‘A body of water so foul’

Frederick Law Olmsted didn’t use the term “wetlands restoration” when he crafted a plan for the park now known as the Back Bay Fens. But just the same, that’s what he created. The history of this piece of land offers vital insight into our ever-thorny relationship with nature — and shows that the current thinking about how to reshape our urban landscape has far deeper roots than we imagine.

In Colonial times, the area now called the Fens was a salt marsh, a beloved staple of New England’s natural scenery. There’s even an old map of Boston where the area is labeled “salt meadow.” At high tide, the overflow from the Charles River washed across flats generously dotted with stands of salt grass. At low tide, the water’s flow reversed; away it ebbed in intricate rivulets. But as the city prospered, fresh land was needed to accommodate a growing population. As Boston spread out from its original tiny peninsula, whole neighborhoods such as the Back Bay and the South End were created by landfill.

Soon the city surrounded the salt marsh. Residents began tossing in garbage, and the marsh quickly transformed into a waste dump. Native plants such as sedge grass mostly died, and what was left behind was ugly, murky, swampy, and — on a hot summer day — olfactory torture. A 19th-century account describes it as “being without a single attractive feature. A body of water so foul that even clams and eels cannot live in it.”

To fix up this malodorous mess, the Boston park commission held a contest in 1878, soliciting proposals from the public. There were 23 entries. The less-than-impressive winning submission came from a florist, who suggested simply superimposing an ornamental garden onto the swampland. American Architect and Building News described the design as “childish.”