Friends of the Public Garden is thrilled to present Beatrice Nessen with this year’s Parks Champion Award. Beatrice currently serves as a Board member and as chair of the Boston Common Committee. Her involvement with the Friends began decades ago.
In the 1970s, Beatrice was a key force in the battle against the Park Plaza Urban Renewal Project as part of the Park Plaza Citizens Advisory Committee, chaired by Henry Lee. Her knowledge and passionate opposition to the shadow impacts of the proposed project helped win the fight that would bring widespread attention to the condition of the parks and lead to the expansion of the Friends organization. Since then, Beatrice has become the Friends’ resident shadow expert, advocating against proposals that would reduce sunlight and the quality of the living landscapes that make up the three downtown parks.
In 2022, Beatrice worked with architect Rafi Segal and others to create the Sunshine Model. This innovative algorithm allows developers and designers to assess the shadow impacts of any building proposal during the early design stage, for a more predictable planning process that better protects our greenspaces.
Throughout her tenure as Common Committee chair and as a member of six other Friends committees, Beatrice has devoted great amounts of her time to helping the Friends navigate issues related to advocacy, parks care, programming, public safety, and finance. Notably, she also contributed to the creation of the Boston Common Master Plan and served on the Monument & Memory Task Force.
Beatrice has worked both professionally and privately as an advocate for the environment and for urban issues. Professionally, her career has included waste materials regulation at the Department of Environmental Protection, project management with the Big Dig, and urban design and planning at ICON Architecture. She has served on the boards of the Boston Preservation Alliance, Old South Meeting House, Massachusetts Audubon Society, Charles River Watershed Association, and Light Boston. Recently, she joined the Board of Trustees for the Groundwater Trust as the Boston Preservation Alliance representative. Beatrice is also one of the founders and the driving force behind the creation of the Garden of Peace, a memorial to Massachusetts homicide victims.
Beatrice is known for her camaraderie with the Boston Parks & Recreation Department employees and Friends of the Public Garden staff. She and her husband Peter are also the proud sponsors of over 20 trees in the Boston Common and Public Garden. Beatrice’s contributions to the three parks and to our city are immeasurable, and we thank her as we honor her decades of service.