By Mark Scott
Buffalo, NY – A local foundation is providing the Olmsted Parks Conservancy with more than $300,000 to support a 20-year parks restoration plan.
The grant from the John R. Oishei Foundation will fund the Conservancy Design Center that will come up with the plan. Conservancy Director Deborah Ann Trimble says the money will also help with some immediate needs, including the restoration of historic pathways.
"We found in our market research that most of the people who use our parks are walking, jogging or biking," Trimble said. "Yet, most of our pathways have disintegrated. So, we want to restore the paths so that users can walk through the trees rather than just around a ring road."
There are six Olmsted parks in Buffalo -- Delaware, Front, Martin Luther King, Jr., Riverside, Cazenovia and South Parks. They represent 75 percent of the city's parkland.
Trimble says the goal of the project is the restoration of Frederick Law Olmsted's vision, making the parks "vibrant" gathering places for the community.