Boston Flora

Tag: Emerald Necklace Conservancy

  • Thursday, May 16, 5:30 pm – 7:30 pm – Meeting Our Climate Future

    Join The Emerald Necklace Conservancy on May 16 at 5:30 pm for Meeting Our Climate Future: Lessons in Public-Private Parks Partnerships, a free, public discussion on the shared goals of public parks departments and private parks organizations, as well as the role of partnerships between these two groups in preparing for our climate future. The event will take place at the offices of the Event Sponsor Wilmington Trust, 280 Congress Street, Suite 1300, in Boston. Register at www.emeraldnecklace.org.

    Featuring:

    Kathryn Ott Lovell, Philadelphia Parks Commissioner and 2019 Party in the Park Liff Spirit Awardee
    Commissioner Lovell will discuss highlights of her signature achievements with the City of Philadelphia Parks Department and at her previous role with the Fairmont Parks Conservancy. Additionally, Kathryn will highlight the City of Philadelphia’s leading work on climate readiness with its Stormwater Management programs, in which Philadelphia will invest $2.4 billion in the coming years.

    Chris Cook, Chief, Environment, Energy, and Open Space; Commissioner, Parks and Recreation, Boston
    Chief Cook will present the City’s climate-ready vision to enhance Boston’s waterfront through accessible green space, infrastructure improvements and more.

    Karen Mauney-Brodek, President, Emerald Necklace Conservancy
    Karen will discuss the history America’s first “green infrastructure” project – the Emerald Necklace and the Muddy River – as well as their ongoing restoration. She will also touch on plans for a more resilient Charlesgate Park and highlight other past and proposed partnerships.

  • Monday, April 8, 6:00 pm – 8:30 pm – Emerald Necklace Conservancy Annual Meeting

    Join the Emerald Necklace Conservancy at our 2019 Annual Meeting as we explore the intersection of parks and health with several engaging short presentations. Also hear from President Karen Mauney-Brodek as we recap the success of our 20th Anniversary and share plans for 2019 and beyond. Presentations will be followed by a Q&A session with our speakers and a reception. The event takes place Monday, April 8 from 6 – 8:30 at the Linda K. Paresky Conference Center, Simmons University, 300 The Fenway, Boston.

    Speakers Include:

    • Sara Jensen Carr, Assistant Professor of Architecture, Urbanism and Landscape at Northeastern University
    • Angela Cleveland, AICP, Director of Client Services, Kim Lungdren Associates and President of the MA Chapter of the American Planning Association

    …with more to be announced!

    Registration is FREE, but strongly recommended.

  • Now Through October 31 – Fog x FLO

    Starting this August, The Emerald Necklace Conservancy will launch a “climate responsive” art exhibition. Fog x FLO: Fujiko Nakaya on the Emerald Necklace will introduce park visitors to the internationally renowned “fog sculptures” of Fujiko Nakaya. The installations have been designed to complement and enhance Frederick Law Olmsted’s (FLO) enduring landscapes.

    Fog x FLO will be showcased at the following five locations, and will be free and open to the public from August 11 to October 31, 2018:

    Fog x Canopy, Clemente Field Path, Back Bay Fens
    Fog x Island, Leverett Pond, Olmsted Park, Brookline
    Fog x Beach, Jamaica Pond
    Fog x Hill, Hunnewell Hillside, Arnold Arboretum
    Fog x Ruins, Overlook Ruins, Franklin Park

    Building on this engaging Necklace-wide exhibition, the Conservancy will also develop and pilot new physical and digital way-finding approaches to orient park visitors along the exhibition sites in the Emerald Necklace and install new educational and interpretive displays in the Emerald Necklace Conservancy’s Shattuck Visitor Center at 125 The Fenway.

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  • Thursday, May 31, 11:00 am – Party in the Park – Save the Date

    The 15th Anniversary Party in the Park, the Justine Mee Liff Fund Luncheon, will be held Thursday May 31 at Franklin Park.  Reception begins at 11 am, with 12 noon luncheon. Come celebrate with the Emerald Necklace Conservancy and wear your most outrageous hat.  For more information, call 617-522-2700, or buy tickets online at http://www.emeraldnecklace.org/party-in-the-park

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  • Thursday, March 22, 5:30 pm – 8:00 pm – 2018 Emerald Necklace Conservancy Annual Meeting

    Join the Emerald Necklace Conservancy on Thursday, March 22 at the Landmark Center, 8th floor, 401 Park Drive, in celebration of its 20th anniversary. Hosted by Conservancy President Karen Mauney-Brodek, the Annual Meeting, Parks as Infrastructure for Living, will feature a series of succinct presentations from area thought leaders on the multifaceted role of parks in the urban setting. Topics and speakers include:

    Water
    Pallavi Kalia Mande, Charles River Watershed Association

    Infrastructure
    Dan Adams & Marie Law Adams, LANDING STUDIO

    Access
    Peter Costa & Alyson Fletcher, Nelson/Nygaard Consulting Associates

    Art
    Jen Mergel, Public Art Curator

    RSVP at https://www.emeraldnecklace.org/events/annualmeeting/ by March 15! Doors open at 5:30, and at 6 pm the series of seven minute presentations will begin. At 7, there will be a reception and conversation. Come to the from entrance of the Landmark Center (the old Sears Building for those who remember that far back). Parking is $15 with event validation. Host Sponsor is Samuels & Associates, and FOCUS Real Estate also is a sponsor of this event.

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  • Tuesday, February 27, 6:45 pm – Frederick Law Olmsted and The Massachusetts Legacy

    On Tuesday, February 27, the Norwood Evening Garden Club will host Alan S. Banks who will discuss Frederic Law Olmsted and The Massachusetts Legacy. The meeting will be held at 6:45 p.m. at the Carriage House behind the First Baptist Church, 71 Bond Street, Norwood. The public is invited to attend for a small donation ($5). Refreshments will be served.

    Founded over a century ago, the Frederick Law Olmsted firm was involved in over 1200 landscape architecture projects throughout Massachusetts, ranging from expansive 500-acre public parks to intimate private gardens. One of its greatest achievements is the six-mile “emerald necklace” of ponds, parks and parkways that winds its way through Boston. Olmsted historian Alan Banks brings this rich landscape legacy alive as he explores the ideas that shaped some of the most treasured lands in Massachusetts.

    Alan Banks is the Supervisory Park Ranger at the Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site in Brookline. During the last 16 years, he has developed a variety of landscape walking tours, slide lectures and presentations about the Olmsteds and their work. His programs have been presented to clubs, civic groups, schools, and libraries across Massachusetts. He was a featured speaker at Wellesley College’s Davis Museum as part of their Viewing Olmsted exhibit and was highlighted in the Boston Globe for his walking tours of the Boston Park System. Banks also has served as an Olmsted consultant on various projects including working with Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art on their Art on the Emerald Necklace exhibit and Olmsted’s Landscape Art, a traveling photographic exhibit created in cooperation with the Emerald Necklace Conservancy. He also recently worked with National Geographic Magazine and was lauded for his insightful interpretation of Olmsted’s work in Boston. Legacy Magazine published his article Interpreting Cultural Landscapes: Turning the Inside Out. Working with the National Register of Historic Places he produced Boston’s Arnold Arboretum: A Place for Study and Recreation as part of their Teaching with Historic Places program. It is now available to teachers nationwide to use in their classrooms both in print and via the World Wide Web.

    A member of The Garden Club Federation of Massachusetts, New England Garden Clubs, and National Garden Clubs, Inc., members of the Norwood Evening Garden Club have been providing education and public beautification in Norwood and its surrounding communities since 1996. The Club, open to novice and expert gardeners, draws its members from Norwood, Walpole, Westwood, Dedham, Medfield, Randolph, and Stoughton. For information about the Norwood Evening Garden Club, contact Barbara at 781-762-1270 or visit www.NorwoodEveningGardenClub.com.

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  • Monday, December 4, 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm – Charlesgate Alliance: The Second Meeting

    On Monday, December 4, from 7 – 9, join the Charlesgate Alliance to talk about DCR Charlesgate Park.  This second meeting will take place at 91 Bay State Road, Common Lounge on the first floor, and will include discussions of improvements to DCR Charlesgate Park. The event is sponsored by Charlesgate Alliance, DCR Massachusetts, and the Emerald Necklace Conservancy.

  • Through December 2017 – Projects by Experience: Design Undergrads Re-imagine Life In and Around the Necklace

    As part of the Experience Design Studio, led by Northeastern professor Kristian Kloeckl and organized in collaboration with the Emerald Necklace Conservancy, a group of undergraduate students investigated people’s experience of the Emerald Necklace public park network. Based on a series of on-site interviews and observational studies, students developed design interventions with the goal to positively enhance people’s everyday experience in and around the parks.

    The semester-long studio looked at public parks as places of possibility, participation and co-creation; places of destination and of escape; places for encounter; places of proximity and of distance; places for dynamic appropriation where meaning is constantly negotiated. Projects proposed by the students are material as well as digital, orchestrating objects, services, information systems, ambient installations and events.

    “Developing experience design projects for the Emerald Necklace in Boston also means considering the deep design lessons of Frederick Law Olmsted who designed the park system in the late 19th century,” explained Professor Kloeckl. “Olmsted is known as a landscape architect but could by all means be considered an experience designer given his holistic and human centered approach to design. He referred to the ‘genius of place’ as the unique qualities of a site to be explored and to let them condition all design decisions of a project. The approach the students of this studio course followed was guided by an exploration of place and of how people make use of these parks over time.”

    The exhibit of interventions will be at the Shattuck Visitor Center, 125 The Fenway, through December 2017. Exhibit hours are Weekdays 9 – 5, Weekends 11 – 4. For weekday visits, call ahead, as gallery is a multipurpose room and may be closed for meetings. For more information visit www.emeraldnecklace.org. Telephone 617-522-2700.

  • Wednesday, October 25, 6:00 pm – 7:00 pm – Weird and Worrisome Tour

    All neighborhoods have secrets but some are stranger than others. Just in time for Halloween, we will explore Jamaica Plain in Boston. Participants will stop at sites of anarchist robberies, stuffed elephants, and a nervine asylum and hear tales of train wrecks and things that lurk beneath the surface of Jamaica Pond. The Massachusetts Historical Society tour is hosted in collaboration with the Emerald Necklace Conservancy and the Jamaica Plain Historical Society. Meet on Wednesday, October 25 at 6 at the Loring-Greenough House, 12 South Street in Jamaica Plain. $10 registration fee (no charge for MHS, ENC, or JPHS members.) Image from www.promptguides.com.

  • The Garden Club of the Back Bay Announces 2017 Grants

    At the Annual Meeting of The Garden Club of the Back Bay on May 8, the membership approved the following grants for fiscal year 2017. These grants, given to organizations whose mission closely tracks our own, are in addition to $20,000 allocated directly to neighborhood tree care.  We thank all our volunteers and supporters, who make the magic happen.  Image courtesy of www.tclf.org. The following list is in alphabetical order:

    Arnold Arboretum: $1,500 for the Campaign for the Living Collections, to collect and preserve plants of critical conservation value.

    Blossom Fund of the Boston Committee of the Garden Club of America: $500

    Boston Nature Center/Mass Audubon: $4,000, to support scholarships for their summer camp.  Children range in age from 5 – 14 and are from local neighborhoods of Mattapan, Roslindale and Jamaica Plain.

    Charles River Clean Up Boat: $2,000

    Commonwealth Avenue Mall Committee: $5,000 for its tree care program, including Dutch elm disease monitoring and soil improvement.

    Emerald Necklace Conservancy: $2,500, to the Olmsted Tree Society for planting a pathway tree.

    Esplanade Association: $5,000, for the 2017 critical tree maintenance program, allocated to pruning.

    Friends of Copley Square: $1,500 for treating trees for root stress, and for fertilizer and fungicide.

    Friends of the Public Garden: $5,000 for tree care and preservation of the historic elms planted on Commonwealth Avenue in the block west of Massachusetts Avenue.

    Food Project: $2,000 for building raised bed gardens for Boston residents and community centers.

    Mothers Out Front: $1,000 for educating the public on the effects of gas leaks on trees in the urban landscape.