Now you see it...

Scollay Square, Boston, c.1920. Photo courtesy of the Boston Public Library Print Department.

Scollay Square, Boston, 1920-1962. Always somethin' doin' in these business-bustlin' blocks. Here, soldiers and sailors got prissily pinpricked at a tattoo parlor, sexually soaked at a brothel, tippled and totaled at a tavern, film-fixated at the Olympia, hotdog-hungry at Joe & Nemo's, sensually satiated by Sally Keith at Crawford House, and court-martialed for having abandoned ship too long.

Cornhill, Scollay Square, 1962. Photo by Cervin Robinson, Historic American Buildings Survey.

Here, students and statesmen, councilors and commoners could buy bargain books at the Brattle Book Shop on Cornhill (right), chow down on Chinese cheap-eats at Lun Ting's, take tea at the sign of the Steaming Tea Kettle, purchase prescriptions for pulling all-nighters at Epstein's Drugstore, palaver on politics over Pickwick Ale, talk turkey at The Tasty, and stay out of harlots' way if they could help it.

The Old Howard, Scollay Square, early 20th century.

Elsewhere, newsboys shared the latest scoops at the "Canada Point." William Lloyd Garrison published his anti-slavery newsletter, The Liberator, here in 1831 (and was tarred and feathered for it). Thomas Edison conceived the automatic vote-counter in 1868. Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone here in 1875. The Marx Brothers, Abbott & Costello, and Phil Silvers made pre-movie/TV splashes at the Old Howard (left). Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy browsed through books at the Brattle while at Harvard...

But (no) thanks to 1960s urban renewal frenzy and the impulse to consolidate all government bureaucracies into one nucleus...

...now you don't!

Government Center, Boston, 2016. Photo by NewtonCourt (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Government Center, Boston, 1969–Present. Always nothin' doin' on this vast, vapid red desert — unless the Big Apple Circus comes to town, the Boston Harborfest Chowderfest tempts the taste buds, the New England Patriots clinch the Super Bowl, oldies concerts bring in the baby-boomers, or Occupy Boston gets the itch to claim another tent turf.

Otherwise, City Hall Plaza is but a cumbersome cut-through to your latté at Faneuil Hall Marketplace, your business meeting at Exchange Place, your gelato in the North End, your Guinness at The Kinsale, your Freedom Trail footwork, or your wonder-wander before you know where you're going.

Government Center, Boston, 1973. Photo courtesy of the U.S. National Archives.

True, master planner I.M. Pei and City Hall architects Kallmann, McKinnell & Knowles tried to solve the latter problem by giving more vista visibility to Faneuil Hall (right), Old North Church (left) and the Custom House Tower (below, right) than Scollay Square had done. But the square itself was too chock-full of history to be worth the sacrifice, especially for...

Now you see it!

Photo by Daniel Schwen (CC BY-SA 4.0).

...the aggrandization of the New City Hall the plaza rolls out a red carpet to. Hence, as you're just-passin'-thru the plaza, you can't not notice its namesake giving you the eagle-eye and the eagle wingspread, affirming that you not only can't fight City Hall, but can't banish it from your sight.

Erected in the concrete-brutalist modernism of Le Corbusier's 1957 La Tourette Monastery in Lyon, France (right), City Hall adapted its model's upper-level cantilevering, precast plank columns, variegated fenestration and shadow-sheltered open entrance to express the vigilance of city government over the people it represents yet its democratic accessibility to that citizenry. Protecting yet providing, sheltering yet sharing, overseeing yet open.

Each set of fenestration architecturally expresses a separate division of city government. The large double window over the entrance signifies the Mayor's office, as well as the Mayor's watchful eye over the public. The row of five double windows to the left is the School Committee, and the incrementally cantilevered upper layers of windows are for the larger City Council.

Hall of Fame?

City Hall, Boston, 1981. Photo courtesy of the Historic American Buildings Survey

The splendid acoustics and open public accessibility of City Hall's main lobby made the organist and choirmaster of St. Paul's Cathedral Choir of Men and Boys, of which I was a proud member in the '70s, much obliged to accept Mayor White's invitation to give a Christmas carol concert there — a prime opportunity to pique our prestige in the public eye.

But with fame came fury. We were promised a piano, but waiting for us at centerstage was a cheap little electric organ—without the extension cord needed to turn the organ around so our director could conduct us while playing it. But the City Hall bureaucracy so outlandishly expressed in the architecture couldn't be bothered to do the simple favor of fetching us a cord.

So the organ was relegated to the role of a pitch pipe, and we were forced to sing our entire repertoire a cappella, which got pretty embarrassing when long passages that cried out for harmony had to be rendered in unison, rendering us amateurish. Which lent credence to that profound proverb from Boston's favorite son, Benjamin Franklin:

Benjamin Franklin in London, 1767.
Painting by David Martin, displayed in the White House.

A little neglect breeds mischief:
For want of a nail, the shoe was lost,
For want of a shoe, the horse was lost,
For want of a horse, the rider was lost,
For want of a rider, the battle was lost,
For want of a battle, the kingdom was lost,
And all for want of a horseshoe nail.

For want of The Lost Cord, many chords in our carols were lost, as well as one whole number we had to scrap because it just wasn't feasible without accompaniment. Yet the loss of the accompaniment itself was a mixed blessing, for that organ certainly didn't make the sound our choirmaster would have cared to hear while "seated one day at the organ," as Sir Arthur Sullivan put it in the song after which I named our keyboard's missing link.

Following our act was a young folk group who performed a medley from Godspell, but nobody was listening, having apparently turned deaf ears to us for our musical mishap. Fame was as fleeting in this Hall as it had been in the Old Howard—as was public accessibility, now sacrificed for post-9/11 security and COVID-19 safety.

How's that for "Now you see it, now you don't"?

Portland's 'living room'

Photo by Cacophony, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

The more congested and stressful city life becomes, the more we long for that “village square” that was so central to our city’s beginnings — the great open, common space where neighbors shared the latest news, children and dogs played, merchants traded, politicians spoke, demonstrations and festivals took place, concerts were enjoyed, and citizens stopped for a breather from the day’s tensions — before urban growth and rising land values often obliterated this oasis.

Photo by Steve Morgan, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Luckily, Portland, Oregon, has revived it as Pioneer Courthouse Square, a 1.56-acre brick pedestrian respite from city clamor with something for everyone: trees, flowers, public art, chessboards, café, food and flower vendors, amphitheatre seating, and a waterfall cascading down a dual sculpture of domino-like granite blocks into a moat. 

Photo courtesy of www.pps.org

This frames the “drawbridge” entry into the Portland Oregon Visitor Association’s Visitor's Information Center, where tourists receive endless info about the city, state and square, and where Portland’s public transit agency Tri-Met offers route schedules and trip assistance for the city’s buses and Metropolitan Area Express (MAX) light rail trolley system. Planned in conjunction with the development of MAX, the square also contains Portland’s main bus/rail hub.

Occupy Portland with the Pink Martini Orchestra, October 26, 2011.
Photo by Ray Terrill, courtesy of Flickr.com

Attracting some 26,000 Oregonians daily, Pioneer Courthouse Square hosts events as diverse as its design elements: spring’s Festival of Flowers, summer’s Sand in the City sandcastle contest, a winter holiday tree- lighting and band concert, and year-round health fairs, movie nights, performances, rallies, speeches and vigils, for which the two amphitheatres are made to order. 

Photo by Noliver, courtesy of Wikimedia

Photo by Cacophony, courtesy of Wikimedia

Monumental columns simulate classical temple ruins in tribute to the amphitheatres’ Greek origins. Artworks along the column row celebrate the city’s history and rainy climate, including scenes of Portland past and present and J. Seward Johnson’s bronze statue of a man offering his umbrella (left). The Weather Machine, a 33-foot ball-topped metal column (right), announces tomorrow’s weather daily at noon with trumpets, flashing lights, a mist spray, and the emergence of a gold-leaf sun, silver great blue heron or copper dragon from the ball to proclaim fair weather, cloudy or drizzly conditions, or rainstorms, respectively. Like a mercury thermometer, a stack of lightbulbs on one side of the machine lights progressively upward as the temperature rises. 

Image courtesy of Portland Public Schools.

As befits any common space, public input shaped Pioneer Courthouse Square from the start. It was the site of Portland’s first public school, Central School, from 1856 until railroad tycoon Henry Villard purchased the land in 1883 to build his 17-story Portland Hotel, capitalizing on the Northern Pacific Railway’s arrival here. 

Dedicated in 1890 with majestic chateau roofs and turrets, the hotel was Portland’s social center, a fashionable place to wine, dine and recline, until the Great Depression hastened its demise and it was razed in 1951 for a parking facility (below). (A cast-iron gate from the hotel stands on the square’s eastern side as a memorial.)

Photo courtesy of viewfinders-photography.blogspot.com

A plan to clear the site for public use was proposed in the early 1970s, and in 1975 Mayor Neil Goldschmidt negotiated with the Meier & Frank department store to sell the lot to the city for that purpose. In 1980, the city held a design competition for a new public square.

Photo by Bruce Forster, courtesy of viewfinders-photography.blogspot.com

Portland architect Willard Martin’s design team was chosen from 162 candidates. The project, however, sparked opposition from Mayor Frank Ivancie and local business owners and nabobs, on the grounds that a new public square would attract vagrants.

Photo by Bruce Forster, courtesy of viewfinders-photography.blogspot.com

But this resistance was overcome when city commissioners Charles Jordan and Mike Lindberg led the “Friends of Pioneer Square” citizens’ coalition in raising $750,000 from the sale of 50,000 donor-inscribed bricks to save the $7.3 million project from back-burner oblivion.

The 2011 Christmas tree at Pioneer Courthouse Square. In the background is the historic
Meier & Frank Building (1909-1932, Doyle & Patterson et al.), which now houses Macy's
department store and "The Nines" hotel. A MAX light rail train passes by on SW 6th Avenue.
Photo by Steve Morgan, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Pioneer Courthouse Square was dedicated on April 6, 1984, before a crowd of 10,000 welcoming Portland's new "living room" with great aplomb. Since then, Pioneer Courthouse Square Inc., a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, has managed the park in public-private partnership with the city, through which local business owners sponsor public events in the square year-round.

Among the best attended events were then-First Lady Hillary Clinton’s 1994 appearance, which attracted a record 55,000 people. On June 27, 2006, about 8,500 fans cheered the Oregon State Beavers as the 2006 NCAA College World Series Baseball Champions. On July 14, 2009, comic Dave Chappelle performed before a joyous throng of 8,000 to 12,000.

Photo by M.O. Stevens, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

And yes, the square’s namesake still stands beside it. Built between 1869 and 1903 from an Italianate design by Alfred B. Mullett, the cupola-crowned Pioneer Courthouse is the Pacific Northwest’s oldest extant federal building and the second oldest federal structure west of the Mississippi River. It houses the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

U.S. Post Office and Subtreasury, Post Office Square, Boston, completed c.1885, razed 1929.
Photo courtesy of the National Archives.

Incidentally, Mullett also designed Boston's original French Second Empire U.S. Post Office and Subtreasury (c.1885), where the U.S. District and Circuit courts for the District of Massachusetts met until the building was razed in 1929 for the present-day Art Deco John W. McCormick Post Office and Court House. Mullett's edifice also gave rise to Post Office Square, making it a model for Portland to follow 100 years later.

City Hall Plaza, Boston, in 1973. Photo courtesy of the U.S. National Archives.

Conversely, Pioneer Courthouse Square has become a model for Boston in the sculpturally creative use of brick and granite to set up a public arena for diverse activities, resting places, conversation pieces and landscape textures. Which explains why so many more crowds are drawn to it than to City Hall Plaza. 

So what about Boston's 'living room'?
 

Thank you for visiting. I welcome your comments!