Betsy Shure Gross

Betsy Shure Gross’s love of nature and open spaces led her to restore a local treasure: the last surviving linear park designed by Frederick Law Olmsted. Shure Gross began her career in nature conservancy by  organizing her neighborhood to restore Olmsted Park in Brookline, Massachusetts. Although she had not known anything about Frederick Law Olmsted as a child growing up in New Haven, the park near her house where she learned to feed the ducks, Edgewood Park, was one Olmsted had designed. When Shure Gross and her husband relocated to Brookline, Massachusetts, she often walked her little boy around the corner from their home to feed the ducks at the banks of the very run-down "Muddy River." She was curious why this park reminded her so much of her childhood and, after some research, learned that Olmsted had designed both parks. As she organized a neighborhood park clean-up effort, she learned that Olmsted had built hundreds of America's urban parks and turned her energies to leading the restoration of Olmsted's Emerald Necklace, a chain of parks and waterways from Boston Common to Franklin Park, organizing residents and city government to take responsibility for maintaining this beautiful public resource. She helped found the Massachusetts Association for Olmsted Parks and the National Association for Olmsted Parks, coordinating a national conference that brought together environmental activists and historic preservation professionals. Their joint efforts resulted in a massive restoration program in Massachusetts and the formation of many more non-profit organizations dedicated to urban park restoration and maintenance. Shure Gross also helped pass the Community Preservation Act of 2000, which helps communities protect open space, historic sites, and affordable housing. Betsy Shure Gross was honored at the 2001 Women Who Dared event in Boston.