South Station / Dewey Square
Exploring Dewey Square and South Station
A city like Boston brings together millions of people in a tiny plot of land, commuting in and out, seeking a place to gather, a workspace, a home, a quiet area to rest. These various functions occupy available space in different, sometimes conflicting ways, and focus on these individual domains by inhabitants, urban planners and business owners shifts over time. For a site to further investigate throughout the semester, I was looking for a space where the daily flow of people in and out of the city and its supporting infrastructure visibly interacts, or has interacted with everyday life.
I believe I found this in the Dewey Square area around Boston's largest railway terminal, South Station. More specifically, I chose to focus on the region bound by Lincoln, Summer and High streets in the west, Congress and Beach Streets in the north and south respectively, and on the west side by Atlantic Avenue, but including the South Station Railway terminal. This region brings together at least four very distinct different uses of space very close together. As inspired by Grady Clay's How to Read the American City, I tried to investigate these uses by taking the time to look at what is to be seen, and what is not.
The first and most visible use of space in the Dewey square area is transportation. The historic railway terminal of South Station overlooks the square, and the surroundings are dominated by people commuting or traveling, typically carrying small suitcases or trolleys respectively, and large coaches trying to reach the bus terminal. By the amount of cars and large trucks passing by on Atlantic Avenue and Purchase Street, from and to the I-93 that lies buried underneath, it is easy to tell that this area still serves as major link in road traffic flow. Another sign of this is the presence of parking garages dotted throughout the whole neighborhood. Although an unusual sight for me, this looks very similar to Victor Gruen's approach to intercepting incoming traffic by placing parking facilities along incoming expressways, as explained by Clay. Finally, a vital part of South Station's function as a hub is its connection with the city center, suburbs and Logan airport through the Red and Silver lines, part of Boston's subway system.
But the area proves so much more intriguing after a simple 180 degree turn. Directly facing the South Station building lie the Dewey Square parks. Although very quiet and empty during cold and snowy times like these, they provide unexpected open, green space and room for community life. The large wall of a facilities building right alongside the park area hosts a new mural by Matthew Ritchie. This park also denotes the start of Boston's longest stretch of green area, the Rose Kennedy Greenway, and as such symbolizes one of the cities worst scars turned into one of its most vivid areas. Interestingly enough, Dewey Square itself was never overrun by the elevated I-93, or “Central Artery”, as even in the fifties neighbor protests pushed officials to opt for a tunnel instead. Its shift of use towards a park area however, is a new development.
Also very prominently visible around Dewey Square are the high-rise buildings. The glass building across Atlantic Avenue from the South Station railway terminal, labeled “One Financial Center”, provides an explanation. Dewey Square is also the beating heart of Boston's financial district, with for example the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston settled here. This is also the reason this site hosted the Occupy Boston protesters in 2011.
A fourth, different type of environment within our bounds can be found just just south of Essex Street. This area, called the Leather District as indicated by a sign outside of a bar, apparently due to the concentration of that industry in previous times, hosts some restaurants and commerce, but even functions as residential area (During my visit I was asked to help someone move a TV from their residence).
Finally, the crossing of Lincoln, Summer and Bedfort Streets is a remarkably vibrant area dominated by pedestrians, packed with stores, coffee shops, and restaurants. Summer Street itself is very vivid, and clearly connects pedestrians between South Station, the Financial District and the other parts of Boston's downtown, resembling what Clay describes as a venturi. This conflicts with the directly adjacent High street, which is mostly empty, shows a lot of signs of businesses that moved elsewhere and has a large amount of vacant commercial space.
South Station's surroundings proved a lot more diverse then I had initially imagined. Investigating the site's history will surely explain how such diverse functionalities were brought together on a space this small, immediately raising some questions to further investigate: how did shifting interests in different modes of transportation influence south station? Does the name Leather District hint in the direction of a more industrial use of this space? What attracted financial businesses to this area? I am convinced further study will provide appropriate answers, and just as many new questions and anomalies.