Last updated: June 7, 2024
Place
Memorial Park
Olmsted Archives
Quick Facts
In June of 1884, Frederick Law Olmsted was hired by a local from New London, Connecticut to design a park for the community. Olmsted’s concept for what would become Memorial Park emerges from his sketch studies. With the library sitting high on the site providing a commanding view of the city below, walking paths connect it to the area below. Olmsted wanted existing knolls and depressions excavated to accentuate grading changes and emphasize the upper lawn and terrace area.
To connect paths, Olmsted planned for sequences of stairs, with low plants and vines covering the slope. On May 9th, 1885, Olmsted wrote to the New London Park Commission that “The outlook towards the Sound is not to be improved by producing superficially any suggestion of the 'natural' or existing conditions. (It would be very greatly improved by the purely artificial arrangements that have been suggested.) I can think of nothing better and nothing less costly to be done with the quarry district than to handle it as I have proposed, making a defile by excavating a considerable amount of rock; building the terraces so as to increase the effect of depth and abruptness or declivity in this defile; establishing pockets and making deposits of soil from which to grow vines and rock plants by which to tie the rock in place artificially to the rock set up, and soften the asperity, hardness, and coldness of the material, and by opening a convenient circuit of communication through the defile by which this otherwise intractable part of the property would be utilized and seem by contrast to give value to the other part in which there is a possibility of obtaining gracefulness of surface and more tranquility of character.”
Source: "Williams Memorial Park," The Olmsted Legacy Trail
For more information and primary resources, please visit:
Olmsted Research Guide Online
Olmsted Archives on Flickr
Olmsted Online
To connect paths, Olmsted planned for sequences of stairs, with low plants and vines covering the slope. On May 9th, 1885, Olmsted wrote to the New London Park Commission that “The outlook towards the Sound is not to be improved by producing superficially any suggestion of the 'natural' or existing conditions. (It would be very greatly improved by the purely artificial arrangements that have been suggested.) I can think of nothing better and nothing less costly to be done with the quarry district than to handle it as I have proposed, making a defile by excavating a considerable amount of rock; building the terraces so as to increase the effect of depth and abruptness or declivity in this defile; establishing pockets and making deposits of soil from which to grow vines and rock plants by which to tie the rock in place artificially to the rock set up, and soften the asperity, hardness, and coldness of the material, and by opening a convenient circuit of communication through the defile by which this otherwise intractable part of the property would be utilized and seem by contrast to give value to the other part in which there is a possibility of obtaining gracefulness of surface and more tranquility of character.”
Source: "Williams Memorial Park," The Olmsted Legacy Trail
For more information and primary resources, please visit:
Olmsted Research Guide Online
Olmsted Archives on Flickr
Olmsted Online