The Boston Harbor Journal
At a reception for the opening of Parris Landing at the Charlestown Navy Yard the other night, hundreds of guests mingled in an all white atrium illuminated by soft tropical colored lighting. Outside on the lawn a crowd of young professionals gathered to look at Boston's skyline across the harbor.
The reception was held to introduce the highly stylized, well appointed one and two bedroom condominiums in the renovated Navy Yard building. The residences reflect the perfect lifestyle for young, working professionals. Philippe Starck, the designer of this newest project to grace the harbor front mingled with the guests who had come to see his first ever for Boston project, a big change from the sleek and glamorous sites of his other better known work in Miami, New York and Paris.
But a press package distributed by the public relations firm for the event was wise enough to look beyond the chic atmosphere that existed in the beautiful building. In that package was a map that indicated the location of the stores and daycare centers that are found in every real neighborhood. These are the things that along with schools, fire houses, police stations and health clinics give a sense of community to a neighborhood, provide a feeling of security, order. And tell you that you are a responsible member of that community.
In East Boston once the piers are built out, the residents there will find all of these things in that neighborhood as well. Churches, community centers and a police station are already a short walk from the waterfront.
But all of the plans for South Boston waterfront don’t have any of these things that make family life and community responsibility flourish. Where is the police station? The firehouse? Schools for children? Clinics? Churches? Places to go at night to meet others, discuss local issues, learn new things. The quirky tiny stores that come and go and offer a change of atmosphere unlike the chain stores that merely change according to marketing dictates?
Where will the community centers be located, those places where AA meetings are held, schools to educate children and provide adults a place to vote on election day. Where are the community centers where someone can get a French lesson or take cooking class at night.
Supermarkets, churches, doctors offices, police stations, firehouses, schools they all remind people they are responsible members of a community. That was the way all of Boston's other neighborhoods evolved, and in South Boston, the South End and Back Bay all of these institutions are present and thriving today. Churches and schools provide a sense of order and safety but you won’t find them in any of the plans for the development of the South Boston waterfront. They are not the responsibility of a developer, they must be brought to a neighborhood by its residents.
The single or professional couple, the beautiful lifestyle, all bring glamour to the waterfront and attract the discretionary spending that it needs to flourish and more importantly money to pay for the development process. But the lives of the residents will be empty without the reminders that tell them they have a community and responsibility to the neighborhood. Life would be pretty but it wouldn't feel good.