City Hall Plaza redux

We’re giving it another go. Can we agree on the newest plan to improve City Hall Plaza? Will it be implemented? Will it succeed in improving the place everyone dislikes but no one can change?

The nail on which this picture hangs is sustainability. We’ve got to go green on the plaza, say this effort’s movers and shakers. Perhaps the sustainability trend has enough heft to rally us around a plan that someone can come up with the money to build.

I use the word “plan,” but the designers of the latest version of improvement wouldn’t. “Plan” is too definite, causing someone to complain they weren’t consulted before the “plan” was in place. So the implementers use the term “proto-scheme.” Perhaps that is somewhat like “the earth was without form, and void . . .”

But there is no god-like figure here in charge of the creation. This effort seems strangely leaderless. There is a loose consortium comprising Jim Hunt, the city’s chief of environment and energy, the BRA, architect Tim Love of Utile and landscape architect Gary Hilderbrand of Reed Hilderbrand. Ted Landsmark of the Boston Architectural College has been recruited, as has architect Alex Krieger.          They held their first meeting in December, when they solicited views from the public. Then a bunch of people participated in a charrette, from which two designs emerged. At the second public meeting held at the beginning of February at the newly redone Modern Theatre on Washington Street, the group explained the plaza’s problems and solutions and presented two designs. By the way, go see the theatre. It’s cool.

This consortium is going where angels fear to tread, and my hat’s off to them. Like God in Genesis, they intend to fill the void—in this case the plaza. Their “proto-schemes” re-grade the plaza’s slope and employ everyone’s favorite—trees. Both ideas would improve drainage on the plaza, sending the water into the ground rather than directly out to the harbor. Sounds good.

Players who caused a lot of trouble the last time over refurbishing the plaza were the folks from the General Services Administration, a federal agency that manages the JFK building, which lies alongside City Hall Plaza. These folks were strangely absent from February’s meeting—not a good sign. Also not a good sign was that while the effort is called “The Greening of Government Center,” the redesign focused on City Hall Plaza. The disagreeable front yard of the JFK building is now paved with asphalt and used as a surface parking lot. It shows how little respect the folks who run the JFK building have toward our city. This problem was not really addressed.

It’s hard to imagine the GSA folks would object to a line of trees, since trees are already there. But one previous plan involved a hotel built between the JFK and City Hall that would bring people and life to the brick expanse. The GSA imagined terrorists checking in and aiming at the JFK’s windows. So they might imagine terrorists lurking behind trees too. In the previous go-round, the GSA people spoke as if all kinds of dangers swirled around them, making listeners wonder if they were at such high risk, maybe they should relocate to a place where there weren’t thousands of people living and working around them.

While no one put a price tag on either scheme, both look a lot cheaper than the cost of a hotel. The plans leave space for large gatherings, although one wonders if the Red Sox win the World Series again, how many tree limbs would be broken by fans climbing up to get a better look.

The charrette participants recognized that edges make a big plaza successful. They proposed reconfiguring the “moat” on the side near the Steaming Kettle so that the shops or restaurants along this line could spill out onto the plaza and bring some life to it.

Once again the plazas of Italy were invoked, although no one mentioned that the plazas of Italy are successful because the restaurants around their edges open their bars at 8 in the morning. That’s probably not going to happen here.

A final report is supposed to appear in mid-March

I hope these people are successful with their “proto-scheme.” It’s not that it’s fabulous. But it is good enough, given the circumstances. It would bring shade and define pathways in a pleasing manner.

Meanwhile, take up a couple of bricks near City Hall, and plant Boston ivy up the walls. That would soften the building. Persuade the keepers of the JFK to tear up the asphalt, plant something nice and get those cars out. Now we’re talking.