A garden grows at Longwood
In the early 1900s, much of the compact and highly developed Longwood Medical and Academic area was a pasture where cows grazed and provided milk to patients at Boston Children’s Hospital. For an enterprising group of volunteers, students, faculty, and staff representing 10 Harvard institutions, today that memory is proving inspirational. What began as a simple discussion centered around improving handicapped access between Harvard Medical School’s campus and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health grew into the Re(Design) Innovation Challenge, which led to plans for an innovative space that fosters health and sustainability for the Longwood community at the same time that it generates knowledge. The centerpiece of this creative challenge is the Countway Community Garden — a 140-by-50-foot sunken patio and garden space behind the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine. The space is on top of the roof of the Center for the History of Medicine’s rare book stacks,...