Why an Action against the Fenway Alliance?

Posted by John B. Kelly

After all, the Fenway Alliance's "Opening Our Doors!" celebration every Columbus Day is a great idea. Visitors get a great deal: there are activities for the entire family, free admission to world-class institutions, and lots of things to do in a small area reachable by foot, stroller, wheelchair, whatever.

It is because of what the Fenway Alliance has done, and how it presents itself. The organization formed in 1997 by gathering together 22 nonprofit institutions, all with an interest to elevating their status. The alliance seems to have set immediately upon making over the space it occupied, from a strictly functional urban street to an elite, aesthetic oasis, a destination. The institutions, with ample government support, wanted to go up against powerful competitors, new ones like Boston University, and very, very old ones like Harvard and Beacon Hill.

The simplest way to join an elite grouping is to emulate it by stealing some of its magic. That meant turning a major transportation artery and gritty retail establishment serving primarily students and locals into a "cultural district," with immediately recognizable characteristics that would elevate the area in terms of culture and class. Mayor Thomas Menino cooperated by renaming the street the "Avenue of the Arts," and designating the alliance as the organization to develop it.

Seizing upon the opportunity offered up by the federal mandate (from the Americans with Disabilities Act) to make transportation accessible to all citizens, the alliance plotted with its development allies at the Boston Redevelopment Authority and city government to hijack the necessary reconstruction of Huntington Avenue (with its ancient trolley system) for their own ends. If moving to a "better" neighborhood is impractical for institutions, they try to change the neighborhood they live in. Gentrification.

Northeastern sketched out the street's future in its Master Plan of April 1999:

The Huntington Avenue improvement project will significantly improve the pedestrian environment through sidewalk widening and resurfacing, landscape improvements, new pedestrian crossings, new traffic signals, street lighting enhancement, signage improvements, tree plantings, and pedestrian amenities. (Page 10, "Pedestrian Circulation," added emphasis)

These kind of documents seem to purposefully put forth vague, boring language that only insiders can really decipher. We simply hear of a project that will "significantly improve the pedestrian environment through sidewalk widening and resurfacing."

The document never identifies what was "wrong" with the existing pedestrian environment -- so doing would be indelicate. What are the problems with concrete sidewalks exactly? To say that they are merely functional, that all sorts of people populate them and traverse them, would sound snobbish. So we simply hear of improvements through "widening" and "resurfacing."

"Sidewalk widening" brings to mind images of grand boulevards, but what the phrase means here, in a very congested space, is the addition of trees, which would add a whiff of the stately and the pastoral to a lane previously known for selling Greek sandwiches and fast food. When trees get old, they lend heft and tradition to their environs; until then (even if they keep dying), they show off the power and prestige of institutions in command of city planning.

"Sidewalk resurfacing" is purposely vague, but clearly represents the rejection of the concrete status quo, which gets redefined as "blight." Indeed, in her fund-raising letter of April 2005, Fenway Alliance Executive Director Kelly Brilliant put "tackling blight" at the top of the list of Alliance accomplishments.

Elites are never satisfied with the merely functional, which meet mere "concrete" and common needs, but seek a way to elevate themselves through such notions as "good taste," "tradition," and higher purpose. But these words cannot easily be spoken out loud in a democracy. City officials dutifully came forward to shill for the project. Peter Scarpignato of the Boston Department of Public Works spoke rather of public safety and beauty:

"The main goals of this program are to improve public safety issues. " (Northeastern News, January 7, 2002).
"It's going to be a beautiful renovation and something that we'll all be very proud of." (Northeastern News, April 4, 2001)

Did Scarpignato actually believe his words? Because what the planners had in mind was precisely to endanger public safety. Because to elevate one group of people, it is always necessary to "exclude" another, to push them down and away. Why Americans act as if "exclusive" (as in neighborhood, club, offer, etc.) is a perfectly suitable descriptor in a democracy, when it can only mean keeping other people away, is an ideological mystery.

When it came to Huntington Avenue, those were people who were too present on those concrete sidewalks, too comfortable in their neighborhood. Poor people, disabled people, people who do not move with fluid ease, who cannot make up for muscle weakness or old age with taxis and paid drivers (watch for them in the parking lots of the Museum of Fine Arts). People who do not have fancy vehicles to transport them from suburban enclaves, past "attractive" sidewalks, to underground parking garages and reserved spaces. These people were to be made uncomfortable, unwelcome; only then could elites extol the "beautification of Huntington Avenue."

Planners chose carefully their passport to class superiority, to historic high purpose, to abstract notions of aesthetics, by turning to that symbol of old-time Yankee superiority: red brick pavers. If they are good enough for Beacon Hill and Harvard, good enough for that upstart, Boston University (all the way into Kenmore Square, for gods sake), certainly such heavyweights as the Museum of Fine Arts and Symphony Hall deserve not to be left behind.

The design process, with its gloss of public meetings, culminated in a city-approved plan to install the most "historic" bricks possible, namely bricks that were already "as if" old, produced in such a way that even when new they were broken, chipped and irregular. These "Boston City Hall Pavers" started going down in the summer of 2003, and over the strenuous objections of the disabled people living nearby, proceeded to completion in the fall of 2004. And even more dangerous paving stones, those in front of the Museum of Fine Arts, were allowed to remain.

Brick sidewalks are tremendously expensive to install, so funding came from both federal and state sources, but also from quiet infusions of cash from institutions like Northeastern.

So when the Fenway Alliance brags of its accomplishments, throws open its doors to the community, people with disabilities respond by trying to embarrass it, reveal its callous indifference to neighborhood needs. If a group of disabled people, people in wheelchairs, people with canes or guide dogs, show up and talk about how the new sidewalks on Huntington Avenue exclude us, make us go in the street or around, or stay at home, will anyone listen?
If we testify about how the sidewalks make us seasick, throw us to the ground on our face, cause us to pee in our pants, disturb our balance or vision, cause us bone or muscle pain, set off uncomfortable and dangerous spasms, make us lose control of our wheelchairs, is it possible that anyone will listen and actually reflect upon what is going on? Is it possible that other citizens will come to our defense and demand that the city protect the public safety of all its citizens, rather than the status aspirations of a few self-interested institutions? That a politician will sense an opening and ride the donkey of righteous moral indignation right into office?

No luck so far, but we have three weeks to go until the election.