Park Here
All of the proposed developments for the harbor front and the inner harbor neighborhoods in Boston, South Boston, Fort Point, East Boston and Charlestown have three things in common; they are big, they are fancy and they are expensive. There’s no way around it. With the cost of the infrastructure needed in order to build out dilapidated abandoned industrial waterfront property, and the fact that harbor views command a high price tag, most of the development is not going to be for the average person or family. While there will be some affordable housing, the developers are putting up expensive condos that only the well off will be able to afford. It is the price to pay for attracting development money that can breathe life back into the waterfront. If these private developments come with well planned public areas however, then it will be worth it. If the private investors are required to provide restaurant and retail space in their projects, then anyone can enjoy the views the high priced residential units command. If the harborfront that borders every private development is public space and all project have to include some public space between the harbor and the building, access to the waterfront, and the ability to enjoy it is assured for everyone.
So there will be parks, public spaces and walkaways everywhere on the inner Boston Harbor. Not one building in Boston, South Boston, Charlestown or East Boston will rope off the waterfront. All of them will have to provide public accommodations in the form of walkways where people can run, walk and sit, public outdoor areas on the water and public amenities like restaurants, and access to water transportation. You may not be able to live there but you will be able to visits and hang around for the better part of a day or night. How soon will this happen? Evidence will appear very shortly. Within the next five years as projects reach completion these public areas will become very visible. If you want an idea of what it will eventually look like, then take a walk behind the Moakley Federal Courthouse or visit the often empty but beautiful Piers Park in East Boston to see what it will soon be like around the entire inner harbor.
Does any other city in the United States or even Europe have such place? San Francisco has plenty of water front around its bay, but it doesn’t have much public space. Most of the land on the bay is taken up by older, historic terminals and docks and there are no plans to build housing or public amenities on them. There will never be active, exciting twenty four hour neighborhoods in these locations. Indeed public trust law that governs the San Francisco waterfront prohibits private development. While there are destination spots on the bay that are open to the public during the day, at night there is no life, no neighborhoods to draw people. London’s Canary Wharf and the surrounding wharves have very good public access, but the construction is all office buildings and at night when they close so do the restaurants and the area becomes a skyscraper wasteland.
As development projects are completed there will be more public spaces some as large a several acres. All of them will front the harborwalk and separate it from the new buildings that will sprout up along the waterfront, guaranteeing public access to the waterfront. There are already a number of such parks and /or public spaces around the inner harbor, yet they are often empty simply because there are not enough people living nearby to take advantage of them. So check them out now while they are quiet and peaceful. With all of the development taking place it won’t be long before these quiet harborside locations are as noisy and crowded as Faneuil Hall on a Saturday night. Start exploring the public places. The people who will be paying top dollar for those apartments and condos with harbor views are paying for them. The least the rest of us can do is make sure we show our appreciation for the unlimited waterfront access their money is buying us.
The Boston Harbor Journal