Park Drive is a mostly one-way, two-lane parkway in the Fenway-Kenmore neighborhood of

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

that runs along the northern and western edges of the

Back Bay Fens The Back Bay Fens, often called The Fens, is a parkland and urban wild in Boston, Massachusetts, in the United States. It was established in 1879. Designed by Frederick Law Olmsted to serve as a link in the Emerald Necklace park system, the Fe ...

before ending at Mountfort Street. As part of the

Emerald Necklace The Emerald Necklace consists of a chain of parks linked by parkways and waterways in Boston and Brookline, Massachusetts. It was designed by landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, and gets its name from the way the planned chain appear ...

park system mainly designed by

Frederick Law Olmsted Frederick Law Olmsted (April 26, 1822August 28, 1903) was an American landscape architect, journalist, social critic, and public administrator. He is considered to be the father of landscape architecture in the USA. Olmsted was famous for co ...

in the late 19th century, Park Drive, along with the Back Bay Fens and the

Fenway Fenway Park is a baseball stadium located in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, near Kenmore Square. Since 1912, it has been the home of the Boston Red Sox, the city's American League baseball team, and Boston Braves (baseball), since 1953, i ...

, connects the

Commonwealth Avenue Mall Commonwealth Avenue (colloquially referred to as Comm Ave by locals) is a major street in the cities of Boston and Newton, Massachusetts. It begins at the western edge of the Boston Public Garden, and continues west through the neighborhoods o ...

and Boylston Street to

Beacon Street Beacon Street is a major thoroughfare in Boston, Massachusetts and its western suburbs Brookline and Newton. It passes through many of Boston's central and western neighborhoods, including Beacon Hill, Back Bay, Fenway–Kenmore, the Boston U ...

and the

Riverway Riverway, also referred to as "the Riverway," is a parkway in Boston, Massachusetts. The parkway is a link in the Emerald Necklace system of parks and parkways designed by Frederick Law Olmsted in the 1890s. Starting at the Landmark Center end ...

. For a portion of its length, the parkway runs along the Muddy River and is part of the

Metropolitan Park System of Greater Boston The Metropolitan Park System of Greater Boston is a system of reservations, parks, parkways and roads under the control of the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) in and around Boston that has been in existence for over a ...

's Muddy River Reservation. Like others in the park system, it is maintained by the

Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation The Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) is a state agency of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, situated in the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs. It is best known for its parks and parkways. The DCR's mission i ...

Route description

Park Drive begins near the intersection of Boylston Street and Ipswich Street and heads south with two one-way lanes to Peterborough Street. From there an additional one-way road begins with

parallel parking 250px, Parallel-parked cars in Washington, D.C. 250px, A motorist gets assistance parallel-parking 250px, Parallel parking animation Parallel parking is a method of parking a vehicle parallel to the road, in line with other parked vehicles. ...

on both sides. It runs on the north side of the flowing traffic and is separated by a grassy tree-lined median. The road continues in this fashion until it reaches the end of the Fens where the parking side merges into the main roadway along with traffic entering from the Fenway on the other side of the Muddy River. A parking lane is created on the right and the road travels with two one-way lanes towards Brookline Avenue. Two more lanes are added as it crosses Brookline Avenue and passes the Landmark Center in Audubon Circle. The two left lanes become left-turn-only and facilitate access to the

and the reverse direction towards the

. The right two lanes continue straight through the intersection and two lanes in the opposite direction join it. After its intersection with

, Park Drive loses a lane in each direction and continues for two more blocks as part of

Massachusetts Route 2 Route 2 is a major east–west state highway in Massachusetts. Along with Route 9 and U.S. Route 20 to the south, these highways are the main alternatives to the Massachusetts Turnpike/I-90 toll highway. Route 2 runs the entire ...

before ending at Mountfort Street near the

Massachusetts Turnpike The Massachusetts Turnpike (colloquially "Mass Pike" or "the Pike") is a toll highway in the US state of Massachusetts that is maintained by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT). The turnpike begins at the New York state li ...

. Park Drive runs alongside the Muddy River from its beginning at Boylston Street to its intersection with Brookline Avenue. The

, which is located on the other side of the Back Bay Fens, allows for continuous travel in the opposite direction of Park Drive. It is accessible from where Park Drive becomes two-way at Brookline Avenue and ends on Boylston Street near where Park Drive begins.

History

In 1875, the voters of the City of Boston and the Massachusetts legislature approved the creation of a park commission in order to promote the creation of public parks in the city.

, the landscape architect of

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

Central Park Central Park is an urban park in New York City located between the Upper West and Upper East Sides of Manhattan. It is the fifth-largest park in the city, covering . It is the most visited urban park in the United States, with an estimated ...

, began to spend an increasing amount of time in the area and was asked by the park commission in the mid-to-late 1870s to be the judge of a 23-entry design competition to build a new park. Olmsted felt that all of the submitted plans were subpar and either did not take into account flood control or focused too much on it and neglected the public park aspect. The Muddy River and Stony Brook flowed through the

(an artificial marshland commonly referred to as the Fens) which were at the time subject to tidal flow, storm flooding, and sewage discharge. The disappointed park commission then asked Olmsted to be its professional adviser and main landscape architect. Under his direction, what is now called the

took shape. He directed the Fens to be dredged, graded, planted, and turned into a seemingly natural salt marsh to absorb and clean the flowing waters. He then built a series of parks stretching from the Fens near the existing Commonwealth Avenue greenway to Franklin Park some miles away. The parks were connected to each other by scenic parkways, one of which is Park Drive around the northern and western sides of the Back Bay Fens. Originally Park Drive was named Audubon Road in conjunction with the adjoining Audubon Circle, at the intersection with Beacon Street, in honor of the Audubon Society and the vast avian population within the Olmsted designed Fens. Nearby Hemenway Street was also named after

Harriet Hemenway Harriet Lawrence Hemenway (1858–1960) was a Boston socialite who cofounded the Massachusetts Audubon Society with Minna B. Hall. Hemenway was the wife of Augustus Hemenway. During the Gilded Age, it became fashionable for women to wear hats ...

one of the founders of the

Massachusetts Audubon Society The Massachusetts Audubon Society, commonly known as Mass Audubon, founded in 1896 by Harriet Hemenway and Minna B. Hall and headquartered in Lincoln, Massachusetts, is a nonprofit organization dedicated to "protecting the nature of Massachusett ...

The parkway was renamed Park Drive sometime between 1928 and 1938 when alterations to the Fens resulted in a large part of the artificial marshland being filled for more formal parkland . As part of the

, Park Drive is maintained by the

(DCR), rather than the City of Boston. The roadway from Boylston Street to Brookline Avenue opened to traffic on January 3, 1892, while surfacing of the remainder of the parkway to Mountfort Street was finished by 1895. Mountfort Street runs adjacent to the Boston and Albany Railroad right of way that the reference refers to.

Major intersections

The entire route is in the

Fenway–Kenmore Fenway–Kenmore is an officially recognized neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. While it is considered one neighborhood for administrative purposes, it is composed of numerous distinct sections (East Fenway, West Fenway, Audubon Circle, Kenmo ...

neighborhood of

, Suffolk County.

References

External links

Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic SiteThe Emerald Necklace Conservancy
{{DEFAULTSORT:Park Drive (Parkway) Emerald Necklace Streets in Boston Parkways in Massachusetts