News Briefs
A new tree in Deering Oaks Park honors the contributions of parks advocate and organizer Theo Holtwijk. Ceremonies held in the park on Tuesday, June 16th, honored Holtwijk for his legacy of over twenty-five years of celebrating Portland’s beloved park system.
Theo Holtwijk
Theo H.B.M. Holtwijk is a landscape architect and editor of the 1999 book, “Bold Vision: The Development of The Parks of Portland, Maine.” As a city planner, Holtwijk contributed to the planning and refinement of city green spaces from the Veteran’s Memorial Circle on the Eastern Promenade to Deering Oaks Park to Congress Square.
“Theo is as unique as our city parks themselves,” noted Anne Pringle, President of the Friends of Deering Oaks, over the shouts of children in the public wading pool. The newly dedicated white oak shadows the pool standing near the bridge to the pool.
Holtwijk also served as a planner for the City of Brunswick. And he was a founder of the Olmstead Alliance, celebrating the Maine works of Frederick Law Olmsted, the first US landscape architect and designer of New York’s Central Park.
Now a resident of Georgetown, Maine, Holtwijk reminisced about the challenge of pulling together a book highlighting central planning of Portland’s parks and cemeteries. It was writeen over ten years and involved the contributions of a dozen authors. It was both an honor and a challenge, often one more than the other, said Holwijk to smiles and applause.
Attendees at the ceremony also included Noni Ames of the Olmsted Alliance, Charlton Ames of Congress Square Park, Holtwijk family members, City Arborist Mark Reiland, Deb Andrews, former head of Portland Historic Preservation, and Parkside Neighborhood Association president and freelance journalist Nancy English, with Parkside board members Marie Gray and Herb Adams.
Holtwijk has contributed the papers and photos covering his professional career to the Maine Historical Society, he said, so that all may use them to enjoy city parks in the days to come.
‘Bold Vision’
Let us all unite to secure for ourselves and for our children a beauty spot in the midst of our growing city — a breathing space for all the thousands who are to come after us.
The Portland Transcript, 1856
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Deering Oaks is the centerpiece of the largest city park system in Maine. “Bold Vision,” was published in 1999 for Greater Portland Landmarks and featuring full-color 19th-Century pocket maps and over 170 historic photos. It is now a rare book. At the time it received national awards for design and content.
Thank you to Herb Adams for providing notes from the event.
