Curious when you were last Downtown? LCC hasn't been named "Lafayette Place" since at least the 1990s--already in 2002
it had been rebranded as LCC.
It's now filled with giant tech firms--Carbonite, Sonos, VMware, etc. I cut through its lobby frequently on the way to DTX and there's good activity in it a lot. Plus, the hallway to Macy's frequently has a rotating gallery of photos hanging in it. And,
there's a trendy museum opening there soon that will fill its remaining retail vacancy.
It's as if you deliberately chose a site that does more than almost anyplace else to contribute to Washington Street's vibrancy (certainly, once the museum opens), and then inverted reality and asserted it contributes the most to the street's problems.
(Also: I'd love to know how 600 Washington St. also somehow contributes to Washington Street's problems, given that I: never see homeless sheltering there; as noted above, it's filled with government agencies and thus not remotely deactivated; it's merely old, but not blighted/dilapidated, etc., etc.)
EDIT: again, since your usage of "Lafayette Place" implies you haven't been Downtown since the Clinton administration--I must ask in sincerity: are you aware that
this exact stretch of Washington St., between 600 Washington and LCC, now hosts three revitalized theaters, two hotels, and several upscale restaurants obviously sited there to exploit the theater patronage?
One of those theaters hosts Broadway blockbusters, such as Hamilton, and is also the home of the Boston Ballet, and thus hosts the mega-revenue driver that is the Nutcracker. How much money do you think the Nutcracker pumps into the surrounding neighborhood each year, even if you exclude the ticket sales themselves? How much foot traffic do you think a show like that generates?
If this is a "pit," it is a pit that every. single. theater. district. in the country outside of, say, Times Square, is drooling to emulate.
