Celebrating 40 years of the Riverbend Park Trust and the legacy of Isabella Halsted

History of the Riverbend Park Trust: In 1974, Cambridge resident Isbella Halsted proposed the idea of a traffic-free Sunday park along the Charles River and in 1975 founded the People for Riverbend Park Trust to bring her idea to reality. With the collaboration of the Metropolitan District Commission that at the time had jurisdiction over the land and parkway, and with the cooperation of the City of Cambridge, the Sunday park was established on a 1.5 mile stretch of Memorial Drive, from Western Avenue to the Eliot Bridge. The Sunday park is now run by the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR). With this exhibition, the Trust and the Cambridge Art Association, celebrate the first forty years of this successful citizen’s effort to reclaim the joys of being near our beloved Charles River. We invite artists to capture the special character of this historic area that thousands from near and far are attracted to for peaceful recreation. Isbella’s own hand-drawn map (shown above) defines the area involved.