Walking across the Longfellow Bridge from Central Square to Back Bay at night, the brightest structure on either side of the Charles River is the nearly completed Millennium Tower, though it is doubtful the building’s evening glow will be as ostentatious once its industrial work lights are plucked from its beams. At 60 stories and 685 feet, it will be the tallest residential building in Boston’s largely unremarkable skyline and third-tallest overall, behind “The Skyscraper Formally Known as the Hancock Tower” and the Pru.
Born under the auspices of the late Tom Menino and built by one-time Olympic ringleader John Fish’s Suffolk Construction, the Millennium Tower has been heralded as the “most important residential building in Boston since the Ritz-Carlton,” a name evoking comparable excess. As of last week’s topping-off ceremony, 90 percent of its units were sold following a series of deals worth hundreds of millions. To market the $37.5 million penthouse crowning the luxury high-rise, developers sent a drone up 685 feet, to help potential buyers wrap their well-coiffed noggins around just how spectacular their view of Boston would be.
Those inhabiting the Millennium Tower home will enjoy a litany of amenities: Chef Michael Mina’s new, closed-to-the-public restaurant, as well as a private dining service overseen by the James Beard Award-winning chef, including “cooking classes, video demonstrations from Mina, and a private screening room, where the chefs will prepare special ‘tailgate’ menus on game days”; a tailored personal training program; round-the-clock concierge; and of course, valet parking.
There was a time when the erection of a skyscraper was a reason for intense civic pride. It meant the city was growing, business was booming, and everything pulsed to Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. It was a symbol, wrought from steel and glass, of prosperity and strength. The structure would be a new landmark—something new to emblazon on postcards and T-shirts, to include in your directions to ambling tourists, to see from a distance, forehead pressed against a bus window and think, “I’m back home.” If a city’s skyline is a metonym for its identity, any new addition must advance its character without subverting it.
The Millennium Tower, in this sense, is a failure.
