Walks & Trails
The Emerald Necklace
About 7 miles one way, Boston Common to Franklin Park · About 3 hours of walking without stops; a long day with them, best taken as three half-day sections
Access Mostly level, paved paths with curb ramps at the three signaled road crossings; Olmsted Park’s paths are packed gravel in places, Bussey Hill in the Arboretum and Franklin Park’s drives are hilly. The Common, the Public Garden and the Mall are the easiest stretch.
The Emerald Necklace is Frederick Law Olmsted’s longest idea: roughly seven miles of linked parkland, about 1,100 acres in all, that Boston strung from the Common to Franklin Park. Olmsted designed most of it for the city’s parks department from 1878 to 1896, and it survives as the only intact linear park system he created. The city counts nine parks in the chain. The first three, the Common, the Public Garden and the Commonwealth Avenue Mall, were already in place when Olmsted arrived; the rest is his work, joined by parkways, stone bridges and a reshaped Muddy River.
Much of the route is a story about water. Olmsted turned a polluted tidal marsh into the Back Bay Fens, rerouted the Muddy River through the Riverway, and framed Jamaica Pond, a glacial kettle that once piped water to Boston and sent its ice around the world. Past the pond come Harvard’s Arnold Arboretum and the woods and meadows of Franklin Park. The Emerald Necklace Conservancy, the nonprofit that tends the Olmsted parks, starts its own list at Charlesgate, where the Mall ends. The whole chain is a long day on foot, so take it in sections; the Beyond Downtown day in Itineraries covers the southern half, the Arboretum to the Fens, with lunch built in (on foot on Thursday and Friday, by the 39 bus otherwise).
Know before you go
- Take it in three sections. Downtown: Park Street through the Public Garden and down the Mall to the Fens. The Muddy River: the Fens, the Riverway and Olmsted Park to Jamaica Pond. The south end: Jamaica Pond along the Arborway to the Arnold Arboretum and Franklin Park.
- The T reaches every section. Park Street (Red and Green Lines) for the Common, Arlington (Green) for the Public Garden, Hynes Convention Center or Kenmore (Green) near the west end of the Mall, Fenway and Longwood on the Green Line D branch beside the Riverway, and Stony Brook, Green Street and Forest Hills on the Orange Line for Jamaica Pond, the Arboretum and Franklin Park.
- The chain has three gaps, and here is how to cross them. Charlesgate to the Fens: where the Mall ends at the Leif Erikson statue, turn left onto Massachusetts Avenue for two blocks, right onto Boylston Street, and past the Bowker Overpass ramps the first path drops left into the Fens at Mother’s Rest, beside Richardson’s Boylston Street bridge. The Riverway to Olmsted Park: the Riverway path ends at Route 9 (Huntington Avenue here); cross at the signal, turn right along Washington Street for a few yards and left onto Pond Avenue, Brookline’s quiet side of the park, where the path runs beside Leverett Pond. The Arborway at Forest Hills: leave the Arboretum by the Forest Hills Gate, cross the Arborway at the signals in front of Forest Hills station, and follow its north sidewalk east about half a mile to Morton Street, where Circuit Drive enters Franklin Park beside Scarboro Pond.
- Walk in daylight and start early. The Arboretum’s grounds open from sunrise to sunset, and the wooded stretches of the Riverway, Olmsted Park and Franklin Park are at their best with light to spare. Circling Jamaica Pond adds 1.5 miles.
- Locals ride it. Bluebikes, the city’s bike share, has docks near both ends and at the T stops between; a single ride is $3 for 30 minutes and a day pass $11.99 with rides of up to two hours, and from the Fens south the parkway paths are shared with bikes.
- The parks themselves are free. The Swan Boats run mid-April to early September ($4.75), the Jamaica Pond boathouse rents from spring to fall, and the Franklin Park Zoo is ticketed. The Hunnewell Visitor Center at the Arboretum, open 10 a.m.–4 p.m., has maps and restrooms.
Walks & Trails · The map
The Emerald Necklace
Stop by stop
Boston Common
139 Tremont St (Visitor Information Center)
Hours 6:30 a.m.–11 p.m. · Admission Free
The chain begins on Boston Common, whose 50 acres predate Olmsted’s work by more than two centuries; he had no hand in the design, but Boston counts the Common as the first link, and its story opens The Freedom Trail. Cross west past the Frog Pond, a skating rink in winter and a spray pool in summer, toward Charles Street.
In this book: Boston Common
Public Garden
Charles St gate, opposite the Common
Hours 6:30 a.m.–11 p.m. · Admission Free
Across Charles Street the mood turns Victorian. The Public Garden’s 24 acres were built on filled tidal marsh to George Meacham’s plan. Loop the lagoon, cross the little bridge William G. Preston designed, and watch the Swan Boats the Paget family has run for more than a century. Leave by the Arlington Street gate, where Thomas Ball’s mounted George Washington faces down Commonwealth Avenue.
In this book: Boston Public Garden
Commonwealth Avenue Mall
Commonwealth Ave, Arlington St to Charlesgate East
Hours 6:30 a.m.–11 p.m. (park hours); open to walk through at any hour · Admission Free
Arthur Gilman drew this 32-acre promenade in the French boulevard style as the backbone of the new Back Bay, and it became the green hinge between the Public Garden and Olmsted’s parks; its statues and First Baptist Church are read on the Architecture & Art Walk. Walk the center strip west from Arlington Street, past Alexander Hamilton, William Lloyd Garrison, the Boston Women’s Memorial and Leif Erikson, to Charlesgate, where the Olmsted-designed chain picks up.
In this book: Commonwealth Avenue Mall
Back Bay Fens
Park Dr at Boylston St · Free
Olmsted’s commission began here in 1878, with a fouled saltwater marsh that kept flooding its neighbors. He reworked it into a winding, wooded basin, and the 1910 damming of the Charles later turned it fresh. Look for H. H. Richardson’s Boylston Street Bridge, the Kelleher Rose Garden near the Museum of Fine Arts, and the Fenway Victory Gardens, one of the last two World War II victory gardens still in continuous use.
The Riverway
The Riverway at Park Dr, by Fenway station
Hours 6 a.m.–11:30 p.m. (city park hours) · Admission Free
It looks wild, but it was built. Olmsted rerouted the Muddy River, long the boundary between Boston and Brookline, shaped and thickly planted its banks and curved the paths so the valley would pass for natural country; the neighbors redrew their border to follow his new channel. The park runs a little over a mile. Linger at the original bridges, especially the two faced in warm, tawny granite at Longwood Avenue and Chapel Street, and find the Round House, a rough stone shelter by the Chapel Street span.
In this book: The Riverway
Olmsted Park
Jamaicaway at Pond Ave, Brookline line · Free
Established in 1891 as Leverett Park and renamed for its designer in 1900, these 64 acres straddle Boston and Brookline. Olmsted converted a swamp into Leverett Pond and gave it three islands where nesting birds could hide. In 1998 the old Riverdale Parkway on the western edge became a path for walkers and cyclists, a welcome break from traffic.
Jamaica Pond
507 Jamaicaway (boathouse)
Hours Boathouse Tue 3 p.m.–sunset, Wed–Fri noon–sunset, Sat–Sun 10 a.m.–sunset (seasonal) · Admission Free (boat rentals extra)
Boston’s largest natural body of fresh water is a glacial kettle more than 50 feet deep. From 1796 it sent water into Boston through wooden pipes, and by the mid-1800s its winter ice was being cut and shipped worldwide. A 1.5-mile path circles all 68 acres of water. The boathouse rents boats in season, fishing is by permit, and the pond is stocked with trout every year. Lunch is a few minutes east on Centre Street: The Haven, the Scottish pub at Perkins Street, or ice cream at J.P. Licks farther along; the street is in Jamaica Plain.
In this book: Jamaica Pond and Boat House
Arnold Arboretum
125 Arborway (Arborway Gate)
Hours Grounds sunrise–sunset; visitor center daily 10 a.m.–4 p.m. · Admission Free
Harvard founded the Arboretum in 1872 with a bequest from New Bedford whaling merchant James Arnold, then gave the land to the city and leased it back for a dollar a year on a thousand-year term. Charles Sprague Sargent built the collection while Olmsted laid out the landscape across 281 acres. Start at the Hunnewell Visitor Center by the Arborway Gate, climb Bussey Hill for the view, and leave by the Forest Hills Gate at the far end, which puts you beside Forest Hills station for the last link.
In this book: Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University
Franklin Park
Circuit Dr at the Arborway, Forest Hills entrance
Hours 6 a.m.–11:30 p.m. (city park hours) · Admission Free
The last and largest link is Franklin Park, 527 acres that Olmsted conceived as a country park of meadow, woods and rock. Six miles of roads and fifteen of footpaths and bridle paths wind past Scarboro Pond, the Wilderness, Schoolmaster Hill, where Ralph Waldo Emerson lived in a cabin in 1823–24, and the stone ruins of the Overlook. It also holds the William J. Devine Golf Course, and the Franklin Park Zoo, ticketed separately, occupies the northeast corner.
In this book: Franklin Park