The Friends of Fairsted presents From Buffalo to Boston: Olmsted’s Evolving Vision of Urban Park Systems, a lecture by Francis R. Kowsky, PhD, SUNY Distinguished Professor of Fine Arts Emeritus and author of the the book The Best Planned City in the World: Olmsted, Vaux, and the Buffalo Park System, on Thursday, November 21, at Wheelock College, 43 Hawes Street in Brookline. The reception and book signing will begin at 6, with the lecture at 7.
Beginning in 1868, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux planned the first metropolitan park system in America for Buffalo, New York. They designed three distinct parks linked by “parkways,” majestic, tree canopied boulevards that were linear parks in themselves. Displaying a map of Buffalo at the Paris Exhibition in 1878, Olmsted called it the best planned city in the world. That same year, he began to apply the concept he had pioneered in Buffalo to the Boston metropolitan area. Here, he planned six parks stretching from the Charles River to the harbor, a remarkable chain of green spaces today known as the Emerald Necklace.
Free and open to the public. Seating is limited and reservations are required. Email friendsoffairsted@gmail.com. Limited street parking is available. Public parking is not allowed in the Wheelock parking lot.
