Snaking its way through the Fenway neighborhood and into Jamaica Plain is the Riverway, established in 1890 by F.L. Olmsted and part of Boston's Emerald Necklace park system. Olmsted created the area as a low drainage point to resolve groundwater in nineteenth century Boston.
As the road rises toward J.P., the Riverway's tapered entrance near the Landmark Center begins to drop and recede into a forested pedestrian path. The substrata of the park not only serves a civil purpose as Olmsted had intended but simultaneously isolates the walkers experience and severs the urban connection. Soon you are surrounded by a myriad of trees while the city exists somewhere above you. The canopy along the path reiterates feelings of intimacy as explosive views to city buildings that would otherwise reveal urban context become blurred.
The berm establishes an earthen wall to act as an outdoor room, as it comes to a point around the nexus of the Fenway it seems to point toward the Landmark Center and acts like a conduit that reintroduces patrons to the existence of the city.
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