1880 Original Mansucript Planning of the Back Bay's The Fens Park, Boston

This is a unique c. 1880 urban planning map of the Back Bay Fens Park and the Fenway, Boston. The map consists of a printed map, issued in 1877 by the Park Commissioners, augmented with extensive manuscript work, including a beautiful construction-stage layout of the entire Back Bay Fens Park, as well as associated draining channels and sewers, and extensive text annotation. The layout of the park conforms to an early iteration of Frederick Law Olmsted's original plan - his updated plan was published in 1887. Centered on the park and oriented to the northwest, the map covers from Heath Street to Fairfield Street and from Brookline to the Boston and Providence Railroad.

The Fens

The Fens, as it is known today, is a large park at the western end of Boston's Back Bay. The Fens were an essential sanitary project intended to offset drainage issues created by the Back Bay landfill. The landfill diverted two natural channels, the Muddy River, and the Stony Brook turning the former salt marsh lowland into a fetid sewage pool. The Fens project proposed to redirect the waters underground and create a natural runoff basin in the form of a public park.

The Contest

The Fens project was approved in 1877. By that time, the Commissioners had already enlisted Frederick Law Olmsted (1822 - 1903), famous for New York's Central Park (among others), to oversee the construction of Boston's Emerald Necklace, of which The Fens was a part. As with Central Park, the commissioners offered the public the opportunity to create the park with an open design competition. Anyone was eligible to submit a plan. To facilitate the contest, the Commissioners issued this map, a detailed large-scale plat of the allocated park lands as well as the surrounding streets, waterways, and proposed drainage projects. The actual park section was left blank, an open canvas for would be landscape architects. The following advertisement appeared in the Boston Post on March 1, 1878,

The Commissioners of Parks of the City of Boston hereby offer a Prize of Five hundred Dollars for the best Plan for laying out the Back Bay Park and its approaches, including a water way from the Charles River, Gate House, and Bridge over the Boston and Albany Railroad, with estimates of amount of filling.

The names of the authors of the places presented to be in sealed envelopes, which will not be opened except in the case of the successful competitor, whose plan is to be the property of the Commissioners, and to be made such use of as they may see fit. Other plans will be returned to such addresses as may be designated.

Maps of the location of the Park, showing the present area of land and water, with sounding, grades of streets, and c. will be supplied on application to this office. [Present Map]

The Commissioners reserve the right to reject all plans, if none be deemed worthy of the price, in their judgement and that of their consulting engineer [Olmsted].

Twenty-three designs were submitted. The 500 USD prize was given to the German-American landscape designer and florist Hermann Grundel (1824 - 1890), who proposed overlaying the area with a formal garden. It remains unclear why his design was chosen, as it was both impractical for the space and failed to address the essential drainage problem - although surely it would have been a beautiful park. Grundel went on to further civic design work in Maine. For the Fens, the city ultimately turned to Olmsted.

Olmsted's Design

Unlike his earlier work in New York, Olmsted designed the Fens for sanitation first and recreation second. His work restored the original salt marsh conditions, adding a series of channels and drainage basins that would receive overflow from the Charles estuary at high tide. Traditional park-like features were restricted to the periphery and roadways were constructed on elevated causeways - the Fens were to be a natural area best observed from afar. Olmsted submitted a preliminary plan on October 24, 1878. This is a variant of that plan.

This Map - What is it?

The map is an 1880 preliminary plan derived from Olmsted's 1878 plan for the Fens. The park itself has been laid out in manuscript and the surrounding streets modified. Manuscript also notes numerous subterranean drainage sewers leading to and away from The Fens. The park itself is uniquely Olmsted, and cannot be confused with the work of other applicants, none of whom grasped the necessity wetland restoration. Stylistically, it closely resembles the Olmsted Plan published by the Park Department on December 30, 1887. The core of the park is near identical, with the Fenway clearly defined, as well as the causeway Agassiz Road and the meandering stream. The branch of the park north of Agassiz Road, is similar to the 1887 plan, but moves the watercourse to the eastern side of the park.

Provenance and Notes

On the left side of the sheet, there are two notes and a stamp that assist somewhat with provenance. The first appears at left center,

Made for J.B. Kendall, Dated Mar. 4, 1880. Park Interior colored marsh green. Drew lines. Water lines with green. Red line estate as shown here.

Josiah Bradlee Kendall (1831 - 1897) was a wealthy Boston real estate developer active in the Back Bay in the late 19th century. This note, relative to the date, seems to be referenced in a second note, in a different hand, just below it,

Made colored plan for J. T. Eldridge, April 13, 1880 but dated March 1880 showing lots numbered and approximate areas and on writing paper gave list of owners. This was to take the place of one furnished him.

This note most likely references the first note, and is in a markedly different hand - perhaps a copyist? The same hand appears in a note attached to a related map at the Boston Public Library (G3764.B6:2B2 1877 .B67). J. T. Eldridge (1828 - 1889) was an affluent Boston real-estate broker. The BPL map deals with the monumental task of grading the streets and park, and is several years earlier, suggesting that the template map initially issued for the design contest saw significant subsequent use in the actual construction of The Fens.

Fuller and Whitney, Civil Engineers

There is one further clue to the map's provenance, there are several stamps, both on the recto and verso, for the Civil Engineering firm of 'Fuller and Whitney'. The firm played a significant role in the development of the Back Bay and were likely involved with not only The Fens development, but also in associated real-estate deals. The principals, William H. Whitney and J. Franklin Fuller founded the firm shortly after the American Civil War, where both served the Union cause. They remained in operation, mostly working on improvements to the Back Bay, until 1904.

Publication History and Census

This map was printed by the Parks Commission of Boston in 1877 for the 1878 Back Bay Park design competition. The manuscript annotations were added in April, 1880, as noted on the map, during the early construction phases. Due to the manuscript work, this map is unique. There is another example of the base map, with completely different manuscript, located at the Boston Public Library (see above). No other known examples.