Tour v. Explore

Touring a place can be stagnant and numbing. I can’t even count how many tours I have been on, whether guided or self-guided, where I’ve just wanted to break away and explore on my own. Listening to one person’s (probably memorized) account of a place can be so unengaging. Why take that approach when walking around a site and exploring on your own, with tools of your own? 

What is the difference between taking a self guided tour, a historic plaque at every relevant location in the park, and just wandering around the park? For starters, just wandering gives the user the opportunity to explore an area based on their whims and desires instead of being forced to take the predetermined route of a walking tour. One map can (and should) be provided at the entrance(s) to give the users a sense of the expansiveness of the site, but relying solely on a map to explore a place is very one-dimensional and will absolutely leave off a significant amount of rich information that comes with a walking tour. A way to provide historic and other relevant information without forcing the user to walking around with paper in hand would be to leave plaques at each relevant location within the site. 

However, with rapidly expanding information accessibility, putting up  plaques with information becomes dated the second it is printed. A way around this is to put the information about each location on an alterable platform, such as a website, and provide smaller plaques with a link to that information online. This is where the QR code comes in handy. 

A QR code in the wild can provide a link to an incredible amount of information that can be meticulously curated by whatever organization or group is in charge. The medium of information grows, significantly, from a two-dimensional board of information to a technological goldmine of photos, videos, personal narratives, as well as the typical historical information. 

Final Book Outline

Google is a beautiful thing

While trying to find an image of the black horse flag that flew at the Anderson’s estate for years, I came a blog solely focused on Larz and Isabel Anderson! www.larzandisabelanderson.com The site is managed by Stephen T. (Skip) Moskey, someone who I have come across multiple times as the publisher of printed papers, image collections, and such. This site is a wealth of information on the happy couple as well as some tidbits of info on the built environment of the estate:

-The glass greenhouses were designed by Lord & Burnham, a prominent greenhouse design firm that still exists today as “Under Glass”

-This is one of the most beautiful (colored) photographs of Cupid’s fountain I have ever seen

-That Asian stone sculpture that sits at the top of the hill next to where the house once stood is called a Gorinto (五輪塔)
According to Skip, “a Gorinto is the Japanese interpretation of a type of Buddhist pagoda used as a memorial or burial marker” In the case of this burial marker, only the bottom 3 of 5 pieces still remain. Skip found 1 in another park in brookline but the 2nd to the top piece is missing. There’s a lot more info here: https://larzandisabelanderson.com/gilded-age-gorinto/and here: https://larzandisabelanderson.com/page/47/ 

-I found the highest possible resolution of the black horse flag too

While on this research collection high, I decided to investigate Brookline's Park Department website too. Thanks to the video that the town of Brookline’s Parks Department put out, Skip Moskey speaks in depth (almost 9 minutes!) about the park, the Anderson’s, and the changes that occurred on the estate over time. For example:

During World War 1, in the fashion of victory gardens, the polo field was turned into a potato field.

Here’s the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgxFRIAqsAg

“Although the garden and the house are no longer standing, the vestiges of what they created what and they left behind are available for anyone. I think the Anderson's would be very pleased and proud to know that the land that was so dear to them, that they had shaped over many many years into their perfect living environment, [is avail be to] the people in Brookline [who are] using this same land in ways consistent with how they want to I want to use during their lifetime. I think they would be very pleased.” -Skip Moskey

Reviewing the old walking tour