The last couple of weeks I've been revisiting some city parks-in-progress in and around Boston to see how they're coming along.  Boston and Cambridge are fairly rich in urban green spaces, and the three that I'm interested in, from Jill Brown Rhone Park, a small corner in Cambridge across from MIT, to North Point Park, nearly nine acres along the Charles, to the Rose Kennedy Greenway, 30 acres of green where the elevated central artery used to be, all address different aspects of urban living in different ways and on vastly different scales. 


Jill Brown Rhone Park in Lafayette "Square"* on Mass Ave. is less a green space than a gathering place, two thirds widened sidewalk with lots of seating, some spindly trees and a section of raised beds.  It's drawn expected criticisms from some residents. "The layout seems a bit off," one observes, "with a wide, empty section in the middle."  Another notes: "The granite to plant ratio is altogether disappointing." 

A third wonders about a different kind of ratio. Will the abundance of seating turn the little parcel into "just another bum-magnet attracting more Cambridge lunatics?"  At least one concerned Cantabrigian thinks it's safe from zombification.  "It seems to repel the CSq vagrant population," he says, theorizing: "The proximity to the fire station with frequent and unpredictable horn and siren blasts may play a role."  They'll come.  Build the benches and they will come.  In fact, there were two there quite comfortably passed out yesterday morning when I dropped in.  You can see them huddled on the bench in the background there in the picture above. 


Not only the bums will come, though.  There's something for everyone here.  From crack whores to skateboarders, this little parcel was designed to accommodate any number of definitions of "park".  There are trees for people who think parks should have them.  There are benches.  There's one of those built-in chess boards.  There's a little mosaic for those who think parks should have "art".  And lots of surfaces just waiting to be graffitied.  There's even what could become a little performance space, the aforementioned "empty section in the middle," for traveling minstrels and mimes!  What more do you want?

True Cantabrigians are masters of complacency and complaint.  It's always too much of this, too little of that.  But the park is a vast improvement over the old layout...


It not only "reclaims" a neat little parcel for pedestrians, it slows traffic in a high-pedestrian area.  It elegantly solves several problems at once.  Those who want more from it will never be satisfied with any public works project.  Cambridge definitely doesn't deserve this one.

On to North Point Park.  I visited this one when it first opened almost a year ago. It's on what used to be a blighted nine acres hemmed in by the Charles, the T, and layers of highway ramps and overpasses.  I had my doubts at the time that it could ever be rehabilitated.  It's not a location that will draw many visitors aside from those living or working in one of the high-rises in the NorthPoint development to the west.  It's not easy to access from anywhere else...


But that's OK.  The separateness of the park is part of the plan. The parcel itself is actually the jewel in the NorthPoint tiara.  NorthPoint, itself, before falling on hard times, promised to be a grand experiment in transit-oriented development, described by early backers as "less a new development than a new small town: 5.2 million square feet of buildings on 45 acres, 2,500 new residences, 20 buildings on 19 blocks, a 10-acre central park, and retail space with no telling how many Starbucks cafes."  No telling.  And the relocation of the Lechmere MBTA station at NorthPoint (across the highway from its current location) was icing on the cake.

Unfortunately, before Phase One was complete, the deal went south.  Texas-based Archon Group balked at the $175 million price tag and backed out, leaving behind not quite the city-within-a-city we'd all been promised; more like a couple of buildings within a city.  And a park.  And the T is still moving across the road, too.  So there may be hope yet.  But even if it never gets off the ground, you have to admit, as an office park lunch spot you can't beat the views of the Zakim Bridge.  There's plenty of open space, and the canal, with its little bridges, offers lovely little vistas.


The parcel has both scenic and "secret" spots.  It has the atmosphere of a little oasis, a getaway from the hurlyburly on all sides.  What I especially like about North Point are the willows, prairie rose,  hibiscus and wild grasses growing along the banks of the little canal.  It's anything but precious and fussy.  And a perfect choice for this setting.  The hardiness of the plant matter complements the grittier, industrial surroundings.

Nowadays, with the city-within-a-city thing on hold, it's hard for some visitors to see the point of North Point Park.  If you don't live or work in the neighborhood, that hemmed-in few acres of high-rises to the west of the park, it's hard to see North Point Park as much more than something to look at from a kayak or duck boat.  At yelp! Shaina G. of Cambridge imagines the ideal itinerary:

[R]ent some kayaks from the Spaulding Hospital dock on the Boston side of this section of the Charles River basin, explore the canals of North Point Park, wander underneath th Zakim Bridge to appreciate its mass.  If you dare, keep going out into the Charlestown Harbor all the way to the Boston Harbor locks (yikes!)

If you have time, challenge a duck boat as you squeeze through the canal under Monsignor O'Brien Hwy and follow the Boston side of the basin under Longfellow and through the canals starting at the Boston Sailing Club, poke fun at the gondola boats. What's romantic about floating through shallow, stagnant, trash-ridden waters on a hot day with homeless folks yelling at each other on the shores and sweaty, heavy breathing runners all around you and the guy with the accordion behind you?  Cheesy if anything.

But for the few folks who currently reside in NorthPoint, the park does serve a vital and practical function: a place for their cooped-up kids and indoor dogs to run and play.  And poop.  Well, the dogs at least.  And thus the battle lines are drawn.  Pooping is very high in the dog hierarchy of needs, you see, and they're not always terribly discreet about it.  It's therefore up to their "masters" or "handlers" or "hosts" or "facilitators," or whatever we're calling them now, to deal with these little indiscretions before any children are, um, implicated in them.

According to insiders, the park is already going to the dogs.  One — a dog-person herself, no less — says that her fellow dog-owners "have ruined a haven in the City."  So, this is how it ends?  The new city-within-a-city's Central Park sinks to the level of a poop-strewn dog run?  The park is a gem, but with the future of NorthPoint uncertain who knows how long it will twinkle and shine?  And to borrow from the great Billy Strayhorn: only last year everything seemed so sure. 

The Rose Kennedy Greenway, which just officially opened last Sunday, if you can believe it, is by far the most-hyped green space in Boston since the Emerald Necklace, a 1,100 acre, nearly seven mile chain of beautifully landscaped parks running from Franklin Park to Boston Common.  By contrast, the Rose Kennedy is less than thirty acres, running a few city blocks.  Just to put things in perspective:


Both were twenty years in the making.  My point is not to downplay the accomplishment of transforming the elevated artery, once much more than just an eyesore, into a green gateway to the North End and Boston Harbor, only to put that accomplishment in its proper context.

The Rose Kennedy is a series of slivers of green most remarkable at this point for the monstrosity it replaces.  It's presence is an absence, if you will.  It has yet to come into its own, parkwise.  For those of us who remember the elevated artery, and how thoroughly it cut off the North End and the Harbor from the rest of Boston, it's a marvel mostly for not being what it was.  But the symbolic gesture of "greening" so far outstrips the reality of the Greenway at this point, we may have to wait a decade or more until the dust really settles and we can see what needs to be done there.

The more bloated the Big Dig budget became the more outlandish plans for these wee parcels got.  Plans for the strip were crowded with memorials, museums, greenhouses and rec centers.  Most, thankfully, have come to nothing.  The parcels need to breathe.  Let's leave them green awhile and see how people choose to use them, give the Conservancy time to amass fresh funds, and some years down the line if there's a genuine felt need to build on them, I say, go for it!

The parcels feel provisional anyway, whether that was the intention or not.  The layout and construction don't exactly strike you as for the ages.  Angular, inert, and inorganic is how I'd describe the layout.  High-traffic spots, like parcels 14-16, the gateway to the Wharf District, are mostly paving stones.  No seating, and very little green space.  The fabulous "pulsating" fountain and all the Vegassy lights would be great if anyone in Boston went out after dark, or if the Wharf District offered something to lure them.

Other parcels are greener but will take time to mature, and then we'll see.  The thing is, we're so used to seeing architects' renderings of the Greenway and shots of it from high above the city, that we never quite get a sense of the human experience of the place.  In order for parks to be the salve a city needs, the human experience of the place has to be paramount. 

We're so thrilled with our ability to render space realistically with computer imaging that we often disregard the reality of space itself.  This accounts for the always annoying disparity between how things look from a non-existent vantage point in artists' renderings and our actual experience of them. 

The Rose Kennedy Greenway is frankly, at this point in time at least, much more pleasing as a model.  It has always been a pleasing concept, and what it symbolizes is significant.  But if the reality never catches up to the model, the concept simply won't catch on. 

One last thing about the Greenway.  It's not too bicycle friendly.  The area in general is extremely difficult to maneuver by bike.  I walked mine.  This is, of course, not the case with Boston's answer to Central Park, the Emerald Necklace.  All I can say about the Greenway in comparison is that it is a wonderful "park" for our age of attenuated expectations.  We are thrilled to have undone a the damage of the elevated Central Artery.  We're not yet to where we can see that the Greenway won't be judged relative to what it replaced by future generations, but on its own merits, whatever they turn out to be. 
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*As I've noted elsewhere, Cambridge has a quaint tradition of calling intersections "squares," which, technically many are, I suppose (at least the ones that intersect at right angles).