Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway Conservancy Inc

See attached schedule o - programsprograms the programs department supported and hosted more than 400 free events on the greenway in 2024, including markets, fitness classes, movies, and performances. We were thrilled to work with new partners, like bsoccah & friends to welcome kulture in the square, and introduce new events organized by the conservancy, such as the winter warmer, fall fright movie nights series, wellness wednesdays, the canine costume festival, and storytimes at the greenway carousel with boston public library. Favorite festivals returned, including bagly's massachusetts youth pride event, jazz in the park presented by the north end music and performing arts center, films at the gate presented by the asian cdc, the lantern festival presented by chinatown main street, and boston local food festival presented by the sustainable business network. Coolidge on the greenway brought free movies with a science on screen series and street stage returned with live opera performances. We continued to support small businesses and long-term partners, launching the food truck season with 25 partners, including 18 women- or minority-owned businesses. We also saw an increase in the number of downtown office workers and customers during lunch shifts. Chinatown main street continued their bi-weekly farmers market in chin park where they provided thousands of dollars of food coupons to local residents. The greenway artisan market continued to see great success with our operating partner somerville flea. Trillium garden on the greenway was open from april to october, providing a beautiful outdoor gathering space for beer-lovers. We also welcomed a new beer garden partner to dewey square by night shift. Night shift offers a variety of drink options, including beers, hard seltzers, and na options, and provides a great spot for an after-work drink in the heart of the financial district. 2024 was another highly successful season for fitness programming on the greenway. Thanks to the generosity of our presenting sponsor blue cross blue shield, the conservancy continued its financial support for fitness partners with a stipend of $130 per class. With the success from expanding our season last year, we engaged 21 partners, 18 of which were women- or minority-owned businesses, and 1,931 people participated in 196 classes. New offerings included self-defense, kickboxing, full body workouts, and several accessible yoga class series. We also hosted our first annual fitness fair to kick off the fitness season where partners got to market their classes and business, and attendees were able to try a variety of classes including zumba, goat yoga, and hiit. We look forward to continuing the success of this program next year. The greenway conservancy continued its deep engagement with the chinatown community. Our key programmatic partners include the asian community development corporation, chinatown main street, the chinese consolidated benevolent association, pao arts center, ,chinatown business association, and the greater boston chinese golden age center. Our partners brought a wide range of activities to the park, such as family-friendly play sessions, cultural festivals, outdoor movie screenings, farmers markets, music performances, and arts festivals, keeping the park alive and vibrant all season long. The conservancy's own weekly chin park play sessions engaged families from june to september, and we again sponsored the hanging of lanterns around lantern festival, as well as weekly lion dances at the chinatown gate to drive weekend tourism. We continued to promote our park amenities such as the greenway carousel at the tiffany & co. Foundation grove, a boston landmark. This year, we had over 94,000 riders taking a spin on the sea turtle, rabbit, lobster, cod, peregrine falcon, skunk, and other characters, all inspired by the drawings of boston school children and brought to life by a local artist. We saw an increase of users through the ebt card to culture program and provided over 8,100 free rides.on june 6, the conservancy held its annual major fundraising event, the gala on the greenway, at the iconic rings fountain. The event, co-chaired by jessica hughes of tishman speyer and jerome smith of amazon, honored state representative aaron michlewitz and drew a crowd of 430, netting more than $480,000 in revenue to support the park's operations. The following night saw our young professionals fundraising event, glow in the park, draw 415 attendees and net more than $34,000. Building on the success of last year's inaugural fall festival, we added fall fright movie nights, a four-week halloween themed outdoor movie screening series, in collaboration with the city of boston's department of tourism, sports, and entertainment. With over 1,500 attendees across all fall events, we look forward to continuing these initiatives and our partnership with the city of boston.the programs department continues to see a demand for events, which has resulted in a longer programming season. We were excited to plan new events for the colder months of the year that brought people outdoors to enjoy fresh air, even in the winter. In early 2024, we were able to bring the first public sauna and cold plunge experience to downtown boston by partnering with moki sauna. In addition, we continued to host pop-up markets in the winter around the december holidays and valentine's day, where we featured local small businesses as options for holiday shopping. Finally, we hosted a winter warmer on the winter solstice in december, which was a celebration in collaboration with boston music project for make music winter. This included a diy holiday toy workshop, live performances, an instrument petting zoo, photo booth, craft station, hot chocolate bar, and more. We look forward to growing our audience and visitors to the park with welcoming, diverse, and fun events all year long in 2025.

See attached schedule o - public artpublic art the greenway has become a premier destination to see contemporary works of art in downtown boston through the commissioning of free, temporary exhibitions, engaging people in meaningful experiences, interactions, and dialogue with art and each other. The conservancy's public art program provides artists unique opportunities to exhibit bold, new work that considers the possibilities of 21st century boston. Through site-specific art commissions that are closely tied to the land that is now the greenway, the conservancy is committed to amplifying non-dominant stories that resonate with all of our visitors, ensuring that diverse audiences can see themselves and their experiences reflected in the art and programming. Having established the greenway as a major venue for contemporary art, the conservancy has an opportunity for greater social impact and deeper community engagement with its public art program. Under dr. Audrey lopez, the program is intentionally working to build long-term relationships and trust with local bipoc and lgbtqa+ artists and audiences who have been underrepresented on the greenway and other high-profile public spaces in boston, in order to help shape future projects on the greenway and create new narratives of belonging in this public space.the 2024 season of public art on the greenway intentionally cultivated spaces of care, belonging, and joy for diverse communities. New commissions included: year of the dragon, 2024 presented in chin park by artist ponnapa prakkamakul, year of the dragon takes the form of a vibrant interactive dragon sculpture, named ju-long ju-long, who invites viewers to climb, imagine, and play. Co-created through a community engaged process, year of the dragon incorporates elements directly from the perspective of chinatown youth and elders via public workshops. Far away, from home, 2024 presented in chin park by artist zhidong zhang, far away, from home re-interprets a curio cabinet reminiscent of furniture from the artist's childhood home in hunan, china. The sculpture is an inquiry into the complexities of home, immigration, identity politics, diaspora, and queerness in the public sphere. Scholars thea quiray tagle and sunhay you share their perspectives on the piece in essays which can be found here. Chinatown cultural plan, 2024 in partnership with pao arts center, acdc, chinatown community land trust, and metropolitan area planning council, we finalized and launched our chinatown cultural plan, a long-term cultural plan for arts and economy in chinatown. To share the cultural plan widely with the community, we produced a beautiful risograph printed academic year calendar featuring illustrations from local artists that told the story of boston's chinatown history through the arts. Your spirit whispering in my ear, 2024 fresh off his time representing the united states at the 2024 venice biennale, artist jeffrey gibson became the tenth artist to be featured as part of the rotating dewey square mural program with the installation of your spirit whispering in my ear through a collaboration with mass moca. The first indigenous artist in the mural program, we opened gibson's work in september with a public celebration co-curated by dr. Kareem khubchandani, in partnership with the boston lgbtq+ museum and naicob, with performances by local drag artists such as candace persuasian, neon calypso, and stabitha christie. Song/land/sea: water warning and binakol blessing, 2024 part sculpture, vinyl, and banner installation, this project from artist lani asuncin responds to the effects of climate change and global warming on boston's coastline. In a moving opening performance, including a traditional mele given by iwalani kaluhiokalani and noelani miranda, experimental live music, and a cleansing water-pouring ritual, the coordination of a massive team of craftspeople and performers taught us about the community network necessary to live and survive in a world of changing landscape. Going to ground, 2024 in august, we hosted artist larissa rogers in a residency to complete her going to ground sculpture in the north end as part of boston's un-monument initiative. Honoring the life and legacy of zipporah potter atkins, the first black woman in the united states to purchase and own a home, the work stands in the historical site of potter atkins' home, and was built using soil collected through an open call for soil, which included over 50 submissions of soil from 12 states, 4 countries, and 3 continents. The artist hosted brick making workshops where community members participated in the making of adobe bricks. The piece was opened with a public bricklaying performance and a community picnic co-produced by side presents, including an appearance by dr. Vivian johnson, professor emerita of boston university, who is the researcher credited with discovering zipporah's story in 2016. Installations that remained on view from 2023 included: love language, 2023 a large-scale sculpture symbolizing the influence of black culture, created by a team of 20 youth from artists for humanities' 3d design studio. Gateway to infinity (an anti-monument), 2023 a large-scale ground mural created by queer transdisciplinary artist maria molteni with co-collaborators vin caponigro, laura campagna, and ash capachione, who did in a ritual performance on the summer solstice. Molteni's artwork ushered in a new way of thinking about monuments on the greenway and boston's public spaces; in her boston globe review, cate mcquaid surmises that molteni's work and the conservancy are "ahead of the curve" in developing "new programming that will foster critical conversations about city monuments."in 2024, the public art team continued to participate in princeton university's high meadows fellowship program, through hosting our first ever public art & ecology fellow, a two-year, full-time paid position. In this position, maggie poost supports public art projects, collaborations across departments, as well as deepens engagement with audiences via social media and in-park presence and programming. Maggie continued to push our team and organization to reflect on our relationship with the landscape of boston, by organizing weekly pop-up installations of the eco-art cart in the park through the summer. Centered around seasonal endemic and endangered plant species, the pop-ups invited passersby to pause, learn something new, and create a bit of their own art.finally, the public art team continued to develop and grow their following on an art-audience specific instagram account to share stories and behind-the-scenes content about artists, artworks, and processes, and amplify public art produced by organizations across greater boston. Over the past year, we grew our audience from 56 followers in december 2023 to 1,150 followers in december 2024, an increase on average of 91 followers per month.

Outreach the outreach department leads external messaging efforts to draw and invite visitors to experience and enjoy the greenway and understand conservancy initiatives. The team is in regular and consistent contact with the general public, community groups, government officials, the media, and other stakeholders through direct outreach, in-park messaging, and electronic communications, including email and owned digital media assets. In 2024, the outreach department provided important messaging support for the many park events and activities that happen year-round. The outreach team experimented with paid advertising strategies, which included supporting a larger media campaign for your spirit whispering in my ear in collaboration with castle, a pr firm. The outreach department focused on streamlining internal processes across departments and worked towards a wider strategic plan for the conservancy. We continued to provide updates and seek feedback from stakeholders including the greenway business improvement district members, elected officials, government staff, partner organizations, and community members. We also helped onboard and message new leadership staff and worked closely with chinatown community stakeholders on upcoming park improvements and public art.

Continuation of program 4athe horticulture department focused on tree maintenance and protecting visitors to the greenway in 2024. We planned and coordinated annual maintenance for 121 shade trees along the greenway this past year, an investment just over $25k to care for our trees. The species included elms, oaks, honeylocusts, red maples, and yellowwoods. This maintenance improved the trees' structure, promoted healthy growth, and removed dead or declining limbs to help mitigate public safety hazards from potential falling branches. There were four "tree pits" enlarged in the carolyn lynch garden this year to better accommodate the red maples and elm trees growing in the garden. The heaving hardscape around the trees was repaired during the project which improved the safety of people visiting the park while supporting the trees' growth in the coming years.we continued to maintain dewey square's demonstration gardens. The public can observe growing vegetables and fruits in limited urban space and what types of plants work well in a rain garden. We hosted citysprouts again this year, a non-profit organization that partners closely with public elementary schools in cambridge and boston to provide opportunities for children to learn by exploring the natural world as part of their school journey. Citysprouts is committed to greater equity in science education and children's access to nature no matter where they live. On the greenway, about 30 pre-k aged children had a chance to experience a natural space within an urban setting and harvest cucumbers, carrots, patty pan squash, and red noodle beans from the vegetable beds in dewey square. The field trip ended with a splash in the rings fountain and a ride on the greenway carousel.our volunteer program supports our horticulture initiatives and offers opportunities for both individuals and corporate, non-profit, academic, and other community groups to experience hands-on learning while they assist us with park stewardship. In 2024, 610 individual volunteers contributed over 3,000 hours to provide essential assistance. On the strength of reviews from volunteers, the conservancy has won the "top rated award" from greatnonprofits.org fourteen years running. Through our volunteer program, the greenway conservancy increases the public's awareness and understanding of sustainable gardening practices. Maintenance and capital projectsthe greenway conservancy's maintenance team cares for six water features, acres of granite paving and precast unit pavers, complex lighting systems, the greenway carousel at the tiffany & co. Foundation grove, and more. In addition, the maintenance team supports infrastructure for programs and public art and collaborates with the horticulture team frequently. The team oversees our contracted basic maintenance contractor, block by block, who provides services that include lawn mowing, litter and trash removal, power washing, graffiti removal and snow removal while serving as ambassadors to the public the capital projects team oversees a variety of projects for improvements ranging from new park lighting to new site furnishings and enhancements, climate resilience, and the maintenance of the greenway carousel. In 2024, the maintenance and capital projects teams performed and supervised repairs and improvements throughout the greenway.. In the north end, the team supervised the repointing and resealing of joints in pavers in several areas in the fountains and walkways. All of the pergolas and railings were repainted. It also assisted the public art department by overseeing the restoration of the grading and lawn area around the public art installation, going to ground, by larissa rogers on parcel 8.in the central portion of the greenway, all the light blade luminaires were replaced as were the carousel rounding board lights. The carousel enclosure curtains were also repaired and reinstalled. Hvac louvers at the rings fountain vault were replaced with new ones that accept deployable water-tight covers in the event of climate change induced flooding. The electrical main line providing power to parcel 16 failed and was replaced. Wifi to the rings fountain and carousel was reestablished enabling remote access to the fountain, light blades and carousel control systems.further south in the fort point channel area, stone dust paths on parcel 19 were repaired and regraded and the subsurface drainage was cleared and restored. Exploratory test pits were dug to assess subsurface conditions in consideration of new park lighting. In chin park, new tables and chairs were introduced, and the mary soo hoo enhancements project was completed which included the establishment of a fenced and gated children-only area with play structures, interactive musical chimes, safety surfacing, and additional seating and planting.in 2024, the maintenance and capital projects staff worked together to maintain the greenway carousel at tiffany grove to a very high level with only one day of operation missed due to mechanical downtime throughout the entire year. The capital projects team completed the installation of winter lights on 8 parcels throughout the greenway.the maintenance team hosted four group volunteer events that included stone dust path rejuvenation.