Dede Petri
President & CEO
National Association for Olmsted Parks,
Managing Partner, Olmsted 200
Tonight we celebrate the life, work, and legacy of Frederick Law Olmsted. We gather to recognize this extraordinary landscape architect and social reformer who championed the idea of parks for all people.
And, if I may be so bold, we gather to recognize the important role that Olmsted and the Olmsted firm played in the Midwest— not NYC, not Boston, not Atlanta— but in the Midwest, and the need to draw greater and more informed attention to this legacy.
Here in the Midwest, leaders in Williams Bay, WI, are revitalizing the birthplace of astrophysics— Yerkes Observatory— and the remarkable Olmsted landscape that surrounds it. Will the Yerkes table please stand up and take a bow?
In Riverside, Cathy Maloney and Constance Guardi have helped shepherd a new public park of native trees known as the Olmsted Overlook.
In Lake Park, Milwaukee, the Ravine Bridge is being re-constructed with a grand opening expected later this year.
These are the kinds of investments that NAOP is seeking to promote here and across the country.
Vanessa Thomas
President
Washington Park Camera Club
It has been a wonderful experience for the Washington Park Camera Club to work on the Olmsted 200 Bicentennial Celebration. We thank Julia Bachrach for collaborating with us on this major accomplishment. But we are especially appreciative to Frederick Law Olmsted who gave us magnificent green spaces that are still so important to Chicagoans today. May we all continue to do our part to ensure that Olmsted’s parks and vision be preserved and appreciated for generations to come.
Victoria Ranney
“After Olmsted had traveled to China, to England, to the South during the slavery era, he came to Chicago for the first time when he was head of the US Sanitary Commission, which was a forerunner for the Red Cross…He met people he really thought the world of here…” [Full transcript coming soon!]
