Rose Kennedy Greenway

If someone can actually get something halfway decent built there, I don't care if it's a memorial to Bel Biv Devoe (actually, not a bad idea) - just build it. Looking into my crystal ball, I'm seeing this play out just like the Armenian Heritage Park. Everyone's going to hem and haw over "appropriateness," until it gets built and turns out to be one of the nicest things on the Greenway.
 
If you crave something from that period, the 1919 Boston Police strike is more worthy of commemoration in a prominent place than some freak accident. You might as well start building monuments to notable streetcar crashes.

Revolution and anarchy were in the air, important moment in labor history, and it got the governor elected to the presidency. (Dennis Lehane wove it into one of his books really well.)
 
In a city filled with history we may have things that are more well known but this event does have its importance. 4 times as many people died than the Boston Massacre and 25 times the injuries. It also led to new safety standards on industries (very important). Its probably not the most meaningful part of our history as a city but the space it creates would serve many purposes: small concerts, speakers, wading in the summer, and skating in the winter.

That said I think the 1919 police strike would be a far better topic to memorialize. However if you aren't going to push that idea I would prefer this memorial and space activation over the highway ramps that are currently there in a pace that really could be a connector between two parts of the city long separated. I would support a better activation of this space if there were better alternatives. So try to get that strike memorialized. For a city with a lot of labor history and power we surprisingly don't have anything in memory of this (at least that I know of).
 
Don't at all disagree with the need to cover the space.

If you want, fill that overturned barrel with hanging red banners, let the "Occupy" people camp there, and scab re-enactors can club them twice daily.
 
This reminds me of the Mel Brooks quote, "If I got a paper cut, that’s a tragedy. If you fell down an open manhole and died, that's comedy." By that standard the Molasses Memorial is a fantastic, hilarious idea. It would be a huge hit.

The problem is not with the idea, but with the context. Boston has a terrible public art deficit. We build statues of A listers who did their best work elsewhere (Kennedy, Poe, Washington) or who never actually arrived (Columbus, Lief Ericson). We also build statues of former mayors and a few sports stars. Oh - and now we paint a glorified ventilation shaft every few months.

The Molasses Memorial would be a great addition if we had more serious, admired art in the city core. But given that we don't it probably is a good idea whose time has not yet come.
 
They're working on a Molasses Memorial but it's moving very slowly...
 
tobyjug said:
If you crave something from that period, the 1919 Boston Police strike is more worthy of commemoration in a prominent place than some freak accident. You might as well start building monuments to notable streetcar crashes.

Revolution and anarchy were in the air, important moment in labor history, and it got the governor elected to the presidency. (Dennis Lehane wove it into one of his books really well.)
Click to expand...

I quite liked this book. Once of Lehane's few I've read that weren't a suspense novel with a twist in the end. More of a historical fiction, really well done. Its called The Given Day if anyones interested.
 
Deetroyt said:
I quite liked this book. Once of Lehane's few I've read that weren't a suspense novel with a twist in the end. More of a historical fiction, really well done. Its called The Given Day if anyones interested.
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The book also teaches you why Storrow Drive is called Storrow Drive (After James J. Storrow, who was head of a commission to prevent the 1919 Boston police strike). The commission failed to prevent the strike, but not before the Legislature enacted a bill to name a highway after Storrow as a thank you.
 
Storrow Drive was built long after James Storrow had died, and a few years after his wife had also died. I think the name came more from the work he did on preserving the Charles River bank as a public park. Which makes it ironic.

In addition, his wife Helen, had also donated $1 million to help the Esplanade and to turn the land there into the park it is now. Minus the highway, of course, which she opposed.
 
"A City in Terror" is a pretty good non-fiction account of the strike. Quick read but very interesting. Basically the city devolved into a scene from The Purge for a few days.
 
PaulC said:
Straight from the horse's mouth:
http://northendwaterfront.com/2014/...ks-to-residents-about-north-street-expansion/


I wonder if the Hanover site could include air rights development over the Sumner Tunnel ramps?
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Yahoo:

MassDOT’s intentions to release their Request For Proposals (RFP’s) on two properties in the North End was*discussed at the Nazzaro Community Center on Wednesday night. One of the RFP’s that was up for discussion was Parcel 11A, located on the Corner of Hanover and Cross Streets. The other RFP being discussed*was the parcel at 128 North Street, also known as the Tunnel Administration Building. Each of the two locations will have their own individual RFP
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Maybe the ramps (and parking lot) between Cross, North and Fulton streets can get cover some day too!

http://northendwaterfront.com/2014/...el-administration-building-proposal-concerns/
 
Hey, I mean, they're one of Boston's finest. When are they gonna get their memorial?!
 
underground said:
Hey, I mean, they're one of Boston's finest. When are they gonna get their memorial?!
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There music was always "hip-hop smoothed out on an R&B tip, with a pop appeal to it."

Yes, I wrote that from memory. Don't judge me.
 
Matthew said:
Storrow Drive was built long after James Storrow had died, and a few years after his wife had also died. I think the name came more from the work he did on preserving the Charles River bank as a public park. Which makes it ironic.

In addition, his wife Helen, had also donated $1 million to help the Esplanade and to turn the land there into the park it is now. Minus the highway, of course, which she opposed.
Click to expand...

I know that the highway itself was built much later, long after his death (and shortly after his wife's). But my understanding is that the Legislature in 1919 designated that "some highway" should be named after Storrow (not specifically Storrow drive) for his service in the police strike (which did not work anyway).

Kind of like the naming of the Rose Kennedy Greenway -- it was buried in Federal funding legislation years before anyone knew that the name was already mandated.
 
The idea is okay since every sightseeing trolley goes by the site and cites the tragedy. There will be plenty of tourists who think they're viewing something significant. I don't care what they build there. The "Bean" in Chicago is not a memorial, yet it has a whimsical presence in what is just a park. What a concept. Just build it without reference to any event and let us enjoy the architecture, the water, the grass, and the serenity.(P.S. the police already have a memorial on the rear grounds of the state house.)
 
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