Arnold Arboretum: City Failed on Its Promise to Protect Open Space

Harvard Magazine recently ran an article giving some food-for-thought in dealing with institutional expansion and the City of Boston's failure to deliver on promises to protect open spaces.

The article quotes from the Longfellow Area Neighborhood Association:

“Forty years ago, the City gave the Hebrew Rehabilitation Center permission to build a facility for seniors at the nine-acre Joyce Kilmer Park on Centre Street….After promising to protect the remaining open space at that site, the City later allowed the Rehab Center to double in size in 1973. Most of the remaining parkland was subsequently paved for cars in violation of public deed restrictions on the property.…The lesson of Joyce Kilmer Park is that once an institution gets established in a location, there is little a neighborhood can do to limit its eventual expansion.”

Quite sobering.