Fens residents noticed an entire stone missing from the Boylston Street bridge on April 28. A team from the Department of Transportation arrived within forty-eight hours after urging from citizens and officials.

They patched the worst of it. But questions remain about how to maintain the historic landmark.

The road and foot crossing across the Muddy River at the south end of Charlesgate was a signature collaboration between H. H. Richardson, designer of such Boston landmarks as Trinity Church, and John C. Olmsted, landscape architect.

The bridge’s foundations were laid in 1880. It opened in 1884. And was built of rough-cut granite. “It was so well built, and so overbuilt, that you can neglect it for half a century, and it will retain its structural integrity,” said Heyward Parker James, founding board member of the Charlesgate Alliance.

James praised the bridge’s texture, which he said make it a pleasure to see and walk over, “As you run your hand along this pink granite, it has a really distinctive and unforgettable feel.”

But James said the bridge’s joints and mortar will need serious attention in the coming years.

“If they could just please, please maintain it, it will continue to serve us aesthetically and in practical terms going forward,” he said. “The long-term fix will be to restore the exterior of the Richardson Bridge,” said Caroline Reeves, Charlesgate resident and co-founder of the Muddy Water Initiative, which has spearheaded the cleanup work around the Muddy River.

But overlapping jurisdictions have made it difficult to determine who should take care of the bridge, which sits amid a tangle of jurisdictions. The state Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) owns the land and water. Running parallel to the bridge are streets owned by the City of Boston. But the bridge itself is owned and managed by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT).

*Reeves praised the remortaring done by MassDOT’s team.

“They’ve really done a gorgeous job on the very small area where the stone fell out,” she said. Reeves suggested that a local nonprofit could assume management of the bridge if the state is not up to the task, “Right now no one but MassDOT has the authority to repair the bridge. It’s not a question of money. It’s not a question of will. It is a question of jurisdictional authority.”

She added, “We, the Muddy Water Initiative, and other groups would like to take that burden from the DOT in a public-private partnership and be able to work on the Richardson bridge.”

City Councilor Kenzie Bok, whose office was instrumental in getting a MassDOT team out to patch the cracks, agreed that jurisdictional complexity made maintenance more difficult. “It can be frustrating for community members. It’s not really reasonable for community members to know all these agencies,” she said.

Bok suggested that federal Covid relief money could provide funds for a longer term fix. She pointed out that 2022 will be the 200th Anniversary of Frederick Law Olmsted's birth.

“We’re all going to be in conversations about how to steward and honor what’s in the Fens.” Bok was noncommittal on the idea of a public private partnership, but praised the civic organizations in her district, “We have so many awesome people.”