way of knowing how the park is laid out or what they can do or find in the park. Their sense of anxiety is heightened by their lack of orientation. Many visitors say they would not feel comfortable returning to the park unless they were coming for a special event with clear signage. Although the need for a center to Franklin Park has long been articulated, no such center has been constructed.

Bathrooms:
The only public bathroom facility in the park is at the Franklin Park golf course club house. On summer weekends, the club house bathrooms often are used by more than 400 people, according to a golf course manager from Sterling Management. The bathrooms are often abused and require cleaning several times each day. This puts a disproportionate burden on the golf course management. Although port-o-lets are available for festivals in Franklin Park, use of the club house facilities during these times becomes even more intense.

A sealed bathroom facility in the Playstead Overlook area attracts vandalism and prostitution according to local residents. In August 2002, the Steading Stewardship group, which is part of the Franklin Park Coalition, advocated strongly to have these bathrooms removed. The Franklin Park Coalition has placed the removal of the bathrooms among its first priorities for capital improvements in Franklin Park.

Orientation and physical organization:
In the interior of the park, much of the signage in the park is regulatory signage for Circuit Drive. The orienting signage in the interior of Franklin Park is sporadically located, difficult to read, and often in poor condition. Maps of Franklin Park are located deep within the park and rarely at major entrances or crossroads. They are often illegible. Areas such as the Wilderness, which can be a maze of trails even to repeat-visitors, are completely lacking in orienting maps. Although signage at the Forest Hills gate to Franklin Park is adequate for drivers, it does not orient pedestrians to the park as a whole. There is no signage for Franklin Park at the main entrance at Blue Hill Avenue/ Peabody Circle (although signage for Zoo New England does exist). Informative historical information at the base of the 99-Steps in the Wilderness has been partially blasted away.

Although Frederick Law Olmsted did not originally intend to provide signage and maps for Franklin Park, the 1980 Revised General Plan for the park expressed the frustration of many people today who do not know the park intimately. It notes that obstacles to the flow of people included "random circulation patterns, pathways abruptly ending, conflicts between pedestrian and automobile, and the general lack of clear physical organization" (p22). The plan suggested a basic restructuring of the total walk and path system, with four networks of trails, each with central information and gathering points. These networks were never explicitly developed, although major trail improvements did occur and signage at many entrances was improved as well.

Shattuck Hospital and Shattuck Shelter:
The presence of Shattuck Hospital and Shattuck Shelter within the park dramatically alters the park experience. The stark nine-plus-story Shattuck Hospital towers impact the entire area and are inconsistent with the original plans for the park. There has been little effort either on the Morton Street side or the Circuit Drive side to shield the Shattuck from the rest of the park with creative plantings. 

In some ways, however, the administrators of Shattuck Hospital play a positive role in the health and success of Franklin Park as a whole. A crew from Shattuck Hospital typically participates in Franklin Park clean-up, and the Shattuck has played host to a group of institutions in the area that hope to coordinate more efficient transportation services for their mutual benefit.

Active versus passive recreation:
Throughout the United States, beginning in the 1930s, people have pursued active recreational facilities with little regard to the original design of historic parks. As a result, the ostensibly passive sections of Franklin Park have acquired playgrounds, ball fields, a stadium, an 18-hole golf course, and a tobogganing slope. Park advocates who are committed to the historic ideal of Franklin Park find themselves at odds with active recreational users. Olmsted designed Franklin Park to achieve a delicate balance that may be no longer viable in the Franklin Park of today.

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SOCIAL ISSUES:
Balancing user groups:
Franklin Park is used by a wide range of user groups comprised of people who feel strongly about their rights to the park. Although various user groups have at times come together to advocate for the park as a whole, the groups have also been what one park advocate called "warring tribes." Even in the park’s early years, Olmsted experienced the difficulty of balancing the passive enjoyment that the Country Park was designed for with the growing demand for active sports such as biking, running, golf, baseball, and tennis. More than a century later, balancing user groups was a primary challenge of ICON Architecture and the City Department of Parks and Recreation as they worked to craft a Franklin Park Management Plan in 2001 and 2002.

Areas at the center of conflict between user groups include the Wilderness, Circuit Drive, the Playstead area, the golf course, and parking areas. Those who walk in the Wilderness sometimes conflict with cross-country runners who whiz by them on the wooded trails. Motorcycle groups and other drivers clash with those who want Circuit Drive to be closed to vehicular traffic part or all of the time. Advocates for summer festivals sometimes conflict with year-round park users and abutters, and golf course and zoo managers, all of which have expressed frustration with the traffic and parking issues. Festivals take a heavy toll on the park and can overwhelm business at the golf course and the zoo. Also, because the golf course is only accessible to a small subset of the population, some non-golfers protest their lack of access to the Country Park and to the significant water resources consumed by the golf course. Finally, various user groups have conflicted over access to parking. User groups that infringe on the zoo's capacity to welcome visitors are perceived by some as a threat to the viability of the zoo.

Perception of safety:
Over the past several decades, planners and advocates have argued that perception of safety in Franklin Park is a major hindrance to park use. In 1980, according to the revised general plan for Franklin Park, the park was "widely believed to be strictly a neighborhood park, dangerous and off limits to outsiders" (p13). The plan concluded that "the most pressing and insidious problem is the park's public image."

A study by the Halvorson Company Inc. in 1987 found that image problems and rumors of drug and crime incidents in years past continued to inhibit park use. The major problems in the park were perceived as crime and maintenance. Although the park was still perceived to be unsafe in 1991, 72% of those interviewed for the Franklin Park Master Plan had noticed changes in the park in recent years and four-fifths of them described these changes as positive. People had a sense that the park was "coming back" and some had only recently begun using the park again as a result (p26).

This trend has continued through the 1990s, and in 2003 people in the park profess a higher level of comfort and perception of safety than they have in previous years. Managers at the City Department of Parks and Recreation perceive an increase in use of the park almost on a weekly basis. Informal surveys of women in the park suggest that they feel safe walking alone during the day in the Wilderness, as well as on the more heavily traveled sections of the park. One resident of the Parkside community in Jamaica Plain said she visited the park every morning at dawn and felt entirely comfortable. Local real estate agents confirm this trend. One long-term agent in Jamaica Plain reported that "Franklin Park is not seen as dangerous anymore. That perception has changed dramatically over the past five to ten years."

That trend is not changing as rapidly for potential visitors outside the Heart of the City. In 2001, Simone Auster, director of the Emerald Necklace Conservancy, felt that concern about safety was the primary obstacle to visitation to the Emerald Necklace -- and Franklin Park in particular -- among people throughout the region, especially those living outside the Heart of the City.

Crime:
History:
According to long-term resident and planner Melvine Levine, racial/ neighborhood conflict in the mid-1900s was infrequent within the park but did occur along the edges, particularly along Seaver Street. Beginning in the 1960s and extending through the early 1980s, Franklin Park experienced a period of significant vandalism, drug use, sexual assault, and other crimes, including three rapes on Glen Road in 1980. Then in 1982, when the Playstead and other roads were blocked to motor vehicles, these types of crime dropped dramatically. Even very vulnerable residents began to use the park once more. According to Boston Police Department statistics, Franklin Park had less criminal activity than any other large public park in Boston in the late 1980s and early 1990s (Franklin Park Master Plan, 1991).

At the same time, crime in Franklin Park is still a major concern among park advocates, and in recent years Franklin Park and its immediate surroundings have experienced a higher number of violent crimes than other parks and protected areas in the Heart of the City. Between 1999 and 2001, an average of 22 violent crimes were committed each year in and around Franklin Park, while only four violent crimes were committed in and around the Arnold Arboretum. On the other hand, the Arnold Arboretum had an average of 18% more property crimes over the same time period than did Franklin Park, with an average of 55 property crimes per year committed in and around the Arboretum and 48 property crimes committed in and around Franklin Park.

Drug use, littering, and animal sacrifice are all regular problems in Franklin Park in 2002. Daily dog walkers report regular findings of drug paraphernalia in the park's wooded areas. Between 1999 and 2001, there was an average of 16 reported drug incidences per year in Franklin Park. Littering is particularly problematic in areas of the park that do not appear cared for, such as the area next to Shattuck Hospital between Cemetery Road and Morton Street in Jamaica Plain. Despite these problems, informal surveys of walkers indicate that over the past several years people have felt increasingly comfortable and safe walking alone in most of the wooded areas of the park during the day.

Policing:
Multiple uncoordinated law enforcement groups patrol various parts of Franklin Park. These include municipal police, state police, B-2, B-3, and E-13 city police, the city's Park Rangers, Shattuck Shelter private security guards, Franklin Park Zoo security, and MBTA security. The entire park technically lies within the jurisdiction of the B2 City police. However, both precincts E13 and B3 have edges of Franklin Park as a boundary. Members of the various police forces are often unclear about their jurisdictions within the park. The public does not know where to report crimes that occur in the park. In 2002, the Franklin Park Coalition began to address this issue by bringing law enforcement groups together for public discussions.

Festivals:
Festivals such as the Puerto Rican festival, the Kite Festival, Dominican Republic Independence Day, and the Caribbean Carnival/ Festival have introduced many people to Franklin Park and are deeply valued by large numbers of people in Greater Boston. However, festivals take a significant toll on the land and require careful management. Abutters complain that some festivals in Franklin Park have resulted in piles of trash on their lawns, throbbing music that keeps them up late into the night, screeching cars, and impossible parking situations (Walter Pollard, 2002). At the same time, according to the Franklin Park Coalition, complaints about the festivals in 2002 were far less numerous and angry than they had been in years past. Although traffic and parking are problematic, extra security and efforts on the part of festival organizers to keep noise levels down late at night have alleviated much of the conflict. The Coalition includes increasing numbers of regular and board members who plan or participate in the festivals and seek to address the concerns of abutters.

Festivals in the park have at times been associated with violence, although in many cases the violence has occurred outside of the park. The Caribbean festival has a reputation for being particularly well managed among many residents, but has also been associated with gun violence. The most celebrated incident occurred on the last day of the Caribbean Festival in 1993, when two residents of the Franklin Hill public housing development fired at least 20 shots into the festival crowd, which numbered hundreds of people, wounding ten people (John Ellement, The Boston Globe,  Feb. 10, 1995. Boston Globe). Two homicides occurred near Franklin Park in 2001 and were, rightly or wrongly, associated with the Caribbean Carnival. In 2002, the Franklin Park Coalition is working to facilitate a coalition of festival organizers and concerned neighbors to increase city services and management.

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PLANNING PROCESSES:
-- Since 2001, ICON Architecture and the City of Boston Department of Parks and Recreation have worked to create a Franklin Park Management Plan. The Parks Department, as well as the Franklin Park Coalition, plan to base future work on the management plan, which in the spring of 2003 has yet to be published.

-- Small-scale planning processes are taking place in the pocket stewardship groups that have sprung up under the leadership of the Franklin Park Coalition, particularly in areas such as the Steading and the Williams Street and Glen Road entrances, all of which are on the Forest Hills edge of the park. 

-- Metropolitan District Commission (MDC) planning for a new design for Peabody Circle at the intersection of Blue Hill Avenue and Circuit Drive was underway in 2000, but has been put on hold indefinitely.

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TESTIMONIES:
"I never saw a country which so delighted me. A man might travel many hundred miles and not find so fine woodlands as abound in this neighborhood" (Ralph Waldo Emerson in reference to the land that would become Franklin Park).

"The ground finally selected [for Franklin Park] has the usual characteristics of the stony upland pasture and the rocky divides between streams commonly found in New England, covered by what is called 'second growth' woods...forming impressive masses of foliage. It is in all parts underlaid by ledges which break out...in a bold and picturesque way. There is not within or near the city any other equal extent of ground of as pleasing simple rural aspect...Franklin Park...possesses the soothing charm which lies in the qualities of breadth, distance... intricacy... and mystery...an aspect approaching grandeur" (Frederick Law Olmsted in 1886, cited in "A history of Franklin Park" published by the Franklin Park Coalition, 1978).

"All this magnificent pleasure-ground is entirely, unreservedly, and forever the people's own...Is it not a grand good thing?" (Frederick Law Olmsted).

"It is not an easy matter, in the immediate outskirts of a great city, to make a provision of scenery which shall be so far rural in character and pleasing in effect as to have a high degree of the influence desired" (Frederick Law Olmsted, Notes on Franklin Park, 1886).

"As an illustration of park designing, Franklin Park is probably the best piece of work by Frederick Law Olmsted" (John Olmsted, son of Frederick Law Olmsted).

"Many Bostonians apparently avoided the park until Olmsted's large-scale pastoral scenery was redefined as a background for large-crowd entertainments" (Alexander von Hoffman, Of Greater Lasting Consequence, p349).

"Beyond measuring the physical attributes of the site, designers of large parks rarely gave much thought to the immediate neighbors of the new green spaces. The creators and proponents of public landscapes did not believe that parks should express the local character or uniqueness of Jamaica Plain or any other individual neighborhood. Inspired by the universal principles of moral and aesthetic philosophy, park proponents and designers instead hoped to uplift whole cities and refine the entire nation" (Alexander von Hoffman, Local Attachments, 1993, p66).

"The city's response to the park's problems has been to increase the number of attractions: golf course, zoo, rose garden, stadium, and so on - a policy that has only aggravated the situation" (Zaitzevsky, 1992, p79).

"Exactly as Olmsted warned 90 years earlier, the neighborhoods were being drained by the shabby, unpoliced park in its midst...Soon, what was once a most desirable area became shunned" (Richard Heath, A Century's Appraisal).

"The back roads [of Franklin Park] had been filled with gangsters, Cadillacs spewing out heroin and prostitutes. Before we blocked off the road by the bird cage, the worst mess...Cars would pull in, you could get anything - booze, beer, dope. If the trunk were open - it was beer or whiskey. If the hood was open - dope. If the side doors were open, you name it. There was a travel trailer with twelve or so men trying to move it into the Wilderness. [There were] two girls, indignant when we asked them to leave, "They was just trying to make a living." This was a great dumping-off place - hot cars, safes, crates...It was nothing to find a girl dazed, raped, wandering around all night or tied to a tree" (Parks Superintendent George Boutelier in 1979, from Mirsky, 1979).

"For a long time, the only people who used any part of Franklin Park were the black people." (Bruce Smith, deputy director of public health practice at the Harvard School of Public Health and lifelong Dorchester resident).

"[Franklin Park] served a purpose larger than entertainment and spiritual renewal. For decades Franklin Park had proved the perfect geographic separator for Boston's xenophobic ethnic groups. Lifelong Bostonians understood that their city consisted of invisible lines across which one might shop and visit but not sink roots....No one had to waste breath telling the Jews that they were unwanted west of Franklin Park. It was widely known as well that blacks were free to stake their claim to the rundown neighborhoods north of the park provided they steered clear of the Jewish regions to the south and the Irish areas to the east and west. The invisible lines reflected the spirit of Massachusetts" (Levine & Harmon, 1994, p21-22).

"Franklin Park is not a community park. It is an Olmsted miracle; it is the major park in Boston; it is one of the most important parks in America. Franklin Park lives. It will live with us or without us. I would rather see that it lived with us. It is a park located in a community, benefiting the city, belonging in part ot the Commonwealth, and making a splash on the American scene" (Elma Lewis, of the Elma Lewis School of Fine Arts and founder of the Franklin Park Coalition, Roxbury IPOD Open space needs assessment and planning study, 1989).

"We think [Franklin Park] is a great asset, but the park department certainly doesn't view it as anything that it ought to take great care of. We had the city close the park to traffic, and it worked for the first two years. When the barriers were first put up, it was cut and clear for the police to do their patrolling. Since then, a lot of barriers were destroyed, the police in the park were understaffed, and the young kids with their cars are beginning to have their drag races again. Its frustrating" (Edwina Cloherty, Jamaica Plain resident in 1976, Boston 200 Neighborhood History Series).

"It is almost impossible to overstate the impact of this citizens' advocacy group [the Franklin Park Coalition], which, under the leadership of Richard Heath and later directors, has spearheaded an incredible number and variety of efforts on behalf of Franklin Park" (Cynthia Zaitzevsky, Franklin Park Historic Landscape Report, 1992).

"Franklin Park is not in danger of being loved to death. The golf course may be played to capacity but except for major events that happen only a few times a year, the park is not used very much in comparison to other parks in major urban centers - like San Francisco and Atlanta (Betsy Shuregross, Executive Office of Environmental Affairs).

"We don't have a lot of black things that go on in Boston. This is about us" (Ina Bacote, on the Caribbean Festival in Franklin Park, from an article by Laurel J. Sweet, "All the colors of Carnival," The Boston Herald, Aug. 25, 2002).

"To me, Franklin Park truly represents the best of urban living. The park is a common meeting ground for people of all backgrounds and all walks of life" (Christine Poff, executive director of the Franklin Park Coalition, 2002).

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End of Franklin Park (as a whole - ENTRY #2)

Franklin Park (as a whole - ENTRY #1)