Maps Reveal Lost Olmsted Designs

This path is an example of Olmsted design. He was known for his ability to make a park look bigger than it really was by adding winding roads.
Image courtesy of www.classicalgolf.com

The Department of Parks and Recreation in Greenwich, Conn. recently came upon an interesting discovery. A set of old park designs was found bearing the name of the Olmsted Brothers Landscape Architects; the firm founded by legendary landscape architect, Frederick Law Olmsted. The maps date back to 1928 and show two proposals for a park that was to be built along the waterfront in central Greenwich. According to a report in Greenwich Time, newspaper accounts show that the park proposals were expensive and many years were spent trying to revise them. At one point, the town had pledged funds that were to be matched by the government, but war-time budget cuts in 1940 pushed back the construction of the park. It was not until the late 1950s that the park was built, when it was named for a Board of Estimate and Taxation member, Roger Sherman Baldwin. Today, the park serves as a place for walking, fishing, nature study and photography and is largely comprised of grass lawns, shrubs and trees, which the parks department says is true to its 1952 formal plan. More research will have to be done to determine if the final outcome of the park was, indeed, influenced by the 1928 Olmsted designs.