The Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) has partnered with the City of Cambridge to fund repairs for historic brick and limestone walls and pillars located at Lowell Memorial Park. The park, which is at the intersection of Fresh Pond Parkway and Brattle Street, is a National Historic Landmark and is a significant historic landscape designed by the Olmsted Firm of Brookline. The wall repair work is part of a multi-phased project to rehabilitate the historic park landscape to reflect the design intent of the Olmsted Brother’s 1906 plan.
“It is important that state government continues to work with its municipal and local partners to ensure historic landscapes and public parklands, like Lowell Memorial Park, are preserved,” said DCR Commissioner Leo Roy. “The Baker-Polito Administration works diligently to foster such relationships that will benefit the public for generations to come.”
The partnership project between the state and the city will repair the historic walls and pillars located at the northern section of the park. Work will include rebuilding failed sections, rehabilitating eroded foundations, replacing and patching failed brick, resetting cap stones, and a full cleaning and repointing of the bricks. Cost for the work is estimated at $150,000, with designs estimated at $30,000, and is expected to begin in early spring, and completed by summer 2016.
“We’re very happy to have such a great piece of Cambridge’s history restored, and want to thank the DCR as well as the conservation commission for all their hard work and renewing this landmark in our city,” said Cambridge Mayor David Maher.
Last year, DCR prepared a Cultural Landscape Report for Lowell Memorial Park, which identified high preservation priorities including the wall repairs. Committing its own $5,000 to the project, the Cambridge Plant and Garden Club applied to the Cambridge Community Preservation Act Committee and DCR’s Partnership Matching grant program for funding. In September, the Cambridge City Council appropriated $85,000 in Community Preservation Act funds upon the recommendation of the Cambridge Community Preservation Act Committee and the Cambridge Historical Commission. Additionally, DCR’s Partnership Matching Fund appropriated $90,000 to ensure the financing of the rehabilitation project.
“Cambridge is filled with many historic landmarks that help make the city what it is today. Preserving those places is a crucial aspect of the partnership between state and municipal government,” said State Senator Patricia Jehlen (D-Somerville). “I’m pleased that Lowell Memorial Park is receiving the attention it deserves and I look forward to seeing the restorations completed.”
DCR has scheduled tree removal in the northern section of the park in advance of the wall work. The 25 trees are mostly self seeded Norway maples that have grown too close to the wall. The tree sizes range from 3”-18” caliper and several small saplings, and the yews in front of the curved section of the historic wall will also be removed. Later phases of the project will include the planting of shrubs and small flowering trees, if funding becomes available.
“The wall restoration in Lowell Park is the result of several years' hard work by Cambridge residents, the City of Cambridge, and DCR,” said State Representative Jonathan Hecht (D-Watertown). “I'm grateful to all of them, especially the Cambridge Plant & Garden Club, for their efforts and financial contributions. The beneficiaries of this and further improvements to come will be everyone who will enjoy and learn from this "little park with a big history."
Lowell Memorial Park is named after James Russell Lowell, a prominent poet and statesman who lived at Elmwood his entire life (1819-1891). Lowell, along with his Brattle Street neighbor Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and William Cullen Bryant, John Greenleaf Whittier, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. were known as the Fireside Poets. When the Elmwood estate was sold off into pieces, a public effort arose to raise private funds to save the only remaining undeveloped parcel. Ultimately, that parcel became Lowell Memorial Park, which was created in 1898. The distinctive brick and limestone walls and piers with massive ball finials were designed by the architecture firm of Stickney & Austin, who worked on many Metropolitan Park Commission reservations.
Before Lowell lived at Elmwood, the property housed Lieutenant Governor Oliver, the last to serve under the Crown. General Washington used the property for the Continental Army, and from 1784-1814 Elbridge Gerry, signer of the Declaration of Independence, 9th Governor of Massachusetts, and Vice President to James Madison, used the property for his primary residence.
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