Urban Parks Debates in a Nutshell

Here’s the shortest version of an urban parks debate: the parks don’t serve everyone equally! How can you choose some users over others?

Here’s a slightly longer version: Jamaica Plain’s South Street Mall (at the corner of South Street and Carolina Avenue) has just reopened after three years of renovations. The Jamaica Plain Voice has a video of what looks to be a pretty spiffy little park, with young shade trees-to-be, benches, perennials, and a crazy wavy wire fence that gets lit from below at night, looking spooky and cool at the same time.

But – but! – the Jamaica Plain Voice piece also hosts comments. The first two comments read as follows:

“I used to live nearby on Goldsmith St. and am happy to see this big new plus for the neighborhood.”

“Are you serious? This is a glorified expansion of the sidewalk. Mature trees were taken down for this? What happened to the concrete tables and chairs where people could sit and play dominoes? You know why they aren’t there? Because the neighbors didn’t like seeing black folks out there “hanging around”. So I guess it’s a plus for some people and not for others.”

And that, my friends, is the urban parks debate in a nutshell. The park was ugly– it certainly doesn’t look terribly  appealing in the above 2002 photo– but it was used by some people who didn’t have much influence over the renovation. The new park doesn’t have any tables or movable chairs, just benches. It’s not as fun to play dominoes on your lap. I can’t comment on the neighbors’ motivations, but it sounds like most of the younger folks weren’t getting much out of the park.

The Rappaport Institute’s “Heart of the City” site says this about the old park:

“CONDITIONS: This 0.44-acre mall contains two tennis courts bordered by a tall chain link fence. The courts are not inviting to passers-by. There is a passive sitting area along the edge of the busy street. There is no grass on the site, only small tree pits with trees in them. The park does not create a feeling of peace and seclusion from the city, but is frequently used as a resting place for older people in the community and for the homeless.”

… which is echoed by the comments on the Universal Hub site.

Now let me admit right here that I have not visited the new park, and I can’t remember touring the old one. I don’t know how the community at large feels about this place. But I see the same themes echoed in discussions of the Boston Common, Cambridge parks, and really any space that’s green and open in a diverse neighborhood: that “those people”–whether they’re homeless, alcoholic, mentally ill, developmentally delayed, or just funny-looking–don’t belong in “our” park, and we should make the park less attractive to them.

But the poor will always be with us. People who have nowhere else to go will sit where they can. Public parks are for the public–and at any given time, a certain proportion of the public is demented, or smelly, or shouting at themselves, or from an ethnic background that makes some other people uncomfortable (whereupon the people from that ethnic background start feeling uncomfortable). How can you keep *everyone* feeling safe? What is a true disruption, and what is someone just blowing off steam? How can we all live together? The debate goes on and on.

If you’d like to hear a more high-falutin’ overview of Boston Parks, the Friends of the Public Garden are holding a panel titled “Great Parks=Vibrant Cities: Keeping Parks Healthy in Hard Times” next Wednesday, October 6, at the Boston Public Library Main Branch (Copley Square) from 4:30-6:30 pm. Mike Dukakis will be there! You’d better sign up quick.

Rx for Environmental Health

An apple a day keeps the doctor away… but what can Bostonians do about airborne particles that worsen asthma? Is there a prescription for coping with toxins in urban “brownfields,” sites contaminated by chemicals including (but not limited to–not limited at all) dry cleaning fluids to motor oil, or heavy metals? Can a doctor help with obesity in an urban “food desert,” where dining choices are limited to convenience stores and fast foods?

Well, if you want to find out, you can go to the Cambridge Public Library this Thursday, September 30, at 7 pm for a lecture sponsored by Artists in Context titled “Introduction to the Environmental Health Clinic.” The speaker is Natalie Jeremijenko, who is “an artist whose background includes studies in biochemistry, physics, neuroscience and precision engineering,” according to her profile on the Environmental Health Clinic web site.

Jeremijenko will be talking about the Clinic. Here’s the how it works:

“The clinic works like this: you make an appointment, just like you would at a traditional health clinic, to talk about your particular environmental health concerns. What differs is that you walk out with a prescription not for pharmaceuticals but for actions: local data collection and urban interventions directed at understanding and improving your environmental health; plus referrals, not to medical specialists but to specific art, design and participatory projects, local environmental organizations and local government or civil society groups: organizations that can use the data and actions prescribed as legitimate forms of participation to promote social change.”

It should be fascinating.

If, after listening to Jeremijenko tell you how to change your microenvironment, you still want that apple, you have two alternatives. You can consult Earthworks— but sadly, not for long; this 21-year-old organization devoted to local fruit and urban wilds has decided to dissolve. Still, they do maintain a list of urban orchards for now.

In lieu of Earthworks, there are sites which can help you locate local fruit.  Neighborhood Fruit lists individual sites, while Fallen Fruit has maps of fruit tree locations. Alas, neither of these sites has any Boston locations… yet. Perhaps completing sites should be part of your environmental prescription.

Old Racetracks Around Boston

The Boston Globe had an interesting article last Thursday about the boarded-up buildings in Brighton that were once part of the Charles River Speedway. The speedway was an old race track that once lined the banks of the Charles River west of North Harvard Street and north of Western Avenue. Some of my favorite vintage photographs in the collection of the Boston Public Library are of the chariot races that were once held at the Speedway, which were perhaps fitting given that the Romanesque structure of Harvard Stadium was adjacent to the track and provided an appropriate background.

The Charles River Speedway is gone, but the former stables and headquarters still stand on Western Avenue near the interchange with Soldiers Field Road. Last week Preservation Massachusetts included the track’s six standing structures to its annual list of the state’s Most Endangered Historical Resources, and hopefully they can preserved and put to use in some capacity.

The remnants of the Charles River Speedway are relics of a bygone time in the late 1800s and early 1900s when horse and harness (and later bicycle, motorbike, and automobile) racing were popular pastimes in Boston, and numerous racetracks dotted the landscape around the city.

During the Victorian era, Boston Brahmins, whose bloodlines could be just as blue as those of champion steeds, enjoyed racing their equines. Racing enthusiasts formed driving clubs and trotting associations all throughout metropolitan Boston, and a host of tracks sprung up where competitors could race horse-drawn vehicles such as buggies, runabouts, and surreys. Crowds as large as 15,000 would fill the grandstands and line the rails of these tracks to watch field days, interclub races, and national championships.

One of the more popular tracks in the city was Beacon Park in Allston, which opened in 1864. The track was also used by Buffalo Bill to stage his Wild West Show when it came to town, and he quartered his buffalo and horses between performances in the nearby Brighton Stockyards. The owners of Beacon Park—Eben Jordan and Charles Marsh of Jordan Marsh fame—sold the land in the 1890s to the Boston & Albany Railroad for conversion to a rail yard that still exists on the site along the Mass Pike.

By the end of the 1800s, harness racing was among the most popular sports in the city and the country, and one of America’s premier tracks—the Readville Trotting Park—opened in the Hyde Park section of Boston in 1896. The oval at the foot of the Blue Hills and along the banks of the Neponset River was one of the most significant harness tracks in the history of the sport, drawing the country’s best owners, trainers, drivers, and horses, including the legendary Dan Patch. An historical marker unveiled in 2007 commemorating Readville Trotting Park is located at the intersection of Neponset Valley Parkway and Meadow Road. A chain-link fence at the end of Hyde Park Avenue marks the old entrance to the track, which was once graced by a magnificent gate replete with Corinthian columns.

The Dorchester Gentlemen’s Driving Club held field days at Readville until a racing oval was built in 1904 at Franklin Field, just off Blue Hill and Talbot Avenues. Two of Boston’s legendary politicians and mayors—James Michael Curley and John F. “Honey Fitz” Fitzgerald, grandfather to John F. Kennedy—even participated in trotting races at Franklin Field Speedway.

Even The Country Club in Brookline, best known for hosting the U.S. Open golf tournament, has its roots in horse racing. The club was formed when a group of Boston’s most prominent gentlemen leased Clyde Park, a 100-acre horse farm with a half-mile racetrack and a farmhouse once owned by Daniel Webster.

Other tracks around Boston included the South End Park, Old Cambridge Park in Cambridge, and Mystic Park in South Medford. More about Boston’s horse racing heritage can be found in The Die-Hard Sports Fan’s Guide to Boston.

Our City Wide Creative Writing Project

Union Park Press wants Bostonians to get creative.

In the spirit of the Boston Book Festival and to further engage Boston’s literary community, Union Park Press is sponsoring Boston Line by Line: City Wide Creative Writing. Festivalgoers at this year’s Boston Book Festival are invited to stop by the Union Park Press booth to add a sentence in city-themed stories started by fellow Bostonians. Each story will be limited to one or two pages of text. When one story ends, the next one begins. Notable Bostonians who’ve been generous enough to “donate” a first line include Dennis Lehane, author of Mystic River and Shutter Island, Junot Díaz, author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, and Susan Sloane, managing editor of WCVB TV’s Chronicle. The end result will be a collection of short-shorts collaboratively written by book festival attendees—available free of charge on the Union Park Press website after the festival.

Nicole Vecchiotti (publisher of Union Park Press) says, “We wanted to blur the line between readers and writers, and do something that would also tap into the city’s creativity.” Nicole describes the project as a simple writing exercise. “But we’re hoping that taking what is usually a classroom exercise and extrapolating it to the entire festival will add some excitement—not to mention that some lucky attendee will be able to write the concluding sentence to a story prompted by Bert and John of Life is Good, Nick Flynn, or Chef Ken Oringer.”

The project is near to our hearts, partly because we believe that talented writers—of fiction as well as non-fiction—are lurking everywhere. Sometimes people just need to stretch their muscles.

“As a small book publisher, we haven’t had the opportunity to publish any fiction… yet,” says Vecchiotti, whose company has published five non-fiction titles including Discovering the Boston Harbor Islands, Boston’s Gardens & Green Spaces, and most recently, Under Cape Cod Waters, a stunning collection of underwater photography of the Cape’s marine environments. “This is a chance for us to indulge one of our greatest passions—and that these short stories will be written by Bostonians for Bostonians, makes it all the more exciting for us.”

Want your chance to contribute a sentence to Boston Line by Line? In a comment below, include your name and a Boston-themed sentence that you’d like us to consider as a prompt for a story. The Union Park Press team will choose five outstanding sentences to use at the Book Festival–and make sure you stop by our booth the day of the festival to contribute your own line!

The second annual Boston Book Festival will take place on Oct. 16, 2010, in various locations around Copley Square.

Saturday 9/25- Boston Harbor Islands Regatta

Along with keeping an eye out for the Lady in Black, visitors to Georges Island on Saturday (September 25) will be able to spy a panorama of colorful, billowing sails as boats compete in the sixth annual Boston Harbor Islands Regatta.

More than 100 boats will compete in the pursuit race on a figure-eight course amid the islands with Georges Island at its focal point. (Pursuit racing awards handicaps up front so boats start at different times and compete to cross the finish line first.) The ramparts of Fort Warren on Georges Island offer a fantastic location for watching the race unfold. If you bring a pair of binoculars, you will have a vantage of practically the entire course. The regatta is a throwback to a time when yachting was one of the city’s most popular sporting pastimes and city residents strolled atop the fort as it was being built to watch the bluebloods breeze their sailboats through the harbor.

In addition to the regatta, Georges Island will be hosting family-friendly activities throughout the day. Plus, you can check out the new visitor center exhibits and the Summer Shack pavilion. The open-air pavilion will be an awesome place to get a great lunch and watch all the sailboats.

The regatta starts around 10 a.m. and finishes around 2 p.m. There is a rain date of September 26, but the weather for Saturday looks fantastic.

If you can’t get out to the regatta this Saturday, you still have until Columbus Day (October 11) to visit both Georges and Spectacle Islands, which can be spectacular on autumn days. Boats leave from the pier on the North End side of the Marriott Long Wharf, and you can click here for the ferry schedule.

Read Local Raffle Winner

After deciphering some very unique handwriting, we are pleased to announce the three raffle winners from the deCordova Sculpture Park & Museum’s Family SculptureFest. We would like to take this opportunity to thank all who entered Union Park Press’ Read Local Raffle, thank those who purchased books at the festival, and the deCordova for hosting such a fantastic event! We will be donating 15% of the proceeds from the festival to educational programming at the deCordova.

And now, without further ado (drum roll please) the winners are…

1st prize: Ticket number 691587, David H.

Indulge in the cultural riches of Boston and New England as you take home the Union Park Press collection! Complete with rich history of the land and resources for who, what, where, and when, these books make an excellent addition to any New England home.

2nd prize: Ticket number 691603, Elise K.

Courtesy of the award-winning Wheelock Family Theatre, you have won four tickets to a show of your choice—Annie, The Secret Garden, or Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp—in the fantastic line up for WFT’s 30thAnniversary Season.

3rd prize: Ticket number 691575, Patricia P.

Enjoy a delicious meal at the esteemed Ivy Restaurant that The Phantom Gourmet describes as “a hot new restaurant with a whole new attitude.”

Congratulations to our winners! David, Elise, and Patricia please email madeline@unionparkpress.com with your mailing information and we will send out your prizes pronto.

If you would like to receive further information about Union Park Press, our line of books, or upcoming author events please don’t hesitate to contact us by phone at 617-423-0840 or by email at publicity@unionparkpress.com.

Conceptual Gardening: Historic Back Bay Bagel Design

Some works of art transform the landscape for the ages: the pyramids at Giza, the pre-Columbian causeways and earthworks in the Bolivian Amazon; Stonehenge. Other landscape art is ephemeral: Andy Goldsworthy‘s natural constructions vanish with the wind and the rain; the Big Hammock that graced the Rose Kennedy Greenway has disappeared along with lazy summer days. To this latter company we all must add the Bagel Garden, one of Boston’s most historic, temporary, and tasty landscape installations.

According to designer Martha Schwartz‘s web site, in 1979 Schwartz was a frustrated young artist laboring at a landscape architecture firm, yearning to create her own projects with her own hands. In a fit of inspiration, she redesigned the 22-square-foot front yard of her Back Bay row house. The spot had two square concentric rings (if a ring can be square) of short boxwood hedges, one inside the other. Inside the inner box, she planted purple ageratum. Between the outer box and inner box she put a 30-inch wide strip of purple aquarium gravel. (Yes, aquarium gravel; the stuff that always seems to match the goldfish so well inside the Petco store and looks like remnants of The Blob in your little glass bowl at home.) And on top of that gravel, Schwartz carefully aligned a double row of… bagels. Eight dozen bagels adorned the Barney-The-Dinosaur-colored walkway, decades before the curse of Barney was unleashed upon our land.

Mind you, these weren’t ordinary bagels! Well, actually they were. Schwartz dipped them in marine spar, known as “varnish” to us landlubbers, but still; bagels they were, and bagels they remain. Or, at least, they would be if they hadn’t “eventually decomposed,”as Schwartz’s web site explains.

The Bagel Garden is worth remembering because Schwartz’s garden helped usher in the “conceptual gardening” movement– which is fitting, as all we have left of the garden is an idea and several charming pictures. But really; the idea behind the garden has become as important to many designers as the plants, if there even are any plants. Bagels were just the beginning. Nowadays, you can find all sorts of odd things at international garden festivals, including giant sea urchins.

The row house which hosted the row bagels is still there, at 190 Marlborough Street, and someone has been keeping up the hedge. But the purple gravel is gone, and the goldfish in the condo market are probably looking elsewhere.

Park(ing) Day!

All right, this is going to be brief, because you have *got* to get away from your computer and go see the *nine* new parks in Boston, Brookline, and Cambridge! Here’s a map! But they’re only open today until 5pm, or until the quarters run out. It’s National Parking Day, when landscape designers, urbanists, art students, and just plain silly people create parks-for-the-day in parking spaces. (What else would do in a parking space?)

Parking Day has been an absurd annual event since 2005, when San Francisco’s Rebar art and design studio converted a single space. The movement has grown to a gazillion cities and countries and it’s here in Boston now. For those of you who are troubled by maps, here are the addresses, as mailed by Livable Streets.

Boston University: 685 Comm Ave

Mission Hill: Francis St at Huntington Ave

Brookline: Coolidge Corner at 290 Harvard St

Cambridge: on Mass Ave between Day & Chester St by Cambridge Climate Emergency Action

Milton and Russell St by Urban Homestead

Russell and Hadley St by CitySmart

Beech and Allen St by Boston Hoop Troop

Davenport and Roseland St at University Hall

Forest and Newport Rd by Green Streets Initiative

Now, seriously: parking devours public land. Many cities don’t charge enough money for it, which leads to drivers circling blocks over and over again looking for a space that’s cheaper than a public garage, clogging traffic and making everyone less happy.

In many communities, building codes lead to sites where there’s more land devoted to parking than the building itself. Donald Shoup’s The High Cost of Free Parking has a lot of details about the effect of bad parking policy on public life; you can read a summary here.

As a society, we tend not to think about how much parking costs, or what we could do if we gave the land–and the money to build and maintain that parking–over to other uses. So go, take a look at what we could do.

Is the Boston Common a private park?

Is there nothing that private investors can’t do? According to the Boston Globe, the Friends of the Public Garden are employing a hoity-toity New York consultant named Daniel A. Biederman to court corporate sponsors to, well, pay for stuff on the Boston Common. In exchange, these generous firms get their names into prime historical Boston real estate. Biederman was one of the folks responsible for getting corporations to shell out to revive New York City’s careworn Bryant Park in the 1970’s.

As the article notes, these sorts of parks-for-rent arrangements have been going on in the Common for while. In sight of a guide in ever-fashionable tricorn hat and knee breeches, the Globe notes, “At the foot of a nearby pin oak, a small plaque noted that the tree had been donated by Paper Mills Inc. honoring the ‘environmental excellence’’ of Staples.” (It’s nice of paper companies to plant a tree every once in a while. I wish they’d do so in an actual forest.)

So what is there to talk about? Remember the old joke about the woman who would sell her virtue for a million dollars, but not for a penny? We already know what the Boston Common is; now we’re just haggling over the price.

What bothers me is, why now? Who are we trying to please by renting out bits of the Common? The Friends of the Public Garden won’t say how much they’re paying Biederman to court big spenders, which is a bad sign in and of itself. But what will corporations really want to do? Are the interests of corporate executives looking to serve the public good and their public relations agendas really the same as the interests of the Bostonians who actually *use* the park? And are they the same as the interests of the Friends of the Public Garden?

We already have three groups that can stake a claim on the Boston Common: the public (including the homeless people who snooze there); the government of the City of Boston; and the Friends of the Public Garden. Do we really need to add a fourth set of opinions to the mix?

Two of the players here already seem to be, shall we say, incompletely aligned. The City has already eliminated the Common’s mounted police patrols to save money this year–even after the Friends of the Public Garden raised the funds to maintain the program. What fun it must be to watch the Friends of the Public Garden carry out a successful fundraising campaign, then reject their money! (I’m sure there were very good reasons for the whole unfortunate interaction. Very, very, good reasons.)

As the Globe piece notes, decisions on changes to the Common must be ratified by Boston’s Parks and Recreation Department and the Landmarks Commission. Absolute power makes for amusing headlines. Mr. Biederman may be a master money-raiser, but, as hizzoner Mayor Tom Menino ominously states in the Globe piece, “Boston is not New York.”

The Friends of the Public Garden want to bring in Big Money to revive the Common? Let’s watch them try.

Join UPP at deCordova Family SculptureFest

Come join in the fun at the deCordova Museum & Sculpture Park’s first Family SculptureFest! On Sunday, September 19, Union Park Press will join the deCordova as the museum grounds transform into the ultimate family-friendly arena.

Just twenty minutes outside of Boston, the Park will celebrate contemporary art with Sculpture Park tours, scavenger hunts, art-making, art sale and auction, performances, and more community-related activities.

While you’re there, be sure to stop by the Union Park Press booth across from the Carriage House, where there’ll be plenty going on all day. We’ll be there to represent our line of local books—a portion of all sales will be donated to the deCordova’s Educational Programming. Meg Muckenhoupt, author of Boston’s Gardens & Green Spaces and Christopher Klein, author of Discovering the Boston Harbor Islands and The Die-Hard Sports Fan’s Guide to Boston—will be there to sign copies of their books. Plus, you’ll be entered into our SculptureFest raffle for the chance to win one of these great prizes:

1^st Prize: Indulge in the cultural riches of Boston and New England as you take home the Union Park Press collection! Complete with rich history of the land and resources for who, what, where, and when, these books make an excellent addition to any New England home.

2^nd Prize: Courtesy of the award-winning Wheelock Family Theatre, one family will win four tickets to a show of their choice—Annie, The Secret Garden or Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp—in the fantastic line up for WFT’s 30^th Anniversary Season.

3^rd Prize: Enjoy a delicious meal at the esteemed Ivy Restaurant that The Phantom Gourmet describes as “a hot new restaurant with a whole new attitude.”

Event Details: deCordova Family SculptureFest Admission: $15: Adults (18+). $12: Youth (5-17), Students, and Seniors (60+). Free for Lincoln residents, Members, Corporate Members, and Active Military Duty Personnel and children (0-5). Includes entry to the new fall exhibitions. Advance tickets available.

For ticketing, parking, and more information please visit: www.decordova.org/fest

See you there!