About the Film

Featuring Academy Award winning actor KEVIN KLINE as the voice of Frederick Law Olmsted and KERRY WASHINGTON as narrator.

151 years after Frederick Law Olmsted designed New York City’s Central Park with Calvert Vaux, it remains an undisputed haven of tranquility amidst one of the largest, tallest, and most unnatural places on earth.

OLMSTED AND AMERICA’S URBAN PARKS, a one hour documentary, examines the formation of America’s first great city parks in the late 19^th century through the enigmatic eyes of Frederick Law Olmsted (1822 – 1903), visionary urban planner and landscape architect.

With incredible foresight that spanned centuries, Olmsted brought nourishing green spaces to New York, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco, Atlanta, Louisville, and dozens of other US cities.  Throughout his working life, Olmsted and his firm carried out over 500 commissions, nearly 100 of which were public parks.  The parks, he held, were  to be vital democratic spaces in cities, where citizens from all walks of life could intermingle and be refreshed.

Prior to officially committing to landscape architecutre, Olmsted was a New York Times correspondent to the Confederate states, the manager of a California gold mine, and General Secretary of the United States Sanitary Commission during the Civil War.  The man, a workaholic by today’s standards, plagued with chronic ailments, spent the latter half of his life devoting nearly every waking minute to creating restorative green spaces for overworked city dwellers.  In large part through his own words, this film weaves together his engaging  and poignant personal story with those of the lasting masterpieces he left for us today.

For more information about the film, please contact Rebecca Messner:  rebecca@theolmstedlegacy.com