In 1996 New York developer Millennium Partners proposed an ambitious skyscraper atop the Massachusetts Turnpike, smack between Boston’s Fenway and Back Bay neighborhoods.

The plan was notable for its cost, height, scale and controversy.  But the most remarkable thing about it is this:

Nothing has happened.

After spending millions on architects, engineers and politically wired spinmeisters and after enduring years of community meetings, Millennium’s proposal now twists aimlessly in the wind. The savvy developer is bewildered, caught up in the nether-world of Boston and state politics, a world whose complexity puts even New York to shame.

The conventional read on this saga is that Millennium was simply an unwitting casualty in the downfall of Turnpike boss Jim Kerasiotes.

Millennium first got involved in the project when it cut a deal with the supremely arrogant Kerasiotes, who claimed that state law gave him unilateral control over what was built over the Pike. Kerasiotes demanded huge rents from Millennium -- he was looking for money to shore up the Big Dig’s sagging finances -- but in return he promised the developer it could build as big and high as it wanted.

Kerasiotes was ousted from his job this spring, a victim of his own lack of candor over those Big Dig numbers.  The new head of the Turnpike, Andrew Natsios, also preoccupied with the Big Dig and unwilling to embroil himself in the political firestorms in which Kerasiotes reveled, seems to have little interest in his predecessor’s pet projects. Indeed, Natsios has not even met with Millennium.

That’s only one piece of the story, however.  Another, more intriguing read, puts Boston mayor Thomas Menino at the center of the tale.

Kerisiotes was wrong when he claimed he could control development over the Pike.  As Menino was fond of noting, it was the city that had to approve even simple things like curb cuts.

In truth, Menino probably didn’t care whether Millennium’s Turnpike project got built or not.  He did care, however, about development in a number of other key areas in downtown Boston.

Most critically, Menino was worried about Boston’s blighted Theater District, also known as the Combat Zone. It had theaters, all right, but not the kind you can take the kids to.

Menino wanted to wipe out the Combat Zone, and he wanted Millennium to do it for him.

Here’s something to ponder.

In the spring of 1997 Menino first broached with Millennium the notion of it undertaking a massive commercial and residential development in the Combat Zone.  This was after Millennium had already inked an agreement with Kerisiotes.

The city permitted and approved the Combat Zone project in only four months. A few months later, Millennium officials found themselves breaking ground on a development that was riskier and much less lucrative than the Turnpike project. Millennium Place, as it’s called, is now virtually complete.

And the Pike project? Four years and counting.

A Machiavellian take on this is that Menino manipulated Millennium, always holding out the possibility of a Turnpike development as long as the developer did what he wanted on lower Washington Street.

Millennium took winks, nods and handshakes to mean that the mayor supported the Turnpike project. But, as insiders now concede, the mayor never gave a firm yes to the deal.

Instead, the mayor consigned the project to that unique builder’s nightmare known as “community process.”

It is a rare circumstance indeed when a community will agree to large new developments within its midst.  And in the case of the Back Bay and Fenway, two of Boston’s most historic and wealthiest neighborhoods, there was early and virulent opposition. The neighborhoods raised tens of thousands of dollars for a defense fund, hired their own consultants and turned out en masse to community meetings.

So for over a year, Millennium sat through interminable meetings of a mayorally-appointed citizens advisory committee, only to watch in October of last year as the group voted, unanimously, to reject the project. It was a vote that was utterly predictable the day the advisory committee was formed. And since the vote, the committee has yet to meet again.

No one, not even Millennium Partners, knows what happens next. In part this is because Millennium is still trying to figure out what the abutting communities would find acceptable (hint: nothing). In part it’s because Millennium is falling victim to another Boston phenomenon: short attention span.

Boston may think of itself as a grown-up city, but in fact it can only deal with two or three things at the same time.  The development of the waterfront, the convention center, a new Fenway Park  -- it’s a pretty full plate. Anything more makes our brains hurt.

My kids have figured out that when they ask for something and I say, “I’ll think about it,” the answer really is no.

So Millennium, if you’re listening, here’s a message.

We’ll think about it.

Tom Keane writes weekly for the Boston Herald. He can be reached at tomkeane@tomkeane.com.