Olmsted, Frederick Law. Plan for the Back Bay Fens.

The plan calls for altering the path of the Muddy River, constructing a sewage interceptor to accommodate run-off from Stony Brook, and creating a park that stretches through today’s Fenway to the Charles River. Although it is described in 1895 by Sylvester Baxter as, primarily an engineering work to improve drainage and sanitation, he admits, “It gives the impression that, by some fortunate accident, a typical landscape of this character had been preserved for its exceptional charm in the midst of the city growing up around it.”