The Muddy River Restoration Project

In 1991, Brookline Selectmen adopted the Emerald Necklace Master Plan, which recommended many improvements to undo years of deferred maintenance to Frederick Law Olmsted's linear park system in Boston and Brookline. Restoration of the entrance to Riverway Park at Carlton Street was specifically identified to "enhance the use of the Longwood section of the park."

Heavy rainstorms in 1996 and 1998 caused severe flooding along the Muddy River. In Boston, many institutions, including the Museum of Fine Arts incurred more than million in damage. Brookline residents will remember the Kenmore MBTA station was completely flooded by water pouring down the D line tunnels from Brookline and was closed for more than six weeks. Many basements in homes in Precincts 1, 3, 4 and 6 were flooded. Homes in Monmouth Court and on Bowker, Kent and Brook Streets suffered the most damage.

Beginning in 1997, Brookline restored Olmsted Park in Precincts 4 and 5 using the Emerald Necklace Parks Master Plan as a guide.

Allerton Overlook in Olmsted Park was restored in 2000

In 1999 the Town of Brookline and the City of Boston, drawing on Master Plan, established the Project. It represents Phase I of the Emerald Necklace Environmental Improvements Master Plan, and seeks to undo the effects of erosion, storm damage and years of poor stewardship and inadequate maintenance.

Historic Restoration
The Project will restore the park to Olmsted's original design. In Olmsted Park, Allerton Overlook has already been restored by the Town and the Commonwealth. In the same vein, a key element of the present project's scope is the reopening of the park's Carlton Street entrance, from the neighborhood across the D Line (previously Boston and Albany) tracks to a vista Olmsted designed across a landscape, water and islands.

This Project element is specifically identified in the Secretary's 2002 Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act (MEPA) certificate regarding the project's DEIR, in which he states that "the Carlton Street Footbridge is historically significant and is an integral component of the Olmsted Park System, and its eventual rehabilitation and reopening is an established part of the wider Emerald Necklace rehabilitation effort." In confirmation of the significance of the entrance's restoration, Dr. Charles E. Beveridge, Series Editor, The Frederick Law Olmsted Papers in a May 2009 letter to Chairwoman Nancy Daly writes, "Clearly, the Carlton Street entrance to the Muddy River park in its present condition is a crucial 'missing link' in the Emerald Necklace, a feature that Olmsted carefully designed to provide both convenient access and landscape amenity for many potential users of his park." (A similar letter was originally sent to Selectman Gil Hoy in 2002.)

PreservationMass concurred when it listed the footbridge as one of the Ten Most Endangered Resources in Massachusetts in 2002.

The Parties' Responsibilities
The Project's total cost is estimated to be $91 million. The proponents of the Project are the Town of Brookline and the City of Boston. As a result of intense lobbying on their part, as well as that of institutions, and residents, and with vigorous and unanimous support by the Congressional Delegation, the Army Corps of Engineers has accepted responsibility for supervising design and construction, and for funding 65% of the Project. The Commonwealth authorized an Environmental Bond Bill in 2002 to provide $24 million. The balance of the cost is split 50/50 between the Commonwealth and Boston/Brookline, with the result that Brookline's share of project costs, not counting the costs to restore the park's Carlton Street entrance, is $1.625 million. This cost has already been reflected in prior years' Capital Improvement Programs. Boston and Brookline have agreed to protect this public investment through increased maintenance after Project completion. The distribution of costs among the parties is set forth in the following table: