The Mayor Walks Away From the Neighborhoods

Mayor Menino wants to build a new City Hall on the Waterfront.

We’re not excited. We'd rather see the building razed and replaced with a new City Hall at the present location. Government Center is, well, the center of government for the Commonwealth. City Hall is within walking distance of the MA State House, the MA Legislature, and the headquarters of a boatload of state and federal agencies. It is accessible by just about every mode of public transportation available.

The proposed move punishes the neighborhoods, by moving City Hall to a remote, largely inaccessible outpost populated mostly by tourists, conventioneers and white collar workers from the suburbs.

The Waterfront is a growing, vibrant beautiful new section of Boston. That's exactly why it’s the worst place for City Hall. Always popular to think that dropping a bureaucratic fortress inside a neighborhood will invigorate an area, but it never happens. The RMV, the renovated orange line station, and the new police headquarters all failed to revitalize Ruggles Square; instead, it's the expansion of Northeastern that will ultimately drive the rehabilitation of that area.

A lot of people are saying this is an ego trip for the mayor. Not sure we'd agree- the Waterfront is already part of his legacy, and anyone who's spent some time down there can't help but be excited about what's happening there. (Turns out the politicians were right all along about the new Convention Center.) What other city in the east Coast is actually growing a new downtown? Natural to expect the Mayor to be excited and want to be a part of the area, but it's a bad idea.

Relocating City Hall will have a negative effect on the Waterfront, though. Really, you think all those City Hall employees will be flocking to the new Legal Test Kitchen for lunch? Only if the LTK installed a scratch ticket vending machine inside the front door. Trust us- flooding the waterfront with thousands of wide-bodied, slow moving, underpaid, under motivated public sector folk will not do a thing to help that area.

Photo found via Sooz on Flickr.com