By: Katie Koenig
Jamaica Pond
Jamaica Pond was initially a kettle hole, which is a term for a body of water that was formed by glaciers. In Boston, a slab of ice buried under other sediment remained when the glaciers retreated. The slab of ice formed a depression in the ground, creating the pond.
This icy history continued even into Boston’s creation, since it hosted a popular winter skating carnival each year. By 1984, the city also began hosting the Lantern Festival around Halloween to celebrate Jamaica Pond’s park beginnings, based on a comment Frederick Law Olmsted made about its natural beauty.
In the 1880s, Olmsted noticed the landscape of Jamaica Pond, describing the “great beauty in reflections and flickering half-lights,” which is what inspires the Lantern Festival. However, Olmsted noticed its beauty even during its most contaminated state, since at the time it was one of many blights to Boston’s landscapes, along with most of what is now Back Bay. Olmsted requested and gained approval to design what is now Jamaica Pond for the Emerald Necklace, subsequently sanitizing the area of its polluted waste.
The pond is a total of 68 acres, making it the largest body of freshwater in Boston. It’s surrounded by almost two miles of walking paths, allowing visitors a scenic stroll and space for the Lantern Festival. In fact, it’s a similar walk to that of the 1800s, since this park is one that Olmsted altered the least from the original view to the final designs. He kept much of the original pond’s shape and surrounding trees, with minimal landscaping and architectural additions. There were a few buildings that he kept, such as the Pinebank house which was built in 1870, but even to this day few buildings have been added.
In the late 1900s, the city focused on renovating walkways and perimeter paths in the park. A historical horse-riding path was converted to a bike and pedestrian pathway, and more paths have been kept up to allow for the large amounts of pedestrian traffic throughout Jamaica pond. Even more recently, renovations have continued, ensuring that the path is still usable and comfortable for visitors.
In 1971, the Olmsted System was added to the National Register of Historic Places. The multiple parks designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, including Jamaica Pond, were all listed within it as part of this system.
Nowadays, maintenance focuses on conserving the landscape rather than architectural development. An example is the demolition of the Pinebank house. After it burned down several times between the 1970s and ‘80s, in the early 2000s the National Park Service finally proposed it to be deconstructed entirely. They moved the still intact parts, particularly the datestone, away for conservation and analysis for potential use in a memorial.
Olmsted Park
As the eponymous creator of the Olmsted System, Frederick Law Olmsted also inspired the name of the park just north of Jamaica Pond. This park wasn’t specifically designed as its own section, per se. Instead, Olmsted was focused on streamlining the Muddy River—the flow of water through ponds and brooks along the Emerald Necklace, which empties into the Charles River.
The section that currently goes by Olmsted Park was originally named the Muddy River Improvement, or Leverett Park after Leverett Pond in the park. However, in 1900, the Boston Park Commission officially named it Olmsted Park.
As with several other parks in Boston, most of the more recent developments have only started in the latter half of the 20th century, leaving them largely unmanaged between their formation and the rise of environmentalist mindsets in the 1960s. In the ‘60s, a skating rink was put in, along with sports courts and parking for visitation and recreation.
Along with Jamaica Pond, in 1971, Olmsted Park was added to the National Register of Historical Places under the Olmsted System. It also went under similar pathway renovations as the Pond in the ‘80s, in addition to rehabilitating the shoreline of its Leverett Pond. The turn of the century brought about a focus on renovating and restoring architectural features like the skating rink with vegetation, bike and pedestrian pathways, and improved benches and waste receptacles along the paths.
This emphasis on the ponds and vegetation is much more in-line with Olmsted’s original view, which was a chain of ponds and waterways that wound through natural greenery and calming sceneries. As with other city projects to renovate the green spaces along the Emerald Necklace, the focus for Boston’s public parks has turned recently to improving the vegetation to its original glory.