Back Bay Fens
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The Back Bay Fens (also called The Fens), once a salt water shallow bay, is now a fresh water park in Boston, Massachusetts, USA designed by Frederick Law Olmsted. It is located in the Fenway-Kenmore neighborhood, no longer in the official Back Bay neighborhood. When Boston was first settled the town stood on a site that was connected to Roxbury by a spit of sandy ground called "The Neck." The rest of it was formerly wetlands, both the tidal — "Fens" — and salt marsh — in the shallow sea water body "Back Bay".
Filling the Back Bay caused problems that a later generation might have dubbed "environmental:" sewage tainted the now stagnant wetlands. The creation of the park actually started as a precipitation-runoff and sewage-control project,
The fens of the Fenway were shaped and landscaped as parkland, along with the other open spaces that form the Emerald Necklace (or the half that was completed) envisaged by Frederick Law Olmsted, from 1878 to 1896. Olmsted and his collaborators managed to combine park design, civil engineering, public health, transportation, and neighborhood development, producing a comprehensive system that was one of the earliest examples in the United States of professional urban planning. Olmsted's student Arthur Shurcliff modified its design somewhat in the early 20th century to add recreation areas.
Olmsted's plan for twice daily tidal flush of the Fen's salty flats was defeated in 1910 by construction of a dam on the Craige Bridge, closing the estuary Charles River to the ocean tides, forming the lake above the dam called the 'Charles Basin'.The fresh water basin so formed has hydraulic connection to the Fens water through the Charlesgate Park channel. Thus, the Fens became a freshwater lagoon part of the river Basin, regularly accepting storm water from the Charles River Basin.
In 1978, a second dam was constructed, crossing the Charles at Love Joy Street, replacing the older 1910 dam within sight upriver. The new Charles River Dam has six powerful pumps which can control the Charles Basin water level upriver to the Watertown Dam and through the tributary canals including the Fens lagoon and holds the surface level of the water in the Basin and Fens at 13ft MDC-VD.
It would seem Olmsted's 'Muddy River' no longer exists in the Fens and in fact, has been since 1910, part of the Lagoon by way of the Dam and underground connections to the Charles like the Brookline Avenue Conduit. Some engineers believe the Dam controls the level and flow in the entire watercourse, the Fens, the Muddy, the Riverway and Leverett Pond to the inlet at Willow St.
The Riverway linear park begins where the Fens meets the Charles River, at Charlesgate, and then extend southward to Franklin Park. It includes shady, sloping lawns and benches for lounging and watching reeds rustle; rustic stone bridges for admiring the water and its avian inhabitants; a rose garden; a playground; a reserved area for local residents to have "community gardens"; and occasional impromptu performances by students of the nearby Berklee College of Music or The Anonymous Bagpiper of the Muddy River. During World War II, the Back Bay Fens was designated a site for victory gardens.
The reeds provide a screen from public eyes, and The "Fens" has gained a reputation as a nighttime rendezvous point for drug dealing and anonymous gay sex. The area is quite wholesome during the day, but can be unsafe after sundown as it is unlit and unpoliced.[1]
Since 1912, the home of the Boston Red Sox has been only a few blocks away, at the aptly named Fenway Park. Other close-by landmarks include Northeastern University, the Boston Latin School, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Simmons College, Harvard Medical School, and several of its affiliated hospitals in the Longwood Medical Area.
The Fenway Civic Association works with public agencies to enhance and improve the parkland, cut down vehicular traffic and preserve this jewel in Olmsted's "Emerald Necklace" of green open spaces.
