Preservation of the Ducklings
It can be argued that the ducklings don’t serve as a palimpsest in the context of their physical site. Like the other landmarks in the Public Garden, the city has made an effort to preserve the ducklings. Managed by the Mayor’s Office, The Parks Department of the City of Boston, and Friends of the Public Garden (a non-profit organization), the Public Garden has been well kept since its creation in 1837. Rather than letting time and people modify the park, the city has made the conscious decision to control its aesthetic. By re-paving walkways, planting new flowers, and protecting monuments and statues, Boston seems to have masked the Public Garden’s temporal layers, attempting to cover them with a consistent image of the park. Though the duckling sculptures are slightly discolored and some of their edges have smoothed, they have remained intact due to the maintenance of the park. There have been separate incidents in 1987, 1988, 1992, 1999, and in 2009 when individual duckling sculptures have been stolen from the park. On some occasions, they have been found, but in others, the sculptures have been replaced, demonstrating the city’s intention to uphold the image of the Public Garden.
There are obvious changes made to the park, such as the installation of monuments and statues, so it may seem like the preservation of these landmarks and the design of the park limits the site from being a palimpsest visually. The other monuments, including the Equestrian statue of George Washington (1869), the Wendell Phillips Monument (1915), the Ether Monument (1868), the statue of Charles Sumner (1878), are almost all strictly historical, contrasting heavily with the quaint nature of the ducklings. Perhaps it would be assumed that the duckling statue doesn’t contain any temporal layers itself. However, the ducklings as well as the other landmarks, regardless of age, give historical context to the Public Garden, while the immaculate landscaping and design provide an aesthetic experience for passerby. The effect is that the Public Garden allows visitors to feel simultaneously surrounded by history and by modernity. Rather than completely obscuring the transient quality of the site, this composite experience allows people to subconsciously experience and influence the temporal layers of the Public Garden.