The family of 8-year-old Martin Richard, the youngest Boston Marathon bombing victim, offered heartfelt remarks alongside Mayor Martin Walsh and Gov. Charlie Baker at a groundbreaking ceremony for Martin’s Park on the South Boston waterfront Wednesday afternoon.

Jane Richard, who lost her left leg in the explosion that claimed her brother’s life, said, “This park is going to include everything that I wished for.”

“When we were younger, all my brothers and I wanted to do was go to the park,” she told the crowd of officials, park sponsors, and hard-hatted children grasping shovels. “We loved it so much, we would go in the rain, snow, and probably even hail. But when I got hurt, it was hard for me because I wasn’t used to my new leg. I couldn’t even climb a simple thing like a tree. It was hard watching other kids while I was stuck sitting on the sidelines.”

The $10 million park is named in the honor of the young Martin. His family, with the support and organization of the Martin Richard Foundation, have celebrated Martin as a young advocate for peace and unity. An enduring image of Martin shows him holding a poster bearing the message "No more hurting people - peace."

Bill Richard, Martin and Jane’s father, said the park will be “a place where all kids will have the opportunity to learn and play together without prejudice.”

Martin’s Park will be converted from green space previously owned by the MBTA, along with a parking lot space owned by the Boston Children’s Museum to create the freshly designed play area at the Smith Family Waterfront. This transition has been overseen by the City of Boston’s Parks and Recreation Department.

Designed by renowned landscaper Michael Van Valkenburgh, also the visionary behind Brooklyn Bridge Park and downtown Chicago’s Maggie Daley Park, Martin’s Park will have a number of features that are meant to be inclusive and accessible to all. These include a raised bridge connecting the north and south play areas, creating a cohesive play space while allowing much-needed neighborhood and visitor pedestrian circulation to move through the space.

Sloped pathways will meander throughout the site with elements such as drums, small sculpture animals, and binoculars, along with interpretive signage that will help promote access to inclusive play elements such as embankment slides, a basket swing, play ship, timber maze climber, and water garden.


Plantings will create a green framework around the park, and a wooden amphitheater will be available for group gatherings, school events, Children's Museum programming, and more. Martin’s Park is set to be fully completed in the fall of 2018.

“This park and all it stands for and represents, and the Martin Richard Foundation and the Richard family, are about taking perhaps the darkest and most terrible and horrific experience anybody could possibly imagine and finding light, and hope, and positivity and future on which you can build something beautiful out of it,” Gov. Baker said. “And if there were ever a time in recent history when we would have a chance to stand here today, this week, and celebrate that… it is right now.”