Henry Lee, Linda Cox, Penny Cherubino, Bill Clendaniel, Jeanine Knox

Wednesday, April 7 - June 2, (excluding one week TBA)   1:00 - 3:00 p.m.
8 sessions    Vincent Club, 71 Brimmer Street

The Public Garden, the Esplanade, the Emerald Necklace, and Mount Auburn and Forest Hills Cemeteries: this seminar offers you the opportunity to learn about their history, unique characteristics, art works, horticulture, other special attributes and their importance to urban life from local advocates for these treasured parks: Henry Lee for the Public Garden, Linda Cox and Penny Cherubino for the Esplanade, Bill Clendaniel for the garden cemeteries, and Jeanine Knox for the Emerald Necklace. The seminar will include both classroom sessions and field trips to the parks. Let’s hope that spring comes on time this year.

Suggested readings: Sections of Inventing the Charles River, by Karl Haglund and Gaining Ground: A History of Landmaking in Boston by Nancy S Seasholes (both published by MIT Press); Frederick Law Olmsted: Designing the American Landscape, Charles Beveridge and Paul Rocheleau (Rizzoli International Press 1995); A Clearing in the Distance: Frederick Law Olmsted and America in the Nineteenth Century by Witold Rybczynski (Scribner, 1999); sections of Silent City on a Hill, Picturesque Landscapes of Memory and Boston’s Mount Auburn Cemeter by Blanche Linden (UMass Press and the Library of American Landscape History, 2007); and A History of Mt. Auburn Cemetery by Jacob Bigelow (1869). Both of the latter books can be purchased through the Friends of Mount Auburn and also should be available at the BPL.

Henry Lee is the Founder and President of the Friends of the Public Garden. Linda Cox, co-founder of the Esplanade Association, and Penny Cherubino, a writer, researcher, and photographer, are co-authors of a book-in-progress about the Esplanade’s history.  Bill Clendaniel is the former President of Mount Auburn Cemetery; and Jeanine Knox is the Director of External Affairs for the Emerald Necklace Conservancy.