Another reason why Tom Menino of Boston is a great Mayor!

Photo by Francois Schreuer.

From "Boston mayor proposes selling city hall":

Boston's 38-year-old City Hall, a vast, concrete Modernist structure in the heart of the downtown, should be sold and moved to a growing waterfront district, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino said on Tuesday.

Menino estimated the value of City Hall and its surrounding brick plaza -- cited by one nonprofit group as the ugliest public space in the world -- at more than $300 million.

(Menino also created the first city-wide municipal Main Street program. Boston now has 17 such programs around the city.)

In DC, we replace bad modernist buildings with other bad modernist buildings (proposal for a new central library) or refuse to consider other ideas in the face of real success (the modernist Washington Nationals stadium is likely to look dated pretty quickly--and don't come to the taxpayers asking for a reskinning in 15 years either!).

Index Keywords: urban-design-placemaking