Public Health School Buys Land for Park

The Harvard School of Public Health has purchased 15,000 square feet of uncleared land along Park Drive in Boston from Northeastern University to develop an International Children's park for residents of the School's Henry Lee Shattuck International House. Construction will continue through the summer so the park is ready for use in September.

Established in 1960 to provide housekeping apartments for foreign and American graduate students and their families from the Harvard School of Public Health and other institutions in greater Boston, the House now has 152 residents representing 29 nationalities. Forty-nine of the residents are children.

Elizabeth M. Carlhian, landscape architect, said she did not regard this as an ordinary playground. "Our goal in designing the park has been to provide them with many different opportunities for play expression--both as individuals and in activities involving group action." She added that "for a group of children such as this there are very few places in the world in which such play opportunities exist."

The design for the children's park will take advantage of the natural contours of the land and many of the existing trees.