Walking in Olmsted's Footsteps in Rochester's Highland Park

JoAnn Beck (second from left) led a small group on a walking tour of Rochester’s Highland Park on a rainy day in May. In this photo you see the group gathered around an information kiosk with the park’s iconic reservoir in the background.

2022 marks the bicentennial of Frederick Law Olmsted’s birth. To help mark the occasion, we reached out to our friends at Highland Park Conservancy to collaborate on a walking tour of the jewel of Rochester’s park system. The League has been working with Highland Park Conservancy through our NYSCA-funded Preserve New York program. With a 2021 PNY grant, the conservancy has been collaborating with the Highland Park Neighborhood Association and The Landmark Society of Western NY to complete a National Register nomination for two eligible districts surrounding the park (Ellwanger and Barry Highland and Azalea Neighborhood), and to present materials for the expansion of the already-listed Mt. Hope-Highland Historic District. These designations will allow homeowners and commercial building owners to take advantage of the NYS Historic Tax Credit program to encourage reinvestment in their homes and communities. As that project nears completion, it seemed like an especially good time to visit.

Highland Park was established in 1888 on land gifted to the City by George Ellwanger and Patrick Barry, proprietors of one of the area’s largest nurseries. According to Highland Park Conservancy, their gift specified “that the City of Rochester would hire a landscape engineer to develop the park and establish a first class arboretum; but along with the restrictions came the offer to provide from the Mt. Hope Nurseries numerous specimen and rare plants for use in the new park.” And walking through Highland Park today, you can truly understand why Rochester is nicknamed the Flower City.

There are many city parks around the country that were designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, but Rochester is one of the few examples where you can find an entire park system designed by him. In addition to Highland Park, Genesee Valley Park, Seneca Park, and Maplewood Park completed Rochester’s “emerald necklace" along the Genesee River.

Pink columbine flowers seen in the foreground alongside a walking path in Rochester’s Highland Park. You can see a group of people walking along the path in the distance.

Our tour through Highland Park was led by JoAnn Beck, a retired landscape architect who serves as President of the board of Highland Park Conservancy and chairs the Rochester Olmsted Parks Alliance (ROPA). JoAnn has a wealth of knowledge about Rochester’s parks and Olmsted in general, and seeing Highland Park through her eyes was a true delight. As we wandered through the park, she had us pay special attention to site lines, how things were hidden and revealed as you moved through the landscape. There was a deep intentionality to Olmsted’s designs, which were meant to be immersive. On this point we referred back to one of Olmsted’s other Rochester parks ⁠— Genesee Valley Park (GVP). The League has been working with JoAnn in her capacity as chair of ROPA as that group advocates for the protection of GVP. An intact woodland buffer that was part of Olmsted’s original design is currently under threat — so much so that the League included it on our current Seven to Save list. The woodland buffer provides a physical barrier between idyllic parkland and a large expanse of parking lot. Though Olmsted did not know what was to come, he wanted to be sure that whatever developed outside the park boundaries was sufficiently removed to allow park visitors to feel properly immersed in nature. The destruction of this mature woodland would severely damage this historic landscape as well as how contemporary visitors experience the park today.

The light pink flowers of Horse Chestnut trees scatter across the ground after the rain.

As for Highland Park, the landscape remains much as it was intended. There are winding paths and valleys where you feel completely engulfed in greenery, so far removed from the busy city. As you make your way to the higher points, you are treated to sweeping views across the reservoir and over hills cascading with shrubs. The park’s highest point was once home to the Children’s Pavilion, which provided even greater views. Olmsted “planned a magnificent, three-story open-air circular pavilion that would offer panoramic views of the park, the city skyline against Lake Ontario to the north and the distant Bristol Hills to the south.” The structure was demolished in the 1960s, but thanks to the work of Highland Park Conservancy, it will be rebuilt.

Perhaps best known for its extensive collection of lilacs (the park is home to approximately 1,200 shrubs, representing more than 500 varieties), there is no shortage of interesting and beautiful plants found throughout. You will find a grove of Japanese Maples, 35 varieties of sweet-smelling magnolias, and a narrow valley full of nearly 700 colorful rhododendron and azaleas. There is also the Pinetum, where you will find “about 300 species and varieties of conifers from around the world.”

If you find yourself in Rochester, make sure to spend some time in this marvelous historic landscape. And if you have a chance to join JoAnn for a tour, consider this a ringing endorsement!