On a sunny July afternoon, Maplewood Park is alive with the sound of children playing, the chirps of songbirds, and the ceaseless drones of cicadas.
At the northeastern edge of the park sits the Maplewood Nature Center. The modest building has served several functions throughout the years. At one point, it was a recreation center; at another, it housed police motorcycles.
But now, it's a space where the community can gather and learn about the unique ecosystem that surrounds the park.
There's lab space, a teaching kitchen, samples of pelts and bones of native wildlife, and a non-native, friendly black pine snake named Sassy. Outside its doors is a new infinity trail system, circling a pond at the park's center and dotted with freshly planted native plants.
"We want this to be a living lab space, where learning about the environment and then learning how to improve the environment can take place at this location, and then that knowledge can be spread to everyone that visits," said Sara Scott, director of programs and park stewardship for the city of Rochester.
The opening of the Maplewood Nature Center is the end of four years of work and over $5 million in investment by the city of Rochester. Scott hopes everyone — from elementary school instructors to university professors — will use the building to teach and research about the environment.
She said it’s also a way to breathe new life into one of Rochester's most unique attributes.
"I think we are blessed," Scott said. "We're one of four cities in the country with an entire Olmsted Park system ... I think the vision is having things along the park system that you can do, different opportunities."
Frederick Law Olmsted, the pioneering landscape architect, designed hundreds of parks across the country, most famously New York City's Central Park. But Rochester, Buffalo, Boston, and Louisville are the only places where Olmsted designed the entire park systems.
The city of Rochester commissioned Olmsted in 1888 to develop the park system. His vision revolved around three parks: Genesee Valley Park, Highland Park, and Seneca Park. The last, on the northern tip of the city, is divided into east and west portions by the Genesee River. Seneca Park East is commonly called Seneca Park, while Seneca Park West is known as Maplewood Park.
Olmsted's mission was clear in developing the park system: to preserve the natural beauty on the banks of the Genesee River.
“It is very desirable that the woods on the banks of the river below the park be preserved as they stand at present,” an 1891 Democrat and Chronicle article quoted him as saying. “… The land is certainly of no use for industrial purposes, nor for any purposes that I can think of. The board would do well to provide for the preservation of the trees.”
JoAnn Beck, a retired senior landscape architect with the city of Rochester, once had a hand in developing Lower Falls Park and Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Park at Manhattan Square. She now serves as head of both the Highland Park Conservancy and the Olmsted Park Alliance.
She sees the Maplewood Nature Center as a key step to revitalizing Olmsted's vision for the park system.
"I've lived here since 1996, and there has always been this grassroots yearning for recognition of this wonderful asset," Beck said. "Now that it's coming to fruition in a more visible way, it's just really wonderful."
Beginning from the nature center, Maplewood Park stretches south for over a mile to the Maplewood Rose Garden. South from there is Lower Falls Park, and just south of there is the site of the upcoming High Falls State Park.
Once the latter component is completed, Beck sees the park system as not only meeting Olmsted's vision but expanding upon it.
"When our park system was built, it cost us what nowadays would seem like an enormous sum," Beck said. "It was a major, major public infrastructure project to build these three major parks."
"It's a gift from the past that is even more valuable today," she added.
