The Landscape Architect’s Guide to

Post Office Square Park

Your Guide

In 1982, the Friends of the Post Office Square—spearheaded by developer Norman B. Leventhal—embarked on a campaign to raise funds to build a park on the site of a blighted parking garage that sat squarely among some of the highest-priced office space in Boston.

Ten years later, the park, which was designed by Halvorson Design Partnership, was completed, transforming the heart of the financial district from an unsightly above ground parking structure, to a below-ground garage that is all but hidden from view, with a lush, lavishly detailed park at the surface.

The space is open to the public, but owned and managed privately, using funds from the nearly $8 million generated each year by the parking operation. This private funding helps explain the meticulous condition of the park 20 years later, in contrast to many publically-funded open spaces that fall into disrepair.

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A Sense of a Green Oasis

From the moment the visitor steps into the park, one gets the sense of it as a green oasis amid the downtown traffic and noise. The fountain at the heart of the park enhances this effect with cascades of falling water that further drown out city sounds and lend peacefulness to the space.

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Rich Details

The park, nearly empty on a sunny summer Sunday, is virtually unrecognizable from the thriving gathering spot it becomes during the week, when workers pour out of the surrounding offices and inhabit nearly every surface of the park, from the lawn to the benches to the finely sculpted granite walls. The tranquility of the weekend allows for appreciation of the landscape’s rich detailing.

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The Fountain Is the Center

The park’s lush green lawn and a 143-foot long trellis, which is planted with seven different vine species, extends from the center of the fountain.

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Creating a Sense of Privacy

Beneath the trellis, dappled light expresses the latticework above onto the brick paving below. The trellis is one way in which Halvorson Design Partnership creates another layer of intimacy within the already secluded park. Vine-covered columns separate benches define little private rooms from which visitors can look out onto the activity of the lawn.

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A Welcoming Expression

The supple curves of the lawn are complemented by several graceful openings in the granite curb that contain it. They are a welcoming expression, inviting visitors to enjoy the lawn as its own space, apart from the park edges, but they also serve practical needs of accessibility for those in wheelchairs or those riding the mowers that keep the lawn pristine. The detail shows careful thought about how the space will be used.

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A Careful Exercise in Grading

What may appear from above to be a simple, flat, lawn is actually a careful exercise in grading. The gracious mounding of the lawn gives a sense of fullness and helps define the various spaces around it. Carefully tended trees serve to further define the gateway to the lawn.

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Safe Access

Pedestrian access from the parking garage that extends 80-feet below ground is funneled through this glass pavilion. A companion structure sits to its west, housing a café with outdoor seating. The activity of the garage and the café ensure that the park always has a steady stream of people moving through it, which is key to making any public space feel safe and inviting.

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A Champion of Animal Rights

Directly adjoined to the park and forming the tip of the triangular open space created by Post Office Square is George Thorndike Angell Memorial Square, where several sculptural pieces pay homage to the noted champion of animal rights.

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A Nearby Memorial

Though this space predated the Park adjacent to it, it was rededicated and revived in 1993, shortly after the park’s opening. The older of the two memorial pieces, shown here in the background, was once used to provide water for thirsty horses. A plaque gives visitors a lesson in tree identification.

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The Park Is a Green Roof

With all of the greenery and amenities, it is easy to forget that beneath it all—and at the very core of its existence—is a six-story garage. Vehicular ramps in an out of the garage are tucked discreetly at the sides of the park, away from pedestrian activity. The cloaking of the submerged structure in vegetation was made possible only by building the garage to withstand the weight of over four feet of soil required to support the plant life above it.

Image: Susannah Ross