News
City Hall: The Next Preservation
January 26, 2010
| Boston City Hall is a stark, brutalist structure that some love for its urbane directness and others hate for its unyielding aloofness. But now Boston Preservation Alliance is on a campaign to have it declared a landmark. Many with ideas of moving, selling, or redeveloping it will have to think twice. |
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| The Alliance?s Susan Park and Sarah Kelly are spearheading the type of Save City Hall effort that previously helped preserve Fenway Park, the Sears Roebuck building, the Charles Street jail (now the Liberty Hotel), and last winter declared Fort Point Channel to be Boston's newest historic district. Despite a mild manner, these ladies can make powerful developers quake. When not working day and night at BPA, Sarah is planning her August wedding, and Susan plans Harborfest, a six-day festival around July 4 to market Boston's historic resources. |
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| Einhorn Yaffee Prescott?s Charles Craig and Historic Boston's Shelby Graham are two of the 20,000 people affiliated with BPA. We snapped them with a poster of the Boston Opera House in the Theater District. Now the performance venue for the Boston Ballet, in 1996 BPA worked with Mayor Menino and the National Trust for Historic Preservation to spark the $42M renovation of the deteriorating 1928 Beau Arts theater. Looking ahead, they're part of the push to landmark the Art Deco New England Telephone & Telegraph building at 185 Franklin St. in the Financial District. Current owner Verizon ?arbitrarily removed a Dean Cornwell mural, and we're fighting to get it back,? Susan explains. |
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| Alliance staff Christine Huh and Christine Piontek are working on the City Hall project with Sarah and Susan. Two years ago, there was talk of setting up a new City Hall in the Seaport District. That ended when BPA spoke up. Susan says ditching the building isn't practical: No one would buy it because it hasn?t been well maintained; it would cost a lot to demolish it; and it's worth preserving because it's an architectural icon. Another reason: ?the seat of municipal government has been in the Financial District for 350 years.? |
