Parks as places for ‘relief from ordinary cares’

Walnut Hill Park is a large public park west of the downtown of the old manufacturing city of New Britain, Conn. Developed beginning in the 1860s, it is an early work of Frederick Law Olmsted, with winding lanes, a band shell and the city's monument to its World War I soldiers.

“It is a scientific fact that the occasional contemplation of natural scenes of an impressive character, particularly if this contemplation occurs in connection with relief from ordinary cares, change of air and change of habits, is favorable to the health and vigor of men and especially to the health and vigor of their intellect beyond any other conditions which can be offered them, that it not only gives pleasure for the time being but increases the subsequent capacity for happiness and the means of securing happiness.”

— Frederick Law Olmsted (1822-1903), the father of American landscape architecture and most famous as the designer of New York’s Central Park. He was born in Hartford and died in Belmont, Mass.

In the “Emerald Necklace’’ parkland of Boston and Brookline, designed by Olmsted and established starting in 1878.

“Frederick Law Olmsted” (oil), by John Singer Sargent, 1895, at the Biltmore Estate, Asheville, N.C.