The Lincoln Street Green Strip, completed at the end of August 2008, is a public art project that rehabilitates a marginalized strip of land straddling the neighborhoods of Allston and Brighton in Boston Massachusetts. The project originated through a competition sponsored by The Allston Brighton CDC with a grant from the The New England Foundation for the Arts in 2005. The City of Boston Department of Neighborhood Development provided funds for construction. A site study revealed existing patterns of use which were then repeated throughout the site. Elements are added and placed to imply long obscured or future pathways, entrances and exits.

Budget: $220,000.

Sponsorship and Support:
The Allston Brighton Community Development Corporation
The New England Foundation for the Arts
The City of Boston Department of Neighborhood Development
The Boston Art Commission
The Natinal Park Service

The Green Strip’s own natural foliage and steeply sloped terrain are preserved and maintained to communicate with sculptural elements that intentionally carry historical resonance: that of a long-forgotten folly garden. A distinct organization of parterres and vertical ornaments of graffiti-resistant weathering steel map the site implying pathways extended along the diagonals of a pre-existing bicycle ramp.

Above: subsequent views along Lincoln Street starting from the western end.

The Green Strip’s own natural foliage and steeply sloped terrain are preserved and maintained to communicate with sculptural elements that intentionally carry historical resonance: that of a long-forgotten folly garden. A distinct organization of parterres and vertical ornaments of graffiti-resistant weathering steel map the site implying pathways extended along the diagonals of a pre-existing bicycle ramp.

Above: subsequent views along Lincoln Street starting from the western end.

The Green Strip’s own natural foliage and steeply sloped terrain are preserved and maintained to communicate with sculptural elements that intentionally carry historical resonance: that of a long-forgotten folly garden. A distinct organization of parterres and vertical ornaments of graffiti-resistant weathering steel map the site implying pathways extended along the diagonals of a pre-existing bicycle ramp.

Above: subsequent views along Lincoln Street starting from the western end.

The Green Strip’s own natural foliage and steeply sloped terrain are preserved and maintained to communicate with sculptural elements that intentionally carry historical resonance: that of a long-forgotten folly garden. A distinct organization of parterres and vertical ornaments of graffiti-resistant weathering steel map the site implying pathways extended along the diagonals of a pre-existing bicycle ramp.

Above: View from Mansfield Street

View from Royal Street

Ornaments
Five tall, vertical ornaments of punched and CNC-cut weathering-steel plate stand solidly inviting entry, or dissolve to transparency depending upon point of view.

Urns

Urns

Urn and parterres

Pineapples

Pineapple

Fleur

Fleur

A selective weeding plan administered by the community will coax the Green Strip’s gnarly landscape into a more consistent and accessible hybrid urban meadow. In winter and spring, ornate patterns in the eight low parterres are revealed and dominate the site, embossing the slope in sharp relief, only to be softened and then partly obscured by meadow throughout the summer and fall.

A selective weeding plan administered by the community will coax the Green Strip’s gnarly landscape into a more consistent and accessible hybrid urban meadow. In winter and spring, ornate patterns in the eight low parterres are revealed and dominate the site, embossing the slope in sharp relief, only to be softened and then partly obscured by meadow throughout the summer and fall.

The Green Strip’s changing, sometimes gregarious meadow and slope are balanced against a steel installation whose formal qualities evoke both permanence and a grandeur on the wane.

The Green Strip’s changing, sometimes gregarious meadow and slope are balanced against a steel installation whose formal qualities evoke both permanence and a grandeur on the wane.

January 2009