Maintaining Jamaica Pond an Ongoing Battle

By Abe Scherzer

Gerry Wright pauses to take in the grand, tree-surrounded pond. Whenever he gets a chance, he strolls the dirt path around Jamaica Pond.

“It’s an experience regardless of the season; it frees your mind,” says Wright, the director of the Jamaica Park / Olmsted Park Project. “The pond, every day for me is mystical - you have a sense of eternity.”

But the Park Project and other Jamaica Pond organizations worry that Jamaica Pond has become too popular and that it’s pristine nature might be threatened.

Wright says developers have proposed building townhouses on the hill to the west of the pond three times over the last 40 years. Thousands of signatures and demonstrations helped defeat the proposals, Wright says.

“I consider my most important task preventing the townhouses from going up,” Wright says. He says the townhouses would replace a watershed that helps keep the pond clean and would increase noise and clutter.

Jamaica Pond was first included in Boston’s Emerald Necklace in 1892. The Emerald Necklace is a series of green spaces designed by Frederick Law Olmsted that rings the city over seven miles.

Wright cites Olmsted’s philosophy when justifying his vision of the pond. “[Olmsted’s] philosophy was that the pond should be a place where you leave the worries of the city behind,” Wright says.

Wright opposes efforts to allow swimming in the pond. Wright cited noise, pollution and safety as problems with swimming. “It could change the whole environment of the pond,” he says. “It would turn it into Coney Island.”

Steven Baird, an Emerald Necklace naturalist and caretaker with Friends of Jamaica Pond, measures water quality in the pond and performs wildlife surveys throughout the Emerald Necklace parks. He says the water quality is the best it has been in 50 years, but he still worries about the pond.

“In July there was an explosion of algae and aquatic growth,” Baird says. The organisms can kill aquatic animals and insects. His studies on the organisms are in the early stages, and he has reached no conclusions.

Baird also worries about overuse of the Pond. “We have erosion problems with people and dogs walking around the pond so much,” Baird says. “We do repairs every five years instead of every two to three because of under-funding.”

Baird hopes the recession doesn’t result in more cuts in park funding, but he does cite one positive that comes from under-funding.

“The over-growth protects the wildlife,” Baird says. “You see a few more butterflies and rabbits.”

Sarah Freeman, the coordinator of the Arborway Coalition, works to connect the pond to the rest of the Emerald Necklace by making it more accessible to bikers and walkers.

“There was a major restoration in the path around the pond years ago, and it’s already eroding,” Freeman says.

Wright and the others want to keep Jamaica Pond thriving and in the image Olmsted wanted.

“Olmsted was clearly committed to the natural landscape and open, pastoral spaces,” Wright says. “[Olmsted] was fine with things like ice skating; he just wouldn’t want a Ferris wheel put in.”