"Trips to the city"--a shared experience between those of us who grew up in the suburbs, and saw the city as some magical entity full of music and action and honking cars. I was raised an hour and a half away from Chicago, so it was "trips to Chicago" for me. We'd drive over once a month or so, and sometimes stay the night; it was like visiting a cousin or an adult brother who had moved away for college. To this day, I see Chicago as an "old friend"--someone I visit every so often to spend the day shopping, eating, and maybe popping into a museum or two, all while reacquainting myself with its streets and catching up with its news.
Then I moved away for college myself, and was introduced to a new city--Boston. A stranger. And while I'd argue that it can't match Chicago for beauty and, of course, for pizza, I can certainly tell that there is a vibrant personality to Boston that I've yet to explore. It is my hope that, over the next four years, I can become as familiar with Boston as I am with Chicago--and what better way to start the relationship than with an extensive study of one of its central districts?
The site (figure 1) I chose, accordingly, is composed of the blocks containing Fanueil Hall Marketplace and the City Hall Plaza. Specifically, the boundaries run along State St., head northwest along John F. Fitzgerald Surface Rd. (not including the Greenway parks), then back down along New Sudbury St., and finally down along the curve of Cambridge St. to meet State St. again. I chose these major streets as boundaries to include the entire "superblock" that holds the federal buildings, and to include all of the buildings that are associated with the "marketplace"--extending all the way out to the Haymarket in the top corner of my site.
Fanueil Hall and Quincy Market, simultaneously a tourist destination for its history and a major shopping center, easily classifies as one of Grady Clay's "epitome districts"--as he puts it, areas of a city that "...carry huge layers of symbols that have the capacity to pack up emotions, energy, or history into a small space." That my visit was on a windy, frigid Monday afternoon did not seem to mean that Quincy Market, with its extensive selection of stores and eateries, was any less busy; there were enough people that I had to say "excuse me" several times to push past groups of shoppers. Fanueil Hall, with its plaza-like areas at its front and back, was still host to a couple of street performers wailing Oasis's "Wonderwall" despite the cold. I found myself wondering how those plazas had been used over the decades--surely, the combination of a wide-open, paved space and high pedestrian traffic meant that the space had been used for performances, demonstrations, and outdoor events alike.
As I continued on to the rest of my site, it was made abundantly clear how much Fanueil Hall was the locus of human traffic and activity for the area. I experienced a fantastic illustration of this fact as I headed across Congress St. to City Hall Plaza--to get to the plaza, I used the crosswalk along Hanover St., right next to the Holocaust Memorial, and a significant distance away from Fanueil Hall. I was alone in scampering across Congress as the crosswalk signal's beeps echoed across the empty plaza. However, after I had walked around the City Hall building and had headed back down the steps directly facing Fanueil Hall, it was with a talkative bunch of families and students that I re-crossed Congress to the Marketplace. Clearly, the crowd was for the shopping center.
But I don't want to gloss over the significance of the City Hall Plaza to my visit. I--from the standpoint of someone who has been fascinated by architecture since childhood--was enchanted by the City Hall building. Solemn, unshakably heavy, and enormous, it seemed to have been built not for humans, but for some alien species whose average heights are twice ours. The tinted windows and concrete slabs that make up its facade evoke a sort of new-age regality, and I stood under its shadow for quite a while, eyes trained upward in appreciative awe. However, I at once understood all of the criticism directed toward the building's design that I had read in online articles. It is undeniably imposing and rather uninviting; one of my initial reactions to seeing the building in person, in fact, was thinking that it read more as a sculptural monument to unyielding government power than it did as a center of civic discourse. "I'd like to take a look inside" is not a thought that would cross the average mind approaching this building--instead, "I'm probably not allowed to go in" is a much more likely conclusion. This, of course, goes against the entire concept of a City Hall; in that way, I do not think that the design of the building is successful. I'm extremely curious to look into the history of the City Hall Plaza and that entire "superblock".
Despite the hustle and bustle of Fanueil Hall and my interest in the City Hall building, it was the area bounded by North St. and Hanover St. that evoked most of my questions. With its narrow alleys, uneven stone paving, and strangely-shaped buildings built from distinctive red brick, it was clear that this area was much older in comparison to its neighbors (the highway, the Haymarket, and Hard Rock Cafe). I had not paid much attention to this little cluster of restaurants, shops, and bars on the map before my visit, but after walking through, I want to know: How much of this area has been renovated, if at all? Was it always full of eateries and vintage shops, as it is now, or did it have an entirely different purpose? Given its proximity to governmental buildings and a busy marketplace, was it at any point one of Clay's "political venturi"? (53) Why the odd shapes of the buildings? Was it part of a larger complex at some point? Were the adjacent Haymarket and Hard Rock Cafe, both of whom are clearly recently built, designed with red brick to allude to this older cluster of red brick buildings?
I have so many questions from the first visit alone--and am positive that even more will arise as I start my research, given the diversity of land uses and the rich history of my site. I hope to find answers over the course of this semester, and along the way, befriend Boston as a lively, fascinating companion.
Works Cited
Clay, Grady. Close-Up: How to Read the American City. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1980. 11-16, 38-65.