This post would also fit in the Design A Better Boston forum but then we would have 2 RKG threads and it would get confusing.
I, as I'm sure many of you, have always felt that the main failing of the RKG was that there was too much open space. This was done, as I see it, as a knee jerk reaction to ripping down the old Central Artery with a total lack of leadership when it came to designing and building what came after it (I've seen plenty of great designs but where are they now?) People saw this as an opportunity to redefine downtown and create parks that would bring the area back to life (rightly so). But the problem, I think, is that people didn't really know what they wanted. They knew they wanted parks, and I think this was the right thing to ask for, but I don't think they understood that undefined open space, like the Greenway is now, only continues the void created by the old highway.
Open-space has become a meaningless buzz word. When you go to a community meeting about a new development always someone brings up open-space, but who knows what that means. Suburbs have plenty of open-space but the space is undefined and useless. What makes an open-space useful and lively is a good design and a good definition. Undefined spaces feel like giant voids in the urban fabric (see: Government Center).
What defines a space? Buildings do. This was and is one of the truths that modern architecture threw out. Modern buildings exist in their own world and space which disconnects it from the buildings around it. Doing this once and a while can be fresh and interesting. Doing this all the time creates a 'no-place' that isn't connected to the rest of the city and makes it hard for the person to connect to it.
I see the Greenway as not a cohesive parkway linking the city together (much like Comm. Ave or the Fenway) but rather a disconnected series of open spaces with little or no relation to each other or the city. Some places I do feel work (North End parks, Chinatown park, Dewey Sq) and some places I feel have the potential to be great parks if only properly defined (Wharf park, the park in front of Rowes Wharf). But the other "parks" are not real parks and should not be used for open space. These areas need to be the second part to defining an area, buildings.
Here is a map of the Greenway (from Bulfinch Triangle to Dewey Sq)
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=U...d=101230698274121090525.00045792c68f85024c6a5
On this map I have outlined 4 different areas:
The Blue are parcels that have been designated as development zones. The development here is designed to knit the Bulfinch Triangle back together I think that it will succeed.
The Green are parks/plazas/open-space that I feel should be preserved.
The Red are cultural buildings that are being planned and will go a long way in defining the Greenway as a whole.
The Orange are places that are now open-space but should have buildings on them. These are the places that we need to define the rest of the parks and the Greenway as a whole.
I think that the people who envisioned the Greenway saw themselves as carrying on the legacy of Olmsted, who created the Emerald Necklace of parks and parkways linking the suburbs of Boston. But what I think they missed was that the parks that Olmsted built came first and it was the city that adapted to them. The city already existed when the Greenway was built and it is the Greenway that needs to adapt to the city.
What was the original purpose of the Greenway? To link together the parts of downtown that were torn apart by the Central Artery while creating park space for the city. We have created the park space, yes, but to connect the city we need to fill in the other parts. Parks alone do not connect, and if poorly placed they can divide (would you say Central Park connects the Upper West and East sides? I wouldn't, though that wasn't the purpose of Central Park). Only buildings can connect places. What a park can do is to act as the membrane between two places.
This last bit might be confusing so let me explain: Think of the South End. What is the border between the South End and Chinatown? The Mass Pike. The highway acts as a border which defines the area. When the Central Artery was still up it acted as the border to the North End. It was something to be overcome and when you passed through it there was no mistaking where you had just entered.
Buildings blur this border. Where does Dorchester turn into Roxbury? If you ask 10 different people you might get 11 different answers. Yes, there are streets that one could point to, but it is the buildings on the streets that define the area. If there were no buildings the border would just be the no-mans land between where there were and in a no-mans land there are no true borders.
Parks are different. They act as a border but not in the same way as a highway. They have to ability to blur the boundary. Where would you say the Back Bay ends? Arlington St? Or does it continue into the Public Gardens? And then when you have walked through the gardens you are in the Common, and then on Beacon Hill. The parks have blurred the boundary.
This is why I think the North End parks work. They connect, define, and blur the boundary between the North End and downtown. This is what the rest of the Greenway needs to do to connect the city to the waterfront. I think it is failing because it has only gone halfway.
I think it is up to us to convince people that building a few infill buildings in the Greenway is not a terrible thing but something that will actually help the area grow.
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