The Value of Green Space
September 26, 2008

I spent last week in Times Square. We were there to attend a conference on new web technologies and stayed in a hotel in the heart of the city. For me it was a bit like being at an amusement park all week. All the lights and the noise and the sounds, it was a fun break and certainly a lot different than West Glacier.

The conference was about a mile away so we walked each morning through throngs of people all heading somewhere in a hurry. It's a different world to be sure. On Saturday before our flight home we took the subway uptown to Zabar's to buy bagels and then decided to detour through Central Park on our way back.

Central Park is an amazing place and you instantly realize how vital it is. It's still jammed with people, but not people with that determined, destination oriented look in their faces. It's full of people having fun...folks on bikes zooming around the paths, people jogging or just strolling around, people with strollers getting their kids outside, roller bladers, old people, young people, families having parties, groups playing frisbee, baseball games, boaters, and at least one kid chasing squirrels and having a blast.

The activities there might be somewhat different than here in Glacier and our mission and purpose are different, but it's clear that there are deep rooted connections between the two. People need places to escape the everyday and experience nature on some level. Who's to say that someone's stroll through the gardens in Central Park has less meaning than a hike to Grinnell Glacier. It's all in what the individual gets out of it.

Central Park was designed by Frederick Law Olmstead. Google him and his life's work and you may find out that there is a park or University near you that he had a hand in designing as well. Olmstead was one of the original commissioners tasked with managing the Mariposa Grove in the Sierra's of California in 1865. The year before, Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove had been granted to California as a park, in what many people believe was one of the defining moments in U.S. Conservation history, foreshadowing the development of the National Park Service.

Frederick Law Olmstead National Historic Site in Massachusetts is a unit of the National Park Service celebrating his contributions and life's work.