Christopher Kelly, executive director of the Karpeles Manuscript Museums in Buffalo, has given permission to use the front land at the Porter Avenue Karpeles site to develop a Shakespeare Garden. Otherwise, volunteers will maintain it, once it is completed. This garden will be dedicated in 2016 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death. A Shakespeare Garden is a natural next step for Buffalo, which has the country's second largest outdoor Shakespeare Festival and a flourishing Garden Walk season. The Karpeles site at 453 Porter Avenue is between D'Youville College and Kleinhans Music Hall. Porter Avenue, which connects Symphony Circle to Columbus Park and Front Park, is part of the (Olmsted) Delaware Park-Front Park System, a national historic district. (At least two other of the country's Shakespeare gardens have Olmsted connections: Vassar's Shakespeare garden uses plants grown in the college's Olmsted greenhouses; the Olmsted Brothers, famous Boston landscape architects, were "hired to plot out two 100 foot beds with four additional flower beds" for the Plainfield (NJ) Garden Club, "Friends of the Shakespeare Garden.")
One of the most important future parts of this project are the needed volunteer hours. Master Gardeners are often mentioned as volunteers for other Shakespeare Gardens in the country, and the Karpeles, right from the beginning, has been happy to have an opportunity to work with Master Gardeners. In addition, We intend to invite student volunteers, and, perhaps, interns, from local colleges and schools to participate in this project.
