Old Harbor Reservation Parkways

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Old Harbor Reservation Parkways, Metropolitan Park System of Greater Boston
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Location Boston, Massachusetts
Coordinates 42°19′46″N71°2′45″W / 42.32944°N 71.04583°W / 42.32944; -71.04583 Coordinates: 42°19′46″N71°2′45″W / 42.32944°N 71.04583°W / 42.32944; -71.04583
Area 55.8 acres (22.6 ha)
Built 1893
Architect Frederick Law Olmsted
Arthur Shurcliff
MPS Metropolitan Park System of Greater Boston MPS
NRHP reference #

08000693

[1]
Added to NRHP July 24, 2008

The Old Harbor Reservation Parkways are three historic roads in the Old Harbor area of Boston. They are part of the Boston parkway system designed by Frederick Law Olmsted. They include [2]

Frederick Law Olmsted American journalist, social critic, public administrator, and landscape designer

Frederick Law Olmsted was an American landscape architect, journalist, social critic, and public administrator. He is popularly considered to be the father of American landscape architecture. Olmsted was famous for co-designing many well-known urban parks with his senior partner Calvert Vaux, including Central Park in New York City and Cadwalader Park in Trenton.

Contents

Tadeusz Kościuszko Polish and American military leader

Andrzej Tadeusz Bonawentura Kościuszko was a Polish-Lithuanian military engineer, statesman, and military leader who became a national hero in Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, and the United States. He fought in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth's struggles against Russia and Prussia, and on the U.S. side in the American Revolutionary War. As Supreme Commander of the Polish National Armed Forces, he led the 1794 Kościuszko Uprising.

These roadways follow the southern shoreline of South Boston west from Castle Island, and surround what is now known as Joe Moakley Park. The southernmost point of these roadways is Kosckiuszko Circle. The roadways were added to the National Register of Historic Places on July 24, 2008.

National Register of Historic Places federal list of historic sites in the United States

The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance. A property listed in the National Register, or located within a National Register Historic District, may qualify for tax incentives derived from the total value of expenses incurred preserving the property.

History

Moakley Park, Day Boulevard, and the McCormack Bath House BostonMA MoakleyPark DayBlvd McCormackBathHouse.jpg
Moakley Park, Day Boulevard, and the McCormack Bath House

When Frederick Law Olmsted drafted his plans for Boston's Emerald Necklace of parks in the 1870s, it included the notion of a connection between Franklin Park and the coastline of South Boston and Dorchester, with a waterfront park area. The first formal proposal for the parkland that is now Joe Moakley Park and the causeway connecting Castle Island to the mainland where submitted by Olmsted in the 1880s. Implementation of these plans was delayed in part because Castle Island was still under federal military jurisdiction. [2]

Emerald Necklace

The Emerald Necklace consists of a 1,100-acre chain of parks linked by parkways and waterways in Boston and Brookline, Massachusetts. It gets its name from the way the planned chain appears to hang from the "neck" of the Boston peninsula; to this day it is not fully constructed. In 1989 the Emerald Necklace Parks was designated as Boston Landmark by the Boston Landmarks Commission.

Franklin Park (Boston) Protected area in Massachusetts

Franklin Park, a partially wooded 527-acre (2.13 km2) parkland in the Jamaica Plain, Roxbury, and Dorchester neighborhoods of Boston, Massachusetts, is maintained by the City of Boston Parks and Recreation Department. It is Boston's biggest park and the site of Franklin Park Zoo. It was designated a Boston Landmark by the Boston Landmarks Commission in 1980.

South Boston Neighborhood of Boston in Suffolk, Massachusetts, United States

South Boston is a densely populated neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, located south and east of the Fort Point Channel and abutting Dorchester Bay. South Boston, colloquially known as Southie, was once a predominantly working class Irish Catholic community, but is nowadays a hot spot for the millennial population.

Because of this, the causeway that opened in 1892 was separated from Castle Island by a drawbridge, and it was on that that the oldest of the parkways (originally Gardner Way, now the eastern half of Day Boulevard) was opened. The island would not be fully connected until the 1930s. The development of Joe Moakley Park and the surrounding parkways was planned as part of the connection between Franklin Park and Marine Park (the eastern end of Day Boulevard), with land takings beginning in the 1890s. Old Colony Avenue was laid out in 1898 on a former railroad right-of-way, but the Strandway (now the southern part of Day Boulevard) was not completed until the 1920s. Later aspects of this work were designed by Olmsted protege Arthur Shurcliff. [2]

See also

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References

  1. National Park Service (2009-03-13). "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places . National Park Service.
  2. 1 2 3 "National Register nomination for Old Harbor Reservation Parkways". Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Retrieved 2013-11-19.
  3. Statue in center of the circle, identified on some maps.
  4. Plaque in the center of the circle, not identified on maps.