Boston City Hall

Eileen posted a link on her blog to this list of "squares most in need of improvement", topped by our own City Hall Plaza. Not surprising really.


I think it's easy to look back and condemn the mistakes of 60s urban renewal, but looking back at the thinking at the time that enabled the wiping out of the West End and creation of the soulless Goverment Center makes it easier to understand why it happened. Here's a link to an interesting discussion by Boston architects on the subject.

No one denies City Hall Plaza needs change, and there have been plenty of campaigns attempting to fix the space with creative design ideas, but all have either been shot down by loud opposition, failed to gain necessary financing, or faded to obscurity due to conservative Boston politics. With such a high profile space, loud opposition is bound to surface no matter what the proposal, which makes it difficult to actually gain consensus on anything. So City Hall Plaza remains, although it did gain this street art thing within the last couple years.


I personally think the plaza could be dressed up, but the underlying challenge is that the space is too damn big. I think the addition of two four/five story buildings on Cambridge Street makes sense. The buildings should be permeable somehow to allow movement from Cambridge Street to the resulting plaza, City Hall, and Fanueil Hall and the North End beyond, and should include uses that activate the resulting plaza space at all hours of the day.


I believe the new buildings should include a restaurant, a bar or coffee shop open late, and possible civic use such as a historical center or visitors' center, with offices and/or residences on upper floors. Major improvements to the plaza itself must be made to make it a place where people want to spend time. This idea has several benefits:

1. Completes Cambridge Street and activates the existing uses (bagel shop, CVS, Kinsale Irish pub, etc.);
2. Results in a manageable, active urban plaza space with a more comfortable feeling of enclosure;
3. Improves the Cambridge Street - North End view corridor from both ends (picture below); and
4. Reinforces connection from Beacon Hill and Boston Common through Government Center to Fanueil Hall and the North End.