Fenway-Kenmore Beyond the Ballpark: Marshes, Museums and a Famous Sign
Fenway-Kenmore was built around an Olmsted park that solved a sewage problem. Then came the museums, the ballpark and the Citgo sign.
Most people know the Fenway for one thing: the ballpark. But the neighborhood’s name comes from a park, not a stadium, and its history includes landscape architecture, great museums and a community garden that has been growing since the Second World War.
The Fens
In the late 1800s, the area west of the Back Bay was a polluted salt marsh where the Muddy River and Stony Brook drained into the Charles. Flooding and sewage made it unpleasant and unhealthy. The city hired Frederick Law Olmsted, the designer of New York’s Central Park, to fix the problem.
Olmsted’s solution, the Back Bay Fens, was both a park and a piece of engineering. It controlled flooding and improved water quality while creating a naturalistic landscape of winding paths and reeds. It became the first link in the Emerald Necklace, the chain of parks that runs on to Jamaica Plain and Franklin Park.
Once the Fens existed, institutions moved nearby:
- The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum opened in 1903 in a building designed to look like a Venetian palace. Gardner arranged the collection herself, and it remains largely as she left it.
- The Museum of Fine Arts moved to its Huntington Avenue home in 1909.
- Symphony Hall, opened in 1900, is renowned for its acoustics and is home to the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
- The Longwood Medical Area grew into one of the world’s leading centers of hospitals and medical schools.
The ballpark
Fenway Park opened in April 1912, which makes it the oldest ballpark still in use in Major League Baseball. Its odd shape, including the tall left-field wall known as the Green Monster, comes from fitting a stadium into a city block. The surrounding streets have changed many times, but the park remains the neighborhood’s best-known landmark.
Kenmore Square and the sign
Kenmore Square, where Commonwealth Avenue, Beacon Street and Brookline Avenue meet, has been a crossroads for more than a century. Above it glows the Citgo sign, first lit in the 1960s. Bostonians grew so attached to it that efforts to protect it have come up repeatedly. For runners in the Boston Marathon, it signals that the finish is about a mile away.
The Victory Gardens
Along the Fens, the Fenway Victory Gardens began during the Second World War, when residents were encouraged to grow their own food. They are often described as among the oldest continuously operating wartime victory gardens in the country. Gardeners still tend hundreds of small plots there each season.
A winter visit
In winter, the neighborhood is a good place to spend a cold day indoors. Pair a museum visit with a walk through the snowy Fens, then head to Kenmore Square. Check each museum’s website for hours, admission and any free days before you go.
Walking the Fens Like Olmsted Intended
The Back Bay Fens look natural, but almost every curve was designed. Olmsted shaped the banks, chose plantings that could tolerate brackish and shifting water, and laid out paths so that views open and close as you walk. A slow loop is the best way to appreciate the idea of a park that is also a working drainage system.
Features to look for
- The stone bridges. Several handsome bridges carry roads and paths over the water, including structures built of rough stone that blend into the landscape.
- The Kelleher Rose Garden. Tucked within the Fens, this formal garden is a striking contrast to the wilder reeds around it. It is at its best in early summer, but its layout is worth seeing in any season.
- Memorials along the paths. Monuments honoring veterans and other figures line parts of the park, giving it a quiet, reflective feel.
- The Muddy River. The river that flows through the Fens toward the Charles has been the focus of restoration work aimed at reducing flooding and improving water quality, carrying forward the problem Olmsted set out to solve.
A Neighborhood of Art and Learning
The Fenway is one of the densest clusters of cultural and educational institutions in New England, and that shapes everything about daily life there.
The Gardner Museum’s empty frames
The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is known not only for its collection but also for a famous unsolved art theft in 1990, when thieves posing as police officers took thirteen works. Because Gardner’s will required the galleries to stay as she arranged them, empty frames still hang where some of the stolen paintings once did. Standing in front of them is one of the more haunting experiences in any Boston museum.
Studios and stages
The neighborhood has long attracted artists and performers. Fenway Studios on Ipswich Street was built in the early 1900s specifically as working studios for painters, with tall north-facing windows for steady light. Nearby, conservatories and colleges fill the area with students who practice, perform and exhibit throughout the year.
Colleges everywhere
Northeastern University, Simmons University, Emmanuel College, Berklee College of Music, the Massachusetts College of Art and Design and several other schools are in or near the Fenway. Their students give the area a young, busy energy that peaks during the academic year.
A Cold-Day Itinerary
- Morning at the Museum of Fine Arts. Its galleries span many cultures and centuries, so pick a few wings rather than trying to see it all.
- A walk through the Fens. Follow the paths between the museums, crossing a bridge or two along the way.
- Afternoon at the Gardner. Its glass-roofed courtyard feels like a garden even in midwinter.
- Evening near Symphony Hall. Check the schedule for a concert, or simply admire the building on Massachusetts Avenue.
- End in Kenmore Square under the glow of the sign.
Questions Readers Ask
Why is it called the Fenway?
The name comes from the Fens, the park Olmsted designed, and from the parkway road that ran along it. The stadium, which came later, took its name from the neighborhood.
Can I visit the Victory Gardens?
The garden paths are generally open to the public, but the plots belong to individual gardeners. Look but do not pick, and respect any posted rules.
Is the Fenway walkable from downtown?
Yes. It is a pleasant walk from the Back Bay along Commonwealth Avenue or through the Fens, and the Green Line serves Kenmore and several stops along Huntington Avenue.
When is the area most crowded?
Event nights and the start of the school year bring heavy traffic and crowds. A weekday morning is usually the calmest time for museums and parks.
