WORCESTER – Visitors to Worcester’s Elm Park now have a new way of experiencing the park thanks to newly digitized documents made publicly available by the Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site.
The Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site is a United States National Historic Site in Brookline, Massachusetts, managed by the National Park Service. The site holds an archive of more than one million original documents related to the work of landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted and his firm.
Since 2012, the site has undertaken a large-scale effort to digitize its archive and so far has digitized and made publicly available approximately 215,000 maps, renderings, proposals, plans, and photographs from Olmsted-designed parks around the world.
Recent additions to the collection include nearly three dozen items related to Elm Park. These include original plot plans, historic photographs, and detailed blueprints that provide a new glimpse of the park’s early 20th-century transformation.
Frederick Law Olmsted was the world’s most famous landscape architect at the turn of the 20th century. His firm, Olmsted Brothers, designed many of the most famous parks and outdoor areas in North America, including New York City’s Central Park and developing the landscape around Niagara Falls.
In 1909, the City of Worcester commissioned the Olmsted Brothers to evaluate and improve its public park system. From 1910 through 1918, the firm played a major role in reshaping Elm Park. Their work included designing and installing the new pedestrian bridge, an icon of the park today. They also added new walking paths and reorganized the space to better accommodate visitors.
The Olmsted Brothers also assisted the city in the acquisition of Newton Hill and worked to integrate its larger natural landscape into the park’s design.
Although the Olmsted firm’s involvement began in the early 1900s, Elm Park’s origins date back much earlier. The city purchased the land with public funds in 1854, making it one of the first public parks in the United States.
Olmsted Brothers later returned to Worcester following the Great Depression, where they undertook additional work in Elm Park, including landscaping the triangular area at the base of Newton Hill and helping with the construction of the Rogers-Kennedy Memorial.
The newly digitized materials date from approximately 1909 to 1940 and depict additions mentioned above and others, including original survey plans, design blueprints, and photos that showcase a new view of one of Worcester’s oldest and most iconic spaces.
