On upscale Boylston, life in the crass lane

by Thomas Keane Jr.
Wednesday, November 5, 2003

What makes for a ``grand'' city street? Is it physical beauty - quaint streetlights, flower boxes, granite sidewalks and the like? Or is it something more - a sense of humanity and connectedness to the communities through which it passes?

These questions are prompted by the city's recent announcement that it intends to spend $3.6 million in the next few months to make Boylston Street into ``Boston's grand boulevard.'' No doubt the street, already one of the city's most attractive, will look better still.

This newest project has echoes. Seven years ago, city officials unveiled a $40 million effort they dubbed the Boulevards Project. Fifteen major roadways, including Huntington and Blue Hill avenues, were to get the same treatment now promised for Boylston Street.

So how have things fared? The record is mixed. Huntington Avenue, which stretches from Copley Square to the Brookline line, is much improved. The street was widened (mostly by removing parking spaces) and the MBTA's E line, which runs down the center of the road, was cleaned up with trees planted along its length.

The four-mile length of Blue Hill Avenue, a pet project of Mayor Thomas Menino, is dotted with empty lots, boarded-up buildings and sparse greenery. Yet to those who remember the rioting in the 1960s that destroyed much of the street, the transformation has been remarkable. When Menino came into office, he vowed to bring the avenue back and, judging by the new construction along the way and the many thriving neighborhood stores, he's had much success.

Some of the other streets that were part of the original project have improved; others, like Cambridge Street, are still a mess. And all of them, quite frankly, look worse off than Boylston Street does now - even before the city's promised new money is to be spent.

Yet while streets such as Blue Hill and Huntington avenues may not match Boylston for physical beauty, they are vastly more interesting and laden with more character. Most of the retail stores along the increasingly antiseptic Back Bay street could be found in any upscale suburban mall. It's Boston's picture postcard street, geared toward tourists but disengaged from the city and residents around it.

To wit: On the last day of October, as the city was announcing its plans for the ``Grand Boulevard,'' a group of elementary schoolchildren went out trick or treating for UNICEF. Four of them - two pirates, a vampire, and one boy clad in pennies - set themselves up outside of the F.A.O. Schwarz toy store.

Four security guards - one for each child - promptly came out, demanding the children leave. The parents, who were their chaperones, protested but to no avail.

So they moved to mid-block near the entrance to 500 Boylston St.

Out again came more security guards. One parent pointed out they were on a public sidewalk; the guards claimed that virtually the entire sidewalk was private property. Crestfallen, the children left.

An innocent, not-to-be-repeated mistake, perhaps? Hardly. Greg Brown, a spokesman for the building, is unyielding. The building doesn't allow solicitors and beggars, he says, apparently because they might disturb the delicate sensibilities of his tenants. He denies that the children were kicked off of a public sidewalk, but then claims his property line goes within two feet of the street. He's wrong, by the way, a point he eventually has to concede - the public way is 10 feet wide.

Public way or not, why not allow kids to collect for UNICEF? Brown falls into bureaucratese, worried about having to make ``a thousand'' exceptions to his clear-cut rule. The only way, he says, would be for the kids to seek permission, in advance. And then would they be permitted?

``It's possible,'' he says weakly.

F.A.O. Schwarz is little better. Spokeswoman Kim Richmond blames the landlord. ``We love children,'' she says.

Kids climb all over the big bear statue outside of its entrance and are never kicked off the property for loitering - which the landlord also prohibits. Might F.A.O. talk to the landlord and at least set things right for next year?

``We will have a conversation,'' she says. ``And do what's best for everyone.''

Maybe I'm missing something, but shouldn't the right answer from Brown and Richmond be: We made a mistake, we apologize and we will make sure it never happens again?

In their world, perhaps not. Richmond tells me about all of F.A.O.'s charitable giving, which is great but also beside the point. In trick or treating for UNICEF, kids are learning an important life lesson about individual selflessness and caring for others. As dowdy as Blue Hill Avenue may be, one imagines that's something most of the merchants there would understand. Boylston Street, on the other hand, is proof that looking good doesn't mean you have much of a soul.

Talk back to Tom Keane at tomkeane@tomkeane.com.