page_title: Fenway (parkway)
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: Fenway (parkway) / History / Background
caption_attribution_description: English: Example of the ornate facades of buildings located along the Fenway. 80 and 84 Fenway are pictured. (I did not notice the naming error until it was too late)
context_page_description: Fenway, commonly referred to as The Fenway, is a mostly one-way, one- to three-lane parkway that runs along the southern and eastern edges of the Back Bay Fens in the Fenway–Kenmore neighborhood of Boston, in the east-central part of the U.S. state of Massachusetts. As part of the Emerald Necklace park system mainly designed by Frederick Law Olmsted in the late 19th century, the Fenway, along with the Back Bay Fens and Park Drive, connects the Commonwealth Avenue Mall to the Riverway. For its entire length, the parkway travels along the Muddy River and is part of the Metropolitan Park System of Greater Boston. Like others in the park system, it is maintained by the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation.
  The first parkway of the Emerald Necklace to be constructed, the Fenway's name was coined from an early description of the park that it runs alongside. It was first thought that it would promote a high-class neighborhood, but a majority of its early structures were for educational institutions. Current organizations on the parkway's route include the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts, and many colleges and universities.
context_section_description: In 1875, the voters of the City of Boston and the Massachusetts legislature approved the creation of a park commission in order to promote the creation of public parks in the city. Frederick Law Olmsted, the landscape architect of New York City's Central Park, began to spend an increasing amount of time in the area and was asked by the park commission in the mid-to-late 1870s to be the judge of a 23-entry design competition to build a new park. Olmsted felt that all of the submitted plans were subpar and either did not take into account flood control or focused too much on it and neglected the public park aspect. The Muddy River and Stony Brook flowed through the Back Bay Fens (the Fens) which were at the time subject to tidal flow, storm flooding, and sewage discharge. The disappointed park commission then asked Olmsted to be its professional adviser and main landscape architect. Under his direction, what is now called the Emerald Necklace took shape. He directed the Fens to be dredged, graded, planted, and turned into a seemingly natural salt marsh to absorb and clean the flowing waters. He then built a series of parks stretching from the Fens near the existing Commonwealth Avenue greenway to Franklin Park some miles away. The parks were connected to each other by scenic parkways, one of which is the Fenway around the eastern and southern sides of the Fens.
  When planned, it was thought that the buildings built upon the Fenway would house high-wealth residents and that the whole area would be a high-class neighborhood. As property values rose, however, it was educational institutions that sprung up along the Fenway's route. By 1907, there were twenty-two educationally focused organizations, including nine college and universities which had made their homes on the Fenway. Residential buildings that were built needed their frontages to be approved by the Park Board so that a "poor looking building [did not] depreciate the value of the whole neighborhood". Additionally, the Board had discretion on whether it felt a proposed building was suitable for frontage along the park and parkway. The hope of these building restrictions was that there would be an improvement in the look of the Fenway compared to neighboring streets.
  As part of the Metropolitan Park System of Greater Boston, the Fenway is maintained by the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR), rather than the City of Boston.
caption: The ornate facades of the buildings at 80 and 84 Fenway.
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