Zakim Bridge

I was futz­ing around in Pho­to­shop the other day, in-​between work­ing on some free­lance gigs… (it’s coming matt!)… and I cre­ated this little vec­tor­ized ver­sion of the new Charles river bridge in Boston. I think it’s fab­u­lous that the city named it for Lenny Zakim, a civil rights activist and com­mu­nity leader — espe­cially given that he passed-​away in 1999.

I cer­tainly under­stand why gov­ern­ment build­ings and other projects are named for WWII heroes and long-​dead (some cor­rupt) politi­cians, but I’m encour­aged by this choice… It’s a modern, per­sonal and mean­ing­ful choice.

Per­son­ally, I’m kind of ambiva­lent about all of this Big Dig stuff. Ele­vated high­ways are evil, so I will be glad to see the Green Mon­ster come down. Still, what will be put in it’s place? And at what cost? The cur­rent plans call for mostly green “open” space, sur­rounded by sur­face roads that might have as many as 4 lanes. Whoa. Wait up. You’re replac­ing 8 lanes of ele­vated high­way, with 8 lanes of modern, wide-​lane sur­face streets. Not to men­tion the 10 lanes underground.

It would be a mis­take to try and cor­rect the trans­porta­tion and urban renewal mis­takes of the 1950s, by drop­ping a narrow park in the middle of all that asphalt. This city needs to knit back together the fabric of a neigh­bor­hood that was sheared in two. That means moderately-​scaled build­ings, shops, caf?s, side­walks and, in the middle of all this: a park. Maybe with a foun­tain. And, you’ve got to min­i­mize traf­fic. Make it dif­fi­cult for cars to move through there.

Down­town Boston burned in 1872, so rein­vent­ing down­town is noth­ing new. I’d hate to think that this sce­nario would unfold: Devel­op­ers get to build tall, pri­vate sky­scrap­ers cut off from the street; the fire depart­ment gets wide traf­fic lanes; the tree-​huggers get the rest as dead “open” space. That’s a recipe for a non-​place. This should be the place… the destination.