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EDITORIAL
OP-ED; Hub can't revitalize what never was vital
Thomas M. Keane Jr.

02/05/2003
Boston Herald
All Editions
029
(Copyright 2003)

Almost a decade into the revitalization of Boston's City Hall Plaza, the uncomfortable question has to be asked: Is this a dream doomed to failure?

We have seen a design competition, the creation of the Trust for City Hall Plaza, proposals for hotels and parking garages, several task forces and advisory groups, over 100 public meetings, a final report in 1998, another final report in 1999, subsequent interim reports, construction of an arcade, plans for a revamped MBTA station, the creation last fall of yet another task force - and still there is no solution in sight.

Could that be because no solution is possible?

A group called the Trust for City Hall Plaza has been responsible for trying to fix the space. It and its executive director, Ann Donner, have brought a lot of good will, creativity and hard work to the project.

Yet, there is clearly enormous frustration as well.

The newest task force is deep into its work and there's a feeling that this is a last shot - it's do-or-die time for the plaza.

If the task force can't come up with a solid solution by its May deadline, then all of the effort of 10 years may peter out to nothing.

The plaza was built in the mid-1960s as part of a major urban development effort that included the razing of the West End and Scollay Square. Planners heralded the new Boston. City Hall won awards; architect Alex Krieger in 1988 rhapsodized about "the generosity of the public areas around and inside the building, the symbolic expression of the principal functions on the exterior and the dignified monumentality of the overall form."

Everyone else hated it.

Ugly, windswept and often little more than a parking lot for city vehicles, it was nothing more than a vast waste of space.

Yet, the assumption underlying all of the trust's work has been that the plaza's flaws were fixable. A little shade here, a nice fountain there, get rid of some steps, set up a farmers' market and - voila - people would show up and, 24/7, the place would be a beehive of activity.

That attitude was embodied in the trust's single most important accomplishment to date: the $2.7 million "community arcade."

Completed two years ago, the arcade is an open, trellised structure, topped with multicolored lights, that runs along Cambridge Street.

It's supposed to give an edge to one side of the plaza, providing a place for activities and small-scale events.

Tellingly, Krieger, the same guy who so mightily praised City Hall Plaza, also designed the arcade.

It does not make for compelling stuff.

Nor do any of the proposals the task force is now considering: A terminal for tourist buses and Duck Tours; a visitors' center; a skating rink; a place for sledding or skateboarding; a city museum; a regrading of the plaza to make it easier to walk around; small gathering places for concerts and festivals; and architectural doo- dads that would attract crowds, such as a landmark water fountain.

All of these ideas have one thing in common: They try to give people a reason to visit - and stay - in the plaza.

And that, fundamentally, is the problem. No one wants to be there.

People go to City Hall for public hearings or to transact business. Otherwise, they stay away.

It's not just the plaza; it's the entire redevelopment. There are no ordinary streets around it. The area is too big and too shapeless.

City Hall itself functions as a moat between Beacon Hill and Quincy Market. Few people live near it; office buildings and other uses are too far away to make regular use of it.

For running counter to the trust's hope that the plaza can be fixed is this fear: The area is so deeply flawed in its original conception that revitalization (or "vitalization" - the place has never been vital) is impossible.

In some form or another, many suspect this to be true.

Even Mayor Thomas Menino once proposed tearing down City Hall. Some members of the task force speak wistfully of what they could accomplish if they could start from scratch.

Yale sociology professor Joseph Soares puts it bluntly.

"The best solution for fixing this place is the most drastic," he said. "Take down the buildings, tear up the plaza and start all over again."

So far, however, this has not been part of the trust's agenda.

Who knows? Come this spring, the trust may unveil a proposal that puts doubts like these to rest, something that will make the plaza into, as a member of the task force wrote, a "place for all people, all seasons, in all ways and all times."

But I fear not.

As it has been for 35 years, the plaza will remain an empty hole in the heart of the city.

Tom Keane can be reached at tomkeane@tomkeane.com.