Sometimes one person leaves a mark on the landscape… a mark that, for good or ill, shapes the land, and society, for generations… even if the person, and the person’s name, are forgotten.

Frederick Law Olmsted was such a person.

Despite severe health problems he worked as a journalist, the operator of a large farm, a crewmember on a sailing ship to China. He made extensive tours of Britain, and of the slaveholding south, and wrote of them in depth. With a partner, he planned the design and development of Central Park in New York City, but left that off to form and lead the Sanitary Commission, which first created and then operated Union army hospitals in the Civil War. When he finally quit, exhausted, he was 41 years old.

When he returned to New York City, he threw himself into parks, becoming an early avatar of the landscape architect. Central Park was still taking shape, but he now designed a park system for Brooklyn (then a separate city)… and Buffalo… and Rochester… and Niagara Falls… besides having a hand in designing a campus for the new Cornell University, where he was a trustee.

Besides being a pioneer in the “nuts and bolts” – such as sinking the cross streets in Central Park, so as to preserve the long vistas and minimize accidents – Olmsted could be said to have created settings that looked like nature, only better. REAL nature means brambles, brush, and poison ivy. Olmsted’s nature is tree-shrouded, to be sure. But it’s also open and rolling, perfect for rambling or wandering. REAL nature leaves boulders wherever the glacier dumped them. Olmsted’s nature places boulders where they look the best, or where you need one to sit on.

Olmsted gives you not so much an illusion of nature as an idealized nature.

He (and his company) did private commissions, such as the Wadsworth estate in Geneseo. But the closest place to get a good experience of his work is in Rochester.

Here, in the 1890s, he created not just parks, but a SYSTEM of parks. Between them, Seneca Park and Genesee Valley Park preserved much of the shoreline of the Genesee River, gifting the city with long swaths of green. After his retirement his sons would design the University of Rochester campus, while Mount Hope Cemetery would evolve in line with Olmsted’s principles, expanding the green footprint based on the river.

The campus and the cemetery join Genesee Valley Park with Highland Park, which Olmsted planned not only as a park but as an arboretum, showcasing tree and shrub species in natural(-like) settings.

Look back at November’s entries in this space and you’ll read, “Streets and trails in Highland wend and wander. The ground heaves up and drops down. Practically every step creates a new space, a new vista, a new delight. In the days of flu and COVID, Highland is a fine spot for the kids to run around, or for the old folks to ramble.
Highland Park is forested, but it’s not the forest that our forebears cut down. It’s a curated forest, an arboretum, designed in part to delight the visitor.

Mission accomplished.” And thank you, Mr. Olmsted.