By Steve Bailey, The Boston Globe Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
Oct. 22--Boston is a great sports town. But we love our culture, too. In fact, of 10 American cities examined in a study by the Boston Foundation, Boston ranked first in the number of nonprofit arts and cultural organizations per capita, ahead of such meccas as New York City and San Francisco. And no city's cultural community grew faster than Boston's in the '90s.
And still they come. Take, for instance, the Rose Kennedy Greenway, the new uptown name for the mess formerly known as the Central Artery.
The Massachusetts Horticultural Society wants to build a $75 million 'Garden Under Glass' near South Station. Another group wants to raise $165 million for a city museum in the North End. And, in between, Boston's Jewish community wants to build a $35 million arts center. The financially struggling New England Aquarium, on the edge of the greenway, is just trying to keep its head above water.
Is it beginning to feel a bit crowded?
It is healthy for a city to think big, something we don't do often enough. But there is never enough money to go around, and sooner or later we have to sort out the dreamers from the doers. That is exactly the issue we're facing.
That sorting-out process begins in earnest in the North End on a one-acre plot known as Parcel 6. Last night at Old North Church the public got its first head-to-head look at the two competing proposals: A five-year-old group, the Boston Museum Project, wants to build a 200,000-square-foot museum to tell the city's history, while the YMCA of Greater Boston, America's first Y, wants to build a 125,000-square-foot flagship building on the same spot. If you missed last night's presentation, you will have another chance tomorrow morning at 8:30 at Boston City Hall.
While I'm supposed to say these are both worthy ideas -- so I will -- this should be an easy call for the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority.
The Y should win in a walk.
A city museum is just the kind of ambition we had in mind when we invested $15 billion in the Big Dig. But a YMCA, while far less grand, is just the kind of community center the North End has wanted for years.
The Y would have a senior center, a teen center, a child day care center, a basketball court, a pool, a running track and an (affordable) health club. One is high on culture; the other high on utility. Think Newbury Street versus Target.
The Y proposal also comes with another advantage: It is far more likely to get done. The last thing we need on the greenway is another grand plan going nowhere. We already have one of those; Mass. Hort has tied up three precious parcels for a dozen years. The YMCA has built four centers in five years. 'We have a balance sheet and a track record,' says the Y's feisty chief executive, John Ferrell.
This is not to say there is no room on the greenway for a city museum. But in a city with too many cultural organizations chasing too few dollars, collaboration, not competition, might be the way to get from here to there. For instance, the museum proposal calls for a 'winter garden' and a 'summer garden' on the top floor. 'The gardens will [be] a lovely amenity and a substantial part of the museum program, with plantings representing the remarkable botanical history of Boston,' says the handsome website (www.bostonmuseum.org).
One group wants to build a city museum in the North End, topped with a winter garden. Another group wants to build a winter garden under glass in South Station. Could these very civic people, strong on vision but short on money, have something to talk about? Or is this Boston, a place where we would never do that?
Neighborhood News: Daniel Judson, longtime general counsel at the state Division of Insurance, is out at the request of the Romney administration's chief legal counsel, Dan Winslow. Judson declined to comment.
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