[responsive_youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7HpQ5pjglo]
The Greenway Conservancy held a community meeting on March 12th regarding horticulture and infrastructure initiatives in the two North End parks. The highlight was a presentation by landscape designer, Lynden B. Miller, with her vision for revamping the plantings in the parks. Staff also reviewed needed improvements regarding benches, lighting and shade. An extensive community discussion also took place with many questions including funding and timing for the proposed changes.
Video Timeline:
- 00:00 Greenway Conservancy Executive Director, Jesse Brackenbury reviews progress from last year’s workshop
- 09:00 Stu Shillaber, Superintendent of Horticulture – Spring 2014 plans for the pergola planting beds and boxwood beds
- 27:20 Linda Jonash, Dir. of Planning and Design – Boxwood Beds: Design Approach & Introduction of Lynden B. Miller
- 30:00 Lynden B. Miller, New York landscape architect; horticulture consultant to the Greenway Conservancy – Overview of 4-season planting concepts regarding height, textures, entrances and existing conditions
- 39:00 Seating enhancements including replacing the benches and potential park furniture ideas, such as bench swings from the pergola
- 42:00 Conclusion by Greenway Conservancy
- 43:30 Public Questions and Comments
The Conservancy has posted the slide presentation and has a summary on their blog.
I’m so glad the Freedom Trail lights will be fixed/attended to! This whole plan looks marvelous, and I love that the Greenway will be improved in so many ways – but I have a soft spot for the Freedom Trail lights. I think these were so well-placed and thoughtful, and it bums me out that more than half of them don’t work. When they were mostly working and lighted during the evening hours, the effect is very welcoming to me. I always thought they looked like a trail of fireflies, and added a lot of decorative interest in a way that other lights don’t seem to. I hope the entire plan works out for the best for everyone, and also my lovely neighborhood.
I think it is shameful that they have let things like the pathway lights get as bad as they have. I brought those up a year ago at the last workshop.and they still have done nothing about them. there are 20 lights and only 3 work. I would not be surprised if one year from now they are still not fixed and none of them work.
In the last 5 years $25 million has been given to the Conservancy and we have got almost nothing in return.
It’s less than a decade after the Big Dig opened and the parks are not only showing a lot of wear but never really reached their full potential. And if it doesn’t happen soon, I fear it never will. All the talk about fundraising makes me nervous. We all know that’s code for “it probably won’t happen.” You’ve got the horticulture expert now, so it is time for the State and Conservancy to just get this done.
Lynden Miller’s plans look extraordinary.
Lynden Miller’s plans do indeed look extraordinary; extraordinarily familiar! Residents and ‘friends’ have designed and presented the same over the past 18-months to no avail. In fact entreaties from local residents to self-fund, with design input from Internationally-known horticulturist Adrian Bloom went for naught. 10,000 daffodils were even planted last April as a show of good faith and funding capabilities. The Conservancy even attempted to hire Bloom, but his interests were more altruistic and in deference to the “Friends” of the North End Parks. The Conservancy management wants ‘volunteers’ not permanent friends. Not to denigrate the efforts of Lynden Miller, a NYC artist and gardener, one that sharpened her spade in NYC improving Bryant Park there as a ‘Friend’. Here in Boston Miller becomes a hired consultant aiding and abetting the highly paid staff and in particular Conservancy Designer & Horticulturist, Linda Jonash, a 5-year+ six-figure paid employee. The Conservancy grows its management team faster than it plants flowers. More to the point, Miller’s effort and conceptual renderings were central to a Wednesday night Conservancy show’n-tell (3/12/14) that was a waste of everyone’s time. Just $25,000 is to be ‘allowed’ for south Pergola plantings sometime in ‘April, May, or June’. Everything ‘else’ conceptualized by New York based Miller will need future fundraising and more planning, added newly hired Executive Director Jesse Brackenbury in an aside, not part of his formal presentation. Thirteen or so beach umbrellas in separate stanchions, and two shade trees were placed in 2013. Nothing gets carried over year to year except an expanding management team. Jonash suggested Pergola-swings over the din of scraping chairs and folks exiting into the cold, rainy March night. Best the Freedom Trail lights get fixed after two-years in disrepair, to prevent injury. How much could twelve (12) new-light bulbs and a new staff Electrician cost? On that last thought, there are “Friends” that could replace light-bulbs and then some…
Ken, You appear to know the politics more than I do and watching the video you seem to have some other purpose in opposing the conservancy. I don’t really want to get into that but the constant negativity from someone that doesn’t even live here is getting old, fast.
All I am saying is that I would be very happy to see Lynden Miller’s plan become a reality.