Hoyt Lake, Delaware Park, 1998, looking toward the Casino and Art Gallery. (© 1998 Stanton M.Broderick.)
Frederick Law Olmsted:
Civilizing the Wilderness: Frederick Law Olmsted in the Yosemite Valley, 1863-1865. Exceptional site covering Olmsted's experiences as manager of the Mariposa Estate. Contains images, maps and extensive excepts from Olmsted's writings.
Yosemite History: Frederick Law Olmsted, Landscape Architect Part of the extensive Yosemite, California, web site. Contains images and the full text of Yosemite and the Mariposa Grove: A Preliminary Report, 1865., by Frederick Law Olmsted.
Frederick Law Olmsted Most ambitious of the general Olmsted pages. Contains sections on Olmsted's life and his works. The site is definitely worth a visit.
Frederick Law Olmsted Includes images, links and references. The author posts bulletins for current Olmsted topics and news on his site.
Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site The Frederick Law Olmsted National Historic Site at Brookline, Massachusetts. Includes an overview of the historic collections, detailed travel instructions, hours of operation, contact information, special events listings, and a slide gallery.
A short (3:48) but quite interesting video tour of the grounds of Fairsted conducted for Bob Vila by Lauren Meier, ASLA, President of the Friends of Fairsted. (Commerical site.)
John Singer Sargent's oil portrait of Frederick Law Olmsted, 1895.
Frederick Law Olmsted profile from the Notable Names Data Base (NNDB). One image.
An excerpt from A Journey in the Seaboard States (1856), by Frederick Law Olmsted. Excerpt provided courtesy of A Hypertext on American History, a very valuable project of students and professors of the Arts Faculty of the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. This site is another
National Geographic Magazine, "Frederick Law Olmsted's Passion for Parks". Article by John G. Mitchell, with full text online. Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr., on What's Out There, the online database of the Cultural Landscape Foundation. It contains over 380 designer profiles, some (including Olmsted's) further illustrated with short essays linked to considerably longer biographical profiles. Olmsted's partnerships are included among these. The database contains hundreds of site entries, many of illustrated with up to five images, inventorying some of America's most important designed landscapes. National: National Association for Olmsted Parks. Home page for the national Olmsted parks organization. Contact data, biographical articles on Frederick Law Olmsted, his sons, and Calvert Vaux, articles on Olmsted philosophy and landscapes, along with a bookstore and links. Contains a considerable number of images. The Master List of Design Projects of the Olmsted Firm, 1857-1950, compiled by Charles E. Beveridge and Carolyn F. Hoffman, and assisted by Shary Page Berg and Arleyn A. Levee. Search Page to the list, hosted by the National Park Service. Buffalo, New York Park System. Wikapedia entry for the Buffalo's park system. Links to other key Olmsted-related locations and individuals. Olmsted Designed Parks. A category at Waymarking.com, a site "for sharing and discovering unique and interesting locations on the planet." Martin Luther King, Jr. Park is the only Buffalo location presently profiled and illustrated. Buffalo, NY: Buffalo Olmsted Parks Conservancy, Buffalo, N.Y. The web site of the Buffalo Olmsted Parks Conservancy. Contains images, events listing, contact information and links. Humboldt Park neighborhood, Buffalo, N.Y. This selection from a series of short pages on Buffalo neighborhoods focuses on the area near Martin Luther King, Jr. Park. Includes a plan of The Parade, a recent image of North Parade Street and a photo of the Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial. Buffalo and Erie County Botanical Gardens, Buffalo, New York. Web site of the Botanical Gardens, with basic information, history, an illustrated virtual tour, contact information, events listing, maps and links. Olmsted Park and Parkway System: Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux in Buffalo, NY. A selection of online and offline references for the work of Olmsted and Vaux in Buffalo, part of the "Buffalo as an Architectural Museum" website. Parkside Commuity, Buffalo, N.Y. Website of the Parkside Community Association, with photos. Parkside is a National Historic District, adjacent to Delaware Park, and designed by Frederick Law Olmsted. Interactive Map of the Buffalo Olmsted Parks. Provided by the State University of New York at Buffalo's library. Buffalo Niagara: For the Architecture Fan. Courtesy of the Buffalo Niagara Convention and Visitors Bureau. Has some modern images, and information on Buffalo's landmark architects and architecture. Olmsted's works in Buffalo are covered on the Buffalo's Great Planners and Designers page. Olmsted Parks Master Plan. 2008 Master Plan developed for the City of Buffalo, County of Erie and the Buffalo Olmsted Parks Conservancy, by the Urban Design Project with the support of the University at Buffalo's Center for Computational Design Reasech. The full text of the Buffalo Olmsted Parks master plan which was adopted in 2008, The Olmsted City - The Buffalo Olmsted Park System: Plan for the 21st Century, is included. It also has a 3D model of every park and parkway in both existing and proposed conditions, as well as charette documents and public input. This one you MUST see! Rochester, NY: Rochester Olmsted Parks & Parkways System. Site maintained by Heritage Landscapes, Preservation Landscape Architects & Planners, planners and consultants for Monroe county. Brief history of their work on behalf of the system. Online Walking Tours of Rochester, N.Y. Part of the Landmark Society of Western New York website, Rochester's Olmsted Parks - About the Park System includes a brief history of Olmsted's Rochester work and self-guided walking tours of Seneca Park and of Highland Park, including maps, modern park images and links. New York, NY: New York City Department of Parks and Recreation. Information on all of New York City's parks, including the Olmsted parks. Images and maps. Central Park, New York, N.Y. Devoted to New York's Central Park, covering both its history and current activities. Includes a large number of images, in the form of a 50-stop virtual tour. The Ladies Pavilion, Central Park, New York, N.Y. Historic data on the Ladies Pavilion in Central Park, New York. Includes images. (Part of the University of Vermont Historic Preservation Program web site.) Illustrated. Prospect Park Alliance, Brooklyn, N.Y. While primarily devoted to present park uses, an interesting segment examines the park as sheltering Brooklyn borough's last forest. Includes images. Riverside Park Fund, New York, N.Y. Includes a brief history, images, a map and visitor information. Chicago, IL: Chicago Park District, Chicago, Illinois. Covers the city's Olmsted Parks, including Jackson Park. Includes maps, images and history. Riverside, IL: Riverside Planned Community, Riverside, Illinois. Presented by the Riverside Historical Commission. Includes history, images and maps. Frederick Law Olmsted Society of Riverside. Includes modern photographs and present-day map. Louisville, KY: Louisville Olmsted Parks Conservancy, Louisville, Kentucky. Parks history, master plan, maps, events, and links. Includes images. Boston, MA: The Emerald Necklace Conservancy, Boston, Massachussets. Covers Boston's "Emerald Necklace". Contains numerous modern and historic images, short descriptions of each park, notes on FLO, contact information and links. City of Boston Department of Parks and Recreation, Boston, Massachusetts. History and information on the Emerald Necklace parks within Boston's municipal limits. The Arnold Arboretum, Boston, Mass. Home page of The Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, part of the "Emerald Necklace" of Olmsted parks in Boston, Massachusetts. Focused on current programs. Includes images and travel instructions. Note: the on-line electronic archive of their Arnoldia newsletter includes in issue number 66 a very detailed look at the restoration of the Fairsted grounds, including essays, plans and some candid historic images of Frederick Law Olmsted and the landscape. Baltimore, MD: Friends of Maryland's Olmsted Parks & Landscapes, Inc. Frederick Law Olmsted Sr. designed the early suburb of Sudbrook Park, the four Mount Vernon Place parks, and consulted on other Baltimore parks during the 1870s to the early 1890s. Includes images and brief history. Monauk, Long Island, NY: Montauk Friends of Montauk Parks, Montauk, New York. Planned communities on Long Island, New York. Includes images and downloadable plans and maps. Prominent are frequently updated alerts regarding ongoing court action regarding these parks. Atlanta, GA: Olmsted Linear Park Alliance, Atlanta, Georgia. Includes a brief biography of Olmsted, and a brief history of Ponce de Leon linear park. Includes images and a park map. Druid Hills Civic Association, Atlanta, Georgia. Includes information on the residential historic district as well as the included Parks and Parkways historic district. Has map, plan and images. Essex County Park System, Essex County, New Jersey: Olmsted Look Goes Beyond Central Park, New York Times article by Elisabeth Ginsburg, focused on the importance of New Jersey's Olmsted parks. Branch Brook Park Alliance, Essex County, New Jersey. The Branch Brook Park Alliance raises awareness what Branch Brook Park offers to the local community as a space where people from diverse backgrounds can meet on common ground. BBPA and the Essex County Department of Parks, Recreation & Cultural Affairs are partners in improving the oldest of Essex County's parks. Images, maps and historic plan. The Essex County Park System, A Complete History. Digitized full text of the 1905 history written by Frederick W. Kelsey of the first county park system in the nation, which was designed by Olmsted. Biltmore Estate, Asheville, NC: Olmsted and Biltmore. Provided at the official site of the Biltmore Company. Biltmore images. Digital imaging project by Mary Ann Sullivan. St. Catherines, ON: City of St. Catherines: Montebello Park. A very brief description of this Olmsted park contains one illustration of the (post-Olmsted) historic bandstand, which is still an active site for free weekly concerts during the summer season. Montreal, QE: Mont-Royal Park, Montreal Information on Olmsted's Mont-Royal Park. A brief overview of the park, with map and images, plus background information on Olmsted and his firm. Seattle, WA: Friends of Seattle's Olmsted Parks, Seattle, Washington. History, timeline, images, interactive map and slide show. Olmsted involvement in Seattle began in 1903. Washington, DC: National Coalition to Save Our Mall. Advocacy group devoted to the continued realization of the l'Enfant and McMillan Commission plans for the Mall. FLO was a member of the McMillan Commission, which envisioned the Mall as a continuous green park framed by rows of elms and white classical museum buildings. Includes history, plans, maps, and images. Reportof the Senate Committee on the District of Columbia on the Improvement of the Park System of the District of Columbia. Full text of the McMillan Commission report. National Register of Historic Places Part of the National Parks Service web site, this page includes the National Register Information System, the official database of the National Register of Historic Places. The database is searchable from the web by state, or by state and county. (You may locate data for Buffalo under the Erie County, New York entries.) Birkenhead Park, Liverpool, England, the world's first public park. The importance of Birkenhead Park and its history. Contains images and maps. "The Buffalo History Works", a very well done site for information about Buffalo's heritage and history, thick with illustrations. Unfortunately, further development has been on hiatus since April of 2006. Still worth the time to explore. The Buffalonian.com, considerable historical information on the city, with images and maps. Published by The Peoples History Coalition, Buffalo, NY. The Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society Information on current exhibits and research resources. BECHS is custodian of a wealth of materials on the Buffalo park system. Buffalo.com Buffalo and Western New York regional information, news and resources. (Commercial site.) The Buffalo Free-Net. Free Buffalo and Western New York civic and cultural information host. Lower Lakes Marine Historical Society of Buffalo, New York, featuring the marine and maritime history of the Port of Buffalo. Frank Lloyd Wright's Darwin Martin House Website of the Martin House Restoration Corporation, with images and travel information. (Separate, but related, is Graycliff, Frank Lloyd Wright's summer home designed for the Martin family, located just south of Buffalo in Derby, NY.) New York History Net This site provides a central link to sites concerning or interpreting the history of New York State. Note: additional sites will be added as they are located and evaluated for appropriateness. If you are aware of a site which you believe merits a listing here, please email the webmaster with details at the address sbroderick at rochester dot rr dot com. (Note: All of the links listed were verified as valid as of July 18, 2010.) © 1996-2010 Stanton M. Broderick
Olmsted Landscapes:
Landscape Architecture / Historic Preservation:
Buffalo, New York:
New York State History: 
Gala Water, The Park, looking South toward Spirehead House, circa 1878