Beneath an overpass on Commonwealth Avenue where the Back Bay, Kenmore and Fenway neighborhoods meet, the sound of passing cars is impossible to ignore. The patches of grass are few and far between, and most of the ground is covered with gravel or exposed dirt.
“There’s nothing that tempts you to walk under here normally,” said Karen Mauney-Brodek, president of the Emerald Necklace Conservancy, a nonprofit working to restore the 13-acre parcel of land to its former glory.
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Charlesgate Park, as the area is officially known, was designed by famed landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted and was the “clasp” of his iconic Emerald Necklace greenway, seven miles of winding parkland from the Boston Common to Franklin Park in Dorchester.
But, several decades ago, the city put roads and a highway overpass through Charlesgate Park, breaking the clasp and creating dangerous walking conditions. The Emerald Necklace Conservancy, along with the neighborhood organization Charlesgate Alliance, is spearheading an effort to revitalize the park so that pedestrians and cyclists can safely travel through it and into the rest of city’s park system.
Charlesgate Park once allowed people to walk from the State House in downtown Boston all the way to Franklin Park between Roxbury and Dorchester while remaining in parkland the whole way, said Parker James, co-founder of the Charlesgate Alliance.
“The reason Charlesgate was the critical link between all of these park systems is because Olmsted started there first and built out from there,” he said. “So, I always say it's sort of like all roads lead to Rome.”
“By connecting this critical link that connects the Esplanade, the Emerald Necklace [and] Commonwealth Avenue Mall, you’re connecting all of the park systems in Boston in a way that they’ve been broken for the last 80 years,” Mauney-Brodek said.
Restoring the park is a monumental task that involves a long list of government agencies and nonprofit partners. After several years of planning and building support for the project, those involved hope to start construction in 2023.
Landing Studio, a Somerville-based architect firm, partnered with the Charlesgate Alliance and the Emerald Necklace Conservancy in 2017 to design conceptual plans for the new Charlesgate Park. The project will move forward in stages, incorporating input from surrounding communities — including ideas that have already been raised such as bike paths, a playground and a dog park.
But the project’s major priority is to make it safer for pedestrians by adding sidewalks, crosswalks and pedestrian signals.
“People with young kids or people who have all sorts of different mobility needs are kind of forced to move alongside this high-speed dense traffic,” explained Dan Adams, a partner at Landing Studio.
The renewal has already gotten underway. Lighting and fences within Charlesgate Park have already been repaired. And, this summer, there are plans to remove two non-structural concrete walls currently standing beneath the overpass.
The revitalization involves agencies from across the city and state who each have a stake in the park’s land, which divides the funding for different aspects of the project. The Department of Conservation and Recreation, for instance, will be matching funds for the removal of the non-structural walls in Charlesgate. As nonprofits, the Emerald Necklace Conservancy and Charlesgate Alliance raise money independently and apply for public funding.
Partners who are pushing the project forward hope to also restore a bridge connecting Charlesgate to the Back Bay Fens and improve the water quality of the nearby Muddy River.
After the revitalization, project leaders hope that Charlesgate Park becomes a part of people’s route through the area — without vehicles.
“It gives people more options as we are addressing the challenges that we have with climate change,” Mauney-Brodek said. “Providing people more options to get around to work to school, home, for shopping for other errands ... it’s better.”
Sara Abdelouahed is an intern with GBH News’ Special Projects Team.
