In his inaugural State of the City address, Mayor Marty Walsh outlined a number of community-level initiatives to keep Boston idealistic, transformative and on the cutting edge. Leading by example, he’s putting out the call for residents to help him completely re-imagine City Hall Plaza.
It’s no secret that City Hall’s brutalist architecture is considered by many to be a municipal monstrosity. In a city where the seat of state government is housed under a golden dome, and 18th century Georgian-style churches help fill out the skyline, it’s no wonder that architects have proposed razing it to the ground.
But rather than start from scratch, Mayor Walsh wants to harness the collective creativity of Bostonians to improve what’s already there.
“City Hall has to set the standard,” said Mayor Walsh in his address. “So we will put out a call to re-imagine City Hall Plaza as the thriving.”
City Hall Plaza is seven acres of what Chief of Civic Engagement Jerome Smith refers to as a “brick wasteland.” That fact, coupled with the ongoing Government Center Station reconstruction project, means that City Hall and the plaza on which it sits can easily alienate locals and nonnatives alike.
For this reason, Mayor Walsh has taken several steps to activate the interior of the building. Since he’s taken office, the third floor mezzanine has evolved into an engaging space. The Stairs of Fabulousness inject color into the otherwise mundane area. The newly installed coffee cart invites people to take meetings and lunch nearby. The temporary #WickedCoolTree showed off City Hall’s holiday spirit and tech savviness.
There are a lot of potential opportunities to partner with operators on everything from a redesign to programming
But those kinds of initiatives are privy only to those who dare venture inside.
“The plaza is our front door,” Mayor Walsh’s chief of staff, Dan Koh, told BostInno. “It’s a very large piece of property in the heart of the city. It’s ugly and it needs a lot of facelift.”
A request for information (RFI) was issued to best gather all of the information needed to conceive concepts and ideas for the open space. Koh mentioned that depending on the type of data the city is able to muster, spearheading the endeavor could be a community leader, urban planner or full-blown company.
The Boston Parks & Recreation Department is currently developing a new citywide Open Space Plan for the years 2015 to 2021. This is part of the Walsh administration’s push to allow for 97 percent of Bostonians to live within a 10-minute walk of a park.
If City Hall Plaza were to become a park (an idea we’ve been happy to perpetuate) it could add another dimension to the close proximity it’d provide those living around downtown.
It could become the city’s premiere concert venue.
The increasingly popular local music festival Boston Calling has taken place on the plaza twice a year since 2013. But rather than offer up cushy blades of grass and surrounding decorative flora for attendees to enjoy, they have an uncomfortable brick surface around which is built an equally undesirable fence.
City Hall Plaza is slated to remain Boston Calling’s setting until 2017. The city owes it to the 45,000 people who trekked to the site for the September 2014 weekend concert, and the many more expected to flock to Boston for future shows, to make it a cushier experience.
An overhauled plaza would also afford Boston the opportunity to prove itself as a playable city. A 300-foot water slide, for example, was constructed in the middle of Bristol, England, which is quickly gaining a worldwide reputation a leading playable city.
Boston has dipped a toe in the playable pool with The Lawn on D being the prime example. The premise of that 2.7-acre space of South Boston real estate is to be completely experimental, to devise events, art installations and even yard furniture of a next-generation variety to keep Bostonians curious and entertained.
“There are a lot of potential opportunities to partner with operators on everything from a redesign to programming,” added Koh. “The Lawn on D feedback has been tremendous and we’d love to replicate that kind of success on City Hall Plaza.”
City Hall Plaza is a blank canvas with perhaps the greatest exposure of any other piece of the city. Given the stark increase in events, the revamped MBTA station and the accompanying redesign happening inside City Hall, it’s great to see municipal government realize the creative, innovative potential.
