Paul's House Diary

The Globe reported last month that the Boston area YMCA pulled its proposal for a North End community center on the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway, marking the death of the final proposal that was never going to ever happen in a million years on the still-born “park” system that divides downtown.

As part of the Big Dig’s dismantling of the Central Artery, the Interstate 93 connector that sliced through downtown Boston following the massive rebuild the city faced during Urban Renewal in the 50’s and 60’s, a new park system, an “Emerald Necklace” of sorts through downtown Boston, would take its place, dotted with the cultural institutions akin to those that make the original Necklace a destination. Included in the proposal were a “Garden Under Glass” sponsored by the Mass Horticultural Society, two different incarnations of a city heritage museum, a handful of “starchitects” names’ on flashy buildings shaped like boats and popsicle stick-houses and numerous hap-hazard pipe dreams that never had a realistic chance of seeing the light of day.

Well, the failures and successes of the Greenway have been discussed in great, lengthy detail throughout local media. The YMCA is having trouble keeping the doors open at the community centers they already run throughout the city. The Horticultural Society can barely support a garden-in-the-grass let alone construct a “Garden-Under-Glass.” None of the proposals for heritage sites had any cash in their coffers, and were depending on the deep pockets of local investors before the previous recession.

The whole Greenway operation has been a series of fronts from the get-go. Chief among them, the Greenway Conservancy, whose head, Peter Meade, is moving on to lead the Boston Redevelopment Authority after accomplishing virtually nothing in his years at the Conservancy. He’s moving from hefty paycheck to hefty paycheck, with no history in redevelopment but a clear lean towards suburban landscaping judging by the huge lawn he maintains on Atlantic Avenue.

We’re getting a Harbor Islands Visitor Center, which looks like a glorified bus-stop, on the park sandwiched between Quincy Market and Christopher Columbus Park. Two years ago, an “international design competition” to construct a harbor islands pavilion produced an elegant glass box and reflecting pool that would’ve appeared on the site, and at least had walls.

This is not the place for a long ribbon of open space. These parks do the same damage that the central artery did and isolate downtown while bringing no incentive to visiting the harbor. Sell the parcels to private developers – Downtown Boston is still an enviable zip code, and there is limited space this close to the waterfront and this close to every mode of public transit the city offers. Whether or not they are cultural attractions or just offices and housing really wont matter, but build on these “parks,” or at least make them attractive highway medians. No one uses most of these parks as pedestrians, so put something pretty for the drivers to look at.