By Dan Murphy
While Friends of the Public Garden (FOPG) President Liz Vizza intends to step away from the organization at the end of the month after a 15-year tenure, the positive influence she has made on Boston’s parks will undoubtedly continue to endure well into the future.
Liz Vizza, outgoing President of
the Friends of the Public Garden.
In April of 2009, Vizza, who had previously worked extensively in landscape planning and historic preservation but had no prior nonprofit experience, came on board as Executive Director of the Friends group, which together with the Boston Parks Department, works to maintain and enhance the Boston Common, the Public Garden, and the Commonwealth Avenue Mall.
The only paid staff member besides Vizza at that time was a part-time administrative assistant, but today, the Friends has a full-time staff of 10 while the organization’s budget has increased six-fold under her leadership.
“When I got here, it was largely a volunteer-driven organization and had been for decades,” said Vizza during a recent phone interview. She likened the growth of the Friends during her tenure as “putting a solid house on a good foundation.”
At Vizza’s urging, the Friends moved in early 2012 from a small, rented room at the Colonial Society’s headquarters at 87 Mount Vernon St. to the organization’s current headquarters at 69 Beacon St., located directly across the street from the Public Garden. The Friends now own the space, giving the group a secure base of operations, enviable for a small nonprofit
As a testament to just how much Vizza has achieved with the group, going well beyond her original responsibilities, the Friends board voted in August of 2020 to officially change her title to President.
The Friends has faced some unexpected pitfalls during Vizza’s time with the group, but as she is quick to point out, some of these apparent setbacks have actually proven to be beneficial for the parks in the long run.
In 2016, the Friends spent 11 months challenging the proposed height of the Winthrop Square tower, which exceeded the legal height limit. Though the Friends ultimately “lost the fight” regarding the project’s height, Vizza said it also led to increased awareness for the organization via dialogue with the entire Boston delegation at the State House, as well as every City Councilor.
The Friends also ultimately negotiated two ‘concessions,’ said Vizza, including the development of a comprehensive plan for Downtown, so that park advocates would not have to continue fighting proposals one building at a time, if deemed necessary.
The other agreement for the Friends was the development of a comprehensive, $150 million Master Plan for the Boston Common, which the City released in October of 2022 to ensure that “money is spent intentionally and thoughtfully on high-priority needs,” according to Vizza.
One of her greatest hopes for the future, said Vizza, is that the City can find the funding to realize the myriad projects outlined in this “roadmap for the People’s Park.”
The Friends has also undertaken projects in recent years that have not only led to partnerships with other organizations but have also served to examine some previously overlooked chapters in the history of the parks.
Completed in the summer of 2022, the restoration of the Robert Gould Shaw and Massachusetts 54th Regiment Memorial on the Common, which commemorates the first Black regiment from the North to fight in the Civil War, involved a partnership between the Friends, the City, the National Park Service, and the Museum of African American History.
Moreover, “the monument was used as a platform for dialogue about race and social justice,” said Vizza, to dig deeper to examine not only the monument’s “true meaning” but also to “pose difficult questions about whether we are honoring their sacrifice today.”
This effort also helped inform the Friends of the Public Garden’s Monument & Memory Initiative, which, Vizza said, “scrutinizes park monuments around more complex histories to raise unheard voices and untold stories.”
For the first time, the Friends worked with a Task Force of historians, the City archaeologist, and Massachusett tribal members to document the history of the Indigenous people who have lived on the parklands for thousands of years and are still very much present in Boston.
Similarly, Vizza has strived to ensure that the parks are somewhere everyone can feel safe and comfortable, as well as making them welcoming places for All.
Meanwhile, the Friends is now in what Vizza calls a “Golden Age” when it comes to the group’s partnership with the Boston Parks Department.
“There’s a level of trust and communication [between the Friends and the City] that has been so wonderful, and that has allowed us to work together in a much more seamless way than ever before,” said Vizza.
(Since the Friends was established in 1970, a tacit agreement with the Boston Parks Department had been in the place, which wasn’t formalized until both entities signed a Memorandum of Agreement in early 2020.)
Looking ahead, Vizza said “the sky is the limit” for the Friends, with the promise of new leadership bringing fresh ideas and opportunities.
Asked to reflect on what she wishes her legacy with the organization will ultimately be, Vizza said she hopes “that I helped to ensure that the Friends is an enduring, impactful, and inclusive organization that continues to be a thought leader in Boston on the vital importance of healthy parks throughout the city, for All.”
Vizza said she is proud that she helped grow the Friends from a largely volunteer nonprofit to an organization with a professional staff that now invests over $2.5 million annually in park care and programming, “which is having a visible impact on the living landscape of these well-loved greenspaces.”
Vizza added: “Our relationship with the City is key, and I am leaving an organization that enjoys a trusted, collaborative partnership with the Parks Department.”