The Boston Public Garden lost a friend this week. Henry Lee was a pioneer in protecting Boston’s beloved open space. He stood up to a sizable challenge in the 1970s to ward off construction and led Friends of the Public Garden for over 40 years in preserving an iconic piece of Boston’s landscape.
Lee was a modest man who spent his life fighting for the city of Boston and his desire to protect green spaces. He passed away Monday night at the age of 99, leaving behind a storied legacy and a beautiful gift that is the Public Garden.
Liz Vizza, Lee’s successor and the now-president of the Friends of the Public Garden, joined GBH’s All Things Considered host Arun Rath to discuss life and legacy of Henry Lee. What follows is a lightly edited transcript.
Arun Rath: So first off, could you take us back to the beginning and tell us when and how Henry Lee became president?
Liz Vizza: In 1970, all of our parks — including the Public Garden — were in terrible shape. They were almost beyond saving. And a small group of people gathered in a living room, actually Laura Dwight’s living room on Commonwealth Avenue. So she and about 30 people gathered in her living room, concerned about the state of the Public Garden.
They continued to talk and more people showed up, and they realized they needed to create somewhat of an organization to have more of a voice. And there were some really amazing women that were involved in the beginning. In addition to Laura, there was Stella Trafford — who was a pioneer, a champion of the [Commonwealth Avenue] Mall — and Polly Wakefield, who was a champion of the garden and the horticulture.
So these women, at one point, said we needed a president, and it needed to be a man — because men would be listened to more than women. So that’s just an interesting piece of history, because Henry always liked to be modest and say, “It wasn’t just me, it was a group.” And he was not wrong. It was absolutely a group of people.
But they pulled Henry Lee, who was a schoolteacher living on Beacon Hill, they said to Henry: “It won’t take a lot of time, we just need you to be our president.” So, you know, 41 years later, he retires. But he was the right person for the job at the right time. And that’s how he became a president.
Rath: Give us a sense of what he was able to accomplish: how things were in the 1970s — which not everyone might remember — and relative to how they are today?
Vizza: You know, I think it’s actually important for people to see images of the parks back in 1970. Because we talk about that in terms of history: how we need to understand what we have and not take it for granted.
Because in those days, the Public Garden was in terrible shape. Three of the four sides’ perimeter fences on the garden had holes punched in them. The fourth, along Boylston Street, had no fence at all because there was a subway stop inside the Garden. Lights were broken, the benches were broken, shrubs were in terrible shape — and the Common as well, and the Mall as well.
So the Friends, early Friends, started out championing the Public Garden. But very soon after they added the Boston Common — and then the Commonwealth Avenue Mall, because the other thing that was being dealt with was Dutch elm disease. It was running rampant in the parks. We were losing 20 to 30 elms every year. The Mall was a monoculture of elms in the beginning, and we were losing so many that there were some blocks that had only five or six trees on them.
So those were their early concerns, my predecessors’ and Henry’s early concerns. And then in 1971, a massive development — the Park Plaza Development — was proposed along Boylston Street, up to 600 feet of buildings. Massive scale. And it was during a recession time. It was Mort Zuckerman who proposed it, and the mayor and the governor and the business people and the unions — and the papers — all supported it.
And the Friends — this early, one-year-old fledgling group — and other activists opposed it. And Henry and others had to learn, on the fly, what it meant to be an activist and an advocate. We didn’t have environmental impact statements in those days. We didn’t have citizens’ advisory committees. The first CAC was Park Plaza CAC, which Henry chaired. And throughout most of the ’70s, there was a fight.
And, finally, the Friends and activists forced the city to do shadow studies — and it confirmed everyone’s worst fears. That that development would cast shadows from Boylston Street all the way to Beacon Street, and you would lose the sun on most of the Garden, as well as the Common.
We often talk about crises of opportunity, and how a big crisis allows people to see what they might be losing. So even though these parks were in terrible shape, people loved them. There was still the swan boats, which were plying the lagoon. There were still major trees that we have today. So it was clear that we were about to lose something that was an essential part of the city. And they defeated this massive development and went on to create a 501c3 — and, slowly but surely, bringing these parks back from the brink.
And I would say, “How did Henry do that?” He really taught me the true meaning of diplomatic advocacy. He used his self-effacing wit and his gentle demeanor. Underneath, he was a fierce champion, but he did it in such a way that people wanted to go with him. It was very hard to oppose Henry because he was very effective as an advocate.
Rath: The fight that you were talking about, there were similar fights really going up and down the East Coast and maybe even across the country during that time. But I feel like Henry Lee and even the Friends of the Public Garden are not the kind of household words that they should be, the way they people are celebrated in other places. Is that a function of humility, or what do you think that is? And how do you think we could better honor that legacy?
Vizza: You know, I love that question, Arun, because in fact, we are 10 years older than the Central Park Conservancy. And Henry went down and talked to them when they were a fledgling organization setting up. He also went down and learned about park rangers and brought them to Boston, because he learned about that in New York City.
I think probably some of it is the humility. The other thing, the name — and when you began, you talked about the Public Garden. Our name is self-limiting. We take care of the two downtown parts — the Common and the Garden, which are central to the imagery as well as the livability of Boston — and then the Mall that goes all the way to Kenmore Square. It just doesn’t convey the depth and breadth of what we do, somehow.
But you’re right. I mean, these parks were one of many parks in the country that were — there was a lot of disinvestment in cities. And we were the first parks’ advocacy group in the region, and one of the first in the nation.
