Over the past two months, Olmsted Network President Sue Breitkopf and Sr. Director of Programs and Partnerships Victoria Vanhuss have traveled to engage with partners, educate audiences on Olmsted history, and learn from peers at national gatherings.
From Texas to Wisconsin and all the way to Canada, shared open spaces are at the heart of civic dialogue—and the Olmsted Network is doing the work to ensure Olmsted values are part of those conversations.
Montreal
In early June, Sue traveled to Montreal with Olmsted scholar Lauren Meier, FASLA, to mark the 150th anniversary of Mount Royal Park. In recognition of this milestone, Sue met with our partners at Les Amis de la Montagne—alongside city officials and members of Montreal’s green space community—to present them with a proclamation acknowledging and applauding their years of stewardship. But not before Daniel Chartier led Lauren, Sue, and Christophe Derrien, executive director of Les Amis, on a comprehensive tour of the mountain.
As one of Olmsted’s most famous urban parks, Mount Royal is a cherished treasure of North American landscapes, and the Olmsted Network is grateful to the advocates ensuring it can thrive for years to come. After returning from her trip, Sue penned an op-ed for the Montreal Gazette expressing her admiration for the park and its stewards. At a time when too many urban landscapes are threatened by encroachment and neglect, it was truly inspiring to see a park so thoroughly cared for by a loving community.
Austin
Later that month, Sue and Victoria traveled to Austin, TX, for the City Parks Alliance’s Greater & Greener Conference—one of the country’s largest gatherings of urban park leaders and advocates. The opportunity to leave the screens behind and meet our national partners face-to-face was especially rewarding, as we hosted a connection happy hour and engaged with friends new and old from Buffalo, Brooklyn, Atlanta, Louisville, Boston, and beyond.
The energy of our peers and partners was palpable, and the Olmsted Network went home feeling invigorated by the fresh ideas and insights gained from several days among fellow parks champions.
Lake Geneva
Sue traveled to Williams Bay, WI, the following month for a much-anticipated visit to Yerkes Observatory—the birthplace of modern astrophysics, on the shores of Geneva Lake. The facility’s grounds were designed by the Olmsted firm in 1907, and Geneva Lake contains the state’s largest concentration of projects by the firm. Sue was honored to take the stage and give a presentation for the Yerkes Future Foundation on John Charles Olmsted’s work in the region.
As smoke from the Canadian wildfires covered the area with dangerous haze, it also provided a novel lesson on our changing climate—landscapes across the country are under threat from warming temperatures, rising sea levels, and more frequent natural disasters, with impacts hundreds of miles away.
Why it Matters
Visiting landscapes across North America shows us what responsible stewardship can look like, what investment and community can accomplish for public lands, and what history keeping and storytelling can provide for today’s stewardship. Despite the uncertainty brought on by funding cuts, encroachment, and natural disasters, our partners show time and again that we can stand up and make a difference, if we’ll only try. They are not idle—and neither are we.
Olmsted knew that his landscapes were living works of art, that they would need to be supported and nurtured by each generation so that those who live after can find the same beauty in them. We may not know what the world will look like then, but we can do our part to ensure it’s as verdant and restorative as it can be.
