OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS 45 



without going out of lands controlled by the Park Q)mmission, from the Public Garden, 

 through Commonwealth Avenue, the Fens, Riverway, Olmsted Park (Arborway, 

 Arnold Arboretum), Franklin Park, Columbia Road, and Strandway, to Marine Park. 

 Blue Hill Avenue has been widened to a double roadway Boulevard from Franklin 

 Park to Mattapan, where it connects with a boulevard of the Metropolitan Park 

 Commission extending to the Blue Hills Reservation. From the Riverway, a park- 

 way drive branches off to Audubon Circle, whence one may drive in a park- 

 way 1 60 feet wide (Beacon Street) to Chestnut Hill Reservoir, or by Commonwealth 

 Avenue, 200 feet wide, to the same point, and thence by Newton Boulevard, 120 feet 

 wide, to the Charles River at Auburndale. Land was secured years ago, but has not yet 

 been developed, for a parkway with wide, picturesque margins from Arnold Arboretum 

 to Stony Brook Reservation. It connects with the parkway system of the Metropolitan 

 Park Commission. 



THE FENS 



The shape of the Fens can only be defined briefly as shapeless. It has an irregular 

 central body averaging about 1,000 feet wide, with a length, from Boylston Bridge to 

 Mrs. John L. Gardner's "Fenway Place," of about 3,500 feet. From this body project 

 six arms. Northward of Boylston Bridge is the arm called Charlesgate. This was laid 

 out as a so-called "entrance" to the Park. It originally extended, for this reason, north- 

 ward only to Beacon Street; but, when the waterway plan was adopted, it was extended 

 a block further north to Charles River. It is now about 1,500 feet long. Its width was 

 arbitrarily established at 300 feet, but as the land-owners neglected to stipulate for a 

 street within this area, the Park Commission later secured a strip 50 feet wide on each 

 side for streets, on condition of completely improving them at the expense of the park 

 fund. The other entrances are Boylston Entrance, 30 feet wide, to Massachusetts Avenue; 

 Westland Entrance, 300 feet wide, to Parker Street; Huntington Entrance, 200 feet wide, 

 to Huntington Avenue; Parker Hill Entrance, from 300 to 500 feet wide, to Huntington 

 Avenue; and Longwood Entrance, originally 200 feet wide, but, after the waterway plan 

 was adopted, increased to 350 feet wide. 



The peculiar shape of the Fens and its entrances was due mainly to the limitations 

 of cost for land which the opponents of the project in the City Council succeeded in fasten- 

 ing upon the ordinance authorizing the park. The limit of price of ten cents per 

 square foot for the land was stipulated. It is probable that some of those who voted 

 for this limitation fully believed that it would indirectly kill the whole scheme, thus saving 

 the city much money. Not only did it not save money, but it resulted in a very great 

 increase in the cost of construction in proportion to area. The original area of this park 

 was about one hundred acres. This, at ten cents per square foot, made the cost of land, 

 $435,000, or $4,356 per acre. But the cost for construction has been over $18,500 per 

 acre, a cost probably without precedent in the history of park making. Franklin Park, 

 which is well supplied with stone bridges, buildings and other expensive structures, cost 

 only $4,600 per acre for construction. The cost of filling the park in the Back Bay, had 

 it been located on salt marshes not complicated by the channels of Stony Brook and Muddy 

 River, would probably not have been more than $4,000 per acre; so it is safe to say that 

 the necessity forced upon the Park Commission, of locating and shaping the park to suit 

 the demand of the land-owners, even allowing for a greater price for salt marshes else- 



