Brewer Fountain Plaza Renovation

Revitalizing historic Boston Common

Brewer Fountain Plaza on Boston Common surrounds a one-of-a-kind bronze casting of a sculpture created for the 1855 World’s Fair in Paris that was donated to Boston by Beacon Hill merchant Gardner Brewer. It was installed on the Common near Beacon Street in 1868 and moved to its current location near Tremont and Park Streets in 1917.

Over the years the fountain, the plaza and the adjoining parkland fell into disrepair. The Boston Parks & Recreation Department restored the fountain in 2010.

The Friends of the Public Garden launched a privately funded, $4 million companion project to revitalize the plaza and the parkland leading up to the State House.  Phase one of the project, the largest ever untaken by the Friends, was completed in 2012.

The work has transformed the busy southeast corner of the Common, creating a vibrant urban gathering spot with café tables and chairs, quality food, lunchtime piano music, chess and checkers, a reading area, and weekly summer jazz concerts. In addition, the adjacent Liberty Mall has been enhanced by planting new trees, restoring turf, repairing paths, and installing new curbing.

In 2013 and 2014, the final phase of the project will add greenspace and trees, reduce the scale of Lafayette Mall along Tremont Street, and restore the historic iron boundary fence to reclaim this as parkland separated from the busy street.

A special matching challenge to complete the Brewer project

In June of 2013, the Friends launched a campaign to raise the additional $875,000 it needs to complete the Brewer Fountain Plaza project and to pay for 2013 plaza operations. The campaign is being spearheaded by several leadership challenge pledges that will provide more than $3 in matching support for each dollar that is contributed.

Challenge pledges of $200,000 each by the Lynch Foundation and Barbara and Amos Hostetter and of $250,000 by the Friends Green and White Ball Committee, were announced by Friends President Anne Brooke who said, “We are enormously grateful to the Lynch Foundation, the Hostetters, and the Ball Committee. Their leadership and generosity will help assure that we can complete this transformative project.”

We invite community members to make a donation of any size to this campaign so that we can receive the critical matching funds.  Click here to make an online donation. You can also call Mary Halpin, director of development, at 617-723-8144 or mail a check payable to FOPG to Friends of the Public Garden, 69 Beacon Street, Boston, MA 02108, Attn: Brewer Challenge.