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Urban Wilds

The Urban Wild Idea

Boston’s Urban Wilds are a special collection of open spaces that give beauty and comfort to the neighborhoods; that tells us something about the history of the city, its landscapes and its geology; that are too often unused, unappreciated and unprotected. Some are huge emeralds of woodlands. Some are dark stone masses formed far back in the earth’s history. Many are like diamonds of un built, pleasant spaces locked in the surrounding rock of a busy, dense, bustling cityscape.

Speaking of how Wilds in any urban setting provide a sort of botanical exhibit of an area’s natural trends and likes and dislikes, Anne Whiston Spirn in “The Granite garden” wrote, “They place the city in its regional context and differentiate it from other cities, rather than setting it apart from the surrounding landscape.” The remnants of native plants and the examples of plants hat people introduced “represent unexploited resources in most cities. “ Spirn said. The are, she added. “frequently more expressive of the special character of a particular city- its geological origins, topographic setting, indigenous vegetation, and history- than are its manicured parks.”

To add some definition to the idea of Wilds, it may be useful to define them by what they are not. Urban Wilds are not parks. Parks provide greenery and open space in urban settings, but they are designed and sculpted. The Urban Wilds are natural landscapes. Either they are what nature has shaped through depositions, erosion, glaciation and other processes, or they are what nature has fashioned in taking back landscapes people had made for farming, for their estates, or in quarrying stone to raise the built city. Parks are designed by people for people, for people’s games and pastimes. Little that shapes a park happens by accident, whether the lay of the land or the species of trees. Urban Wilds are taken as we find them, because they are places where nature can shape us.

The Urban Wilds of Boston are like the city itself: too diverse for an all-encompassing physical description. They are natural landscapes- sometimes a few hundred square feet, sometimes dozens of acres. In them, one can see bits and pieces of Boston’s geological, topographical or economic history. Some Wilds are woods. Some are ponds. Some are meadows and swamps. Some are rocks, Some are valuable for what is in them, some because one can see so much from them, and some because one can see them. Many are part of open space networks that are vital to their neighborhoods.

Where Wilds include rock outcrops, we can peek at the foundation nature put under the land we colonized. Those that include wetlands perform numerous tasks for us and for the wildlife with which we share the city. Some include old farm fields that are becoming wooded now-are doing a new job- but whose shapes and old stone walls hint at the centuries when countryside towns such as West Roxbury and Jamaica Plan. Ponds have formed in hollows where growling, icy glaciers scooped out the earth.

Wilds are not wilderness. In fact, many need human attention o trim undergrowth and make paths so that people can enjoy them easily. But they are not cut and filled and shaped and paved and equipped in the manner that marks the traditional urban park. Like parks, though, Wilds are for people. They provide a place to sit or walk, or watch or listen. Sometimes they are barely removed at all from the concrete hustle and bustle of urban streets, but even small Wilds tucked into neighborhoods heavy with human infrastructure can be home to birds or wildflowers or a few trees. And all of them provide the visual and psychological relief of being someplace that is not more of the same built environment. For that, the small neighborhood Wilds are all that more valuable.

The larger Wilds, such as the Metropolitan District Commission’s holdings along the Dorchester bay shores or the city Conservation Commission’s Allendale woods in West Roxbury, encompass dozens of acres and offer the chance to get off the street and into the fields or woods. Others, such as the privately owned St John’s Seminary grounds in Allston-Brighton and Hellenic hill in Jamaica Plain, are backdrops of greens and browns in summer and reds, purples and golds in autumn that set the character of the neighborhoods around them.

The Urban Wilds concept in Boston’s special treasure. In the city famed for having the first public open space in America, Boston common, it is appropriate to have this inventory of special green spaces that are something other than parks. The Urban Wilds mark Boston’s commitment to having special places throughout its neighborhoods.

Making a Network
In several cases, the Wilds mimic Frederick Law Olmstead’s woven greenbelt. Seen on a map, many Wilds connect, wither literally or with only a block or two between. In Jamaica Plan’s Mission Hill neighborhood, Urban Wilds climb the hill through the Harvard Quarry, cross the summit through parker hilltop and descend through Alleghany I and II. Not far away, behind Jamaica Pond, the large Wild at Hellenic College defines the backdrop for that jewel in Olmsted’s necklace. In Allston-Brighton, the fields and groves of the former St. Sebastian’s School are a patchwork of scenery. In Dorchester, there is a chain of waterfront Wilds along Boston harbor and the Neponset River. Upriver, in Hyde Park, Wilds are studded along the river, Mother Brook, and the public forests of Stony Brook Reservation.

Teaching Tools
Among the 120 Wilds that have survived in whole or in part, many are significant because of he rock outcrops they reveal. Boston was heavily quarried; builders seem to have dug wherever they found hills underlain by the stone they wanted for the office buildings, churches, civic buildings and monuments of the 9th century. In Wilds from Hyde park to East Boston, we can see hints of the rock that is under the city and in its buildings.

Some Wilds teach geology. Some are ecology classrooms. Others give lessons in economic and social history, neighborhoods evolved. The Souther Estate Wild in West Roxbury and Roxbury’s Warren Gardens are from the days of large country estates and farms. Allandale woods in West Roxbury tells another piece of the same story, this time about landed gentry who had working farms along their landscaped grounds.

Wilds as Respite
Wilds can be beneficial even if the public cannot walk the land. A green hilltop or a dense neighborhood wood can set a restful tome simply because it can be seen, and what the eye sees is not more of the same built environment. Hellenic Hill in Jamaica Plain and Dudley Cliffs in Roxbury work that way. Green spaces can cool an urban neighborhood in summer, alleviate air pollution, buffer winter winds, brighten spring days with bird song, and color the autumn without anyone having to set a foot into them. They are part of the atmosphere of their neighborhoods as much as the styles and colors of buildings and the width of streets.

A Distinctive Look
Every Urban Wild contributes to the character, the look and the feeling that makes its neighborhood distinct. Several also are important for all city residents because of what they show us about our land and our history. Parker Hilltop in Jamaica Plain, the balcony of the City, and the former farmlands of St. John’s Seminary in Brighton exemplify the latter. Some Wilds are open fields where children play, birders watch, families picnic, or classes learn biology or geology or zoology. Some Wilds are rock outcrops that reveal the geological history of their area. Others are wetlands hat feed streams, filter the water, soak up excess water to prevent floods and provide habitat for wildlife. A Wild can be dozens of acres or it can be a small garden. What matters is that the Wild has been in place, has been part of the city’s environment, longer than any generation that wants to change it. Wilds are our past and, if we preserve them, our future. They contribute to the sense of place, and changing them changes the street and the neighborhood and the city. We must be good stewards of what we inherit.

Stewardship: New England Tradition
Stewardship is an honored principle that goes back tot he European settlers of new England and the Native Americans whom they met here. It requires that we pass on what we inherit. Certainly, changes in technology, lifestyles, and the economy in which Boston lives demand different uses of the land in different times. But the urban Wilds are history and tradition, and it is simply good stewardship to pass them on as the open spaces they were when we found them.

In 1976, the BRA said that “Wilds represent the memory of where one played as a child, where one’s children play today, and where one looks for beauty, fresh air and green spaces.” They are, as the report put it, “beautiful bits of Boston’s natural landscape.” We now have to decide whether we want to protect them and pass then on for future generations to enjoy.