Finding Solitude in the Emerald Necklace

Muddy River Water Gauge (Riverway) 

After the Muddy River flooded portions of the Green Line transit line and Kenmore train station in October 1996, state officials installed a gauge to monitor water levels near the busy transit line, which runs directly adjacent to the park. It is part of a series of improvements, including the Muddy River Restoration Project, that aim to mitigate damage from future flood events. The gauge has now provided nearly 20 years of continuous measurement and alerts state officials when measurements rise above 15 feet.  You can see the latest measurements from the gauge here! 

Willow and Spring Ponds (Olmsted Park) 

The smallest of the four ponds that call Olmsted Park home, Willow Pond and Spring Pond are all that remain of what was once a complex system of "natural history pools" envisioned by park architect Frederick Law Olmsted. His vision included a dozen small ponds housing various exotic animals, up to and including a hippopotamus! However, this goal proved to be unsustainable, and the sites of the other pools were later filled in.

Willow Pond is the larger, deeper, and further west of the pair.

As its name suggests, Spring Pond is fed by a natural spring. It flows into Willow Pond via a small stream, named Spring Pond Brook, and a waterfall. Spring Pond is also home to the only landlocked freshwater population of  three-spined sticklebacks , a small fish commonly used to study evolutionary processes in animals, in Massachusetts.

Parkman Memorial (Jamaica Pond) 

This striking memorial, featuring sculpture by prolific American sculptor  Daniel Chester French , honors eminent Bostonian and historian Francis Parkman (1850-1931). The sculpture is located on the site of Parkman's summer home, Sunnyside. Parkman was well-known for his exploration of the American West and his experiences living with Native Americans, which he wrote about and published to great notoriety. While his opinions and descriptions of Native Americans are offensive and outdated, his publications provide a valuable look into early life in the American West even today.

Due to his well-known connection with Native American tribes, the memorial is adorned with male and female Native American figures, carved in relief. Intended more as a tribute to Parkman's impact than Parkman himself, the Native American reliefs dominate the 20-foot-tall structure, and are immediately apparent to passersby from across Parkman Drive.

Walter Street Burying Ground (Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University) 

Walter Street Burying Ground, located on Peter’s Hill within the Arnold Arboretum, contains the graves of early settlers and Revolutionary soldiers. The soldiers who are buried at the site were stationed at Loring-Greenough House, where they became ill from smallpox. Originally buried at the house’s garden, their remains were moved to Walter Street Burying Ground for a proper burial in 1867.

Schoolmaster Hill (Franklin Park) 

Who was the Schoolmaster of Schoolmaster Hill? None other than writer, teacher, and founder of Transcendentalism  Ralph Waldo Emerson ! Before Franklin Park was constructed, Emerson called a small cabin on the hill home. Emerson was inspired by the surrounding landscape and wrote about it frequently in his poetry and essays, noting:

"I never saw a country which more delighted me. A man might travel many hundred miles and not find so fine woodlands as abound in this neighborhood."

Stone ruins, restored in the 1990s by the  Franklin Park Coalition  and the Boston Parks & Recreation Department, mark the site of a building that once served as the park superintendent's office and as a clubhouse for the adjacent William J. Devine Golf Course. The structure, which provided free hot water for park users to make tea, was popular with many Bostonians. It was destroyed by fire in the 1930s. Nowadays, the ruins frame incredible views of Blue Hills to the south.