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Newsletter
Summer 2005
National Park Service: Olmsted For a New Century
 The
National Park Service’s magazine, Common Ground, focuses
on the influence of landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted across
the country in the summer 2005 issue. Sliced, diced, and in one
case censured, the handiwork of Olmsted and his firm has survived
and thrived in different mixes of geography, climate, politics,
and history. Directors of three groups discuss why: Susan Rademacher
of the Louisville Olmsted Parks Conservancy, Deborah Trimble of
the Buffalo Parks Conservancy, and Robert García of The City Project, who takes inspiration from
an Olmsted plan that never was, but might be one day. As budgets
shrink for urban parks, these organizations have been critical
to carrying on the Olmsted legacy.
This year marks the 75th anniversary of the 1930 Olmsted Report, Parks, Playgrounds
and Beaches for the Los Angeles Region. The Olmsted Report recommended 71,000
acres of parkland, and another 92,000 acres in outlying areas, with 440 miles
of connecting parks and parkways, including a parkway along the Los Angeles River.
The Report proposed the joint use of parks, playgrounds, and schools to make
optimal use of land and public resources, and called for the doubling of public
beach frontage. The City Project is working to renew part of the lost vision. The Olmsted
map is available at www.cityprojectca.org/ourwork/olmsted.html.
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