A Greenway urban code broken
Theft of 10 patio chairs leads to locking them up
By Andrew Ryan, Globe Staff | July 30, 2010
In the annals of Boston crime, this theft will never rank with the famed Brinks robbery or the infamous art heist at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. But somehow it is almost as disturbing: Over the last month, thieves slowly stole 10 of the 56 patio chairs from the stretch of the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway in the North End.
The culprits grabbed the antique bronze-colored seats a few at a time, making off with the roughly 10-pound chairs. The popular moveable park furniture had sat undisturbed for the past three summers, a novel urban experiment that allowed visitors to arrange seats as they saw fit, day or night.
?That?s a shame,?? said Dave Flynn, 40, as he sat on one of the remaining chairs and clutched a two-handed pastrami sandwich from nearby Nick Varano?s Famous Deli yesterday. ?There?s nothing worse than a thief.??
This week, Greenway officials will begin collecting the tables and chairs each night and securing them with a lock and chain.
The thefts have occurred only in the North End, but officials do not plan to take chances along the rest of the Greenway. Near Rowes Wharf, the 13 new table sets with lime-green umbrellas will also be locked up, as will the new chair near South Station.
?Every park experiences some drip, drip away; things break, and so we replace them,?? said Nancy Brennan, executive director of the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway Conservancy. ?But what really got our attention was 10 going missing in a month.??
The chairs cost less than $150 each, Brennan said, and ?we will replace them.??
The thefts are more than a strike at the Greenway, a fledging ribbon of parks built atop that Big Dig that have struggled for financing and faced other setbacks.
Stealing the chairs broke an urban code that had been respected until this summer, giving the new open space a pass so it had time to mature.
?When something is new, it has a sacred quality,?? said Matt DeFanza, a 23-year-old student from New Jersey who sat at one of the tables and chairs yesterday with a slice of pizza. ?Maybe that has faded.??
DeFanza?s lunch partner, Isabella Ciolfi, 19, sat with bare feet, curled up in her chair, and thought about what would happen to moveable chairs in a park in her hometown. ?I mean in Worcester they would just disappear,?? Ciolfi said.
Other parks have been successful with moveable furniture, like Bryant Park in New York, which has 4,600 chairs and 600 tables in a place once so seedy it was known as Needle Park.
?They almost never walk,?? said Dan Biederman, president of Bryant Park Corporation. ?The trick is to make an environment that feels completely civil. The crowds become part of the security force. It takes time, but the Greenway will get there.??
In Boston, much has been made of the honor system in Post Office Square, where square vinyl cushions are handed out so people can sit comfortably on the grass. In more than a decade since the practice began, none have been stolen, but the $5 cushions are collected each afternoon and stored in the parking garage beneath the lawn, which is formally named The Norman B. Leventhal Park.
?But I also think they would disappear if we left them out,?? Pam Messenger, the general manager of the Friends of Post Office Square. ?And if we had beautiful cabana chairs on the lawn, they would probably disappear too.??
Andrew Ryan can be reached at
acryan@globe.com.
