Our daughter, who grew up in downtown Boston, came down from New Hampshire to take her children for a walk on the Greenway.
“It’s a median,” she grumbled. Then she went off to the Public Garden.
And there it is—the contrast. How is it that the 19th century city that got its open spaces so right with the Public Garden, Commonwealth Avenue, Louisburg Square, the small squares in the South End, and an enhanced Boston Common, got it so wrong in the 20th and 21st—City Hall Plaza, the new parks along the Charles River with no people in them, Copley Square, which had to be redone several times, and now the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway?
The answers have to do with the modernist movement in architecture and contradictorily, the romantic notion that anything green and open in a city is better than buildings. But that’s for another time. This is about the Greenway.There is actually a lot right about the Greenway. First is that it is there at all. The Big Dig may have been a financial, construction, management and finally, fatal, disaster, but getting rid of the elevated highway was the best thing that happened to Boston in the last 30 years.
Plant lovers have a field day taking in the interesting choices landscapers made for the Greenway’s gardens—shadblow, various day lilies, Christmas rose and sweet-smelling viburnum are only a few.
The Greenway Conservancy board and the staff they’ve hired are competent, positive people giving it their best shot. The gardening staff is being assembled by Tom Smarr, the chief horticulturist, and his crew is excited about the task, diligently sending out team members to pick up litter as well as tend the plants, some of which did not make it through the winter and need a lot of help right now.
The problem of deliveries for the farmer’s market at Dewey Square has been solved. It was shut down last year, but will reopen by the end of May on both Tuesdays and Thursdays.
There is progress along one edge. Four proposals have been submitted for Parcel 9, between North and Hanover Streets. (See which ones you like at http://www.masspike.com/business/parcel9rfp.html.)
But the park has problems that seem endemic to modern Boston open spaces.
For one thing, it’s timid. The big idea was depressing the Central Artery (remember when Barney Frank said it would be cheaper to raise the city?) After Fred Salvucci pushed the Big Dig through, no leader in new administrations emerged to care about it. With the land in limbo between the turnpike authority and the city, neither took charge. No grand gesture was envisioned as there was in Chicago’s Millennium Park, the newest park in another city that I’m familiar with.
Perhaps if the buildings over the ramps, proposed in the economy’s boom, had materialized, we might have been more impressed. But there is only one structure now we can count on—a small pavilion at the corner of State Street and Atlantic Avenue that will serve the Boston Harbor Islands National Park, selling tickets for their boat trips and serving as a gathering place for ranger tours. Its cold materials and minimalist design makes one long for the inadequate shack on the harbor that they now do business from.
Another problem is sun. It feels good on a cold day in the spring, but in mid-July’s 90 degrees it will be unwelcome. There are oaks, maples, London plane trees and even elms that will eventually provide some shade, but they can’t grow large in their shallow tree pits. (After all, the tunnels are beneath them.) This leaves the Greenway contradicting its name by comprising a six-lane roadway and wide sidewalks, nice for walking on, but exposed and hard.
The edges of the Greenway are unpleasant, a problem Boston never solved with City Hall Plaza either. Cars cruise alongside. Commonwealth Avenue has the same problem, but the shade of the trees and the varied buildings and gardens beyond enclose it and make it a walking pleasure.
All these problems make the Greenway’s expanse a barrier between neighborhoods, not a connector. Ironically, we’ve done little better with what we’ve built than with what we tore down.
The Greenway’s building owners’ ideas seem as stunted as the trees will be. It’s hard to imagine why they didn’t plan to take advantage of the promised park, but most didn’t. So old buildings are still in elevated highway mode with blank walls. New buildings haven’t given back any better. The Intercontinental Hotel concentrates on automobile access. Otherwise it presents a blank wall of irregular opaque dark glass. What a waste.
How to fix it? I’ve heard some furtive talk.
One is to change the legislation that prevents much building on the Greenway. The best suggestion has been for the Greenway to be able to sell off individual lots along selected cross streets for housing and first floor retail much like the neighboring North End or Beacon Hill, leaving gaps for walking and reserving the widest sections as parkland. Supporters of this plan believe this streetscape will connect neighborhoods better, as well as bring in some revenue for maintenance.
In fact, at one early meeting, North End residents agreed that while they needed more parkland, they also wanted the North End itself to extend into the space. That would have meant five-story row-houses. The North End park is pretty nice, but it is a very different space from the North End.
I also heard a suggestion for a streetcar running along a couple of lanes of the Surface Road connecting North and South stations since it looks as if a tunnel connecting the trains is a dead deal. Sounds like the old Atlantic Avenue to me.
Then, of course, there are the perennial calls for a carousel or a ferris wheel.
At this point, beyond changing the legislation there are only a few steps the public can take to help things along. Give to the YMCA, whose proposal for a building over a ramp still seems the most likely to come to fruition. Donate to the brave Conservancy itself, which has been saddled with this imperfect piece of land. Walk the Greenway to see if you can come up with solutions to the problems. If you’re a building owner, bust out your wall and install an outdoor café as has been done where Panera has leased space.
The Greenway is a big improvement as well as a big disappointment, but it’s ours.