Depends what you mean by 'great.' It sure wasn't as gigantic, as mammoth, as world-renowned, as ...
If your criterion for greatness is size, fame or glitz, what in Boston is 'great' when compared to New York? Do we have as great a skyline, as great a waterfront, as great a museum?
But we do hear a lot on this forum that Boston has its own scale, and it shouldn't be compared directly with New York. New York is overwhelming, we're told, and Boston is manageable.
By that measure, the Combat Zone was every bit as 'great' (some would say 'tawdry') as Times Square.
Both are now gone: the Combat Zone and the Times Square of yore.
Van made a comparison between the Combat Zone and Time Square with which I responded too. While many people say you can't compare NYC to Boston, you can compare it proportionally which I did with how both turned out in the present.
The Combat Zone today, improved, yes, but not proportionally as Times Square. The Combat Zone is little more than the edge of Chinatown, with a sandbox across the street from the ArchStone Common, a homeless shelter to the northwest, a sprawling parking lot at Hayward, but they do have a renovated Opera House and Paramount Theater and a club next to it, and dorms. The gap between DTX and Chinatown is a dead zone with hardly any pedestrian activity. Time Square grew up, attracts tourists every year for New Years, have big box shops attracting pedestrian activity throughout the area. Sure NYC is much bigger and of course Time Square is much bigger but even in proportion, the Combat Zone should have done better.
Here are some welcoming improvement.
Turn Hayward Place into retail space with restaurants and shops.
Have another night club at the edge of Lafayette Place.
Build Kensington Place with ground retail.
Fill up the ground level of the Millennium Place.
Make the Combat Zone as an extension of both DTX and Chinatown.
If Boston can accomplish something like that, you have one long continuous stretch of pedestrian activity.
