One of our most important projects was the redevelopment of our Quincy Market. Quincy Market was built 175 years ago as a public market. It is on a major landfill at the harbor’s edge. It was a long public market flanked by a couple of other buildings on either side. It became, around the turn of century, a wholesale market district where all the meat and produce and fish were brought in for sale to restaurants and hotels. At some point in the early 70’s, the market folks who had rented the space from the city decided that Boston was getting far too congested. So they built a modern one-storied facility out on the highway outside of Boston and left the city hanging with this funny kind of property that we didn’t know what to do with.

We advertised it as a development opportunity, and, very fortunately, James Rouse from Baltimore stepped up to the plate and proposed to make it a festival marketplace. Of course, nobody had ever heard that phrase before, but it was a bunch of tiny little shops and tiny little places to eat, and very congested, very busy, very dense with street entertainment and a wonderful program. When it was opened in 1976 it was an instant success.

People flocked in from the suburbs. People flocked in and visitors came from all around the country and the world. It was jammed, it was busy, it was active, and it was dense. It was a small-scale project, but it was a huge success. It wasn’t a project like the massive highway projects or neighborhood clearance projects or huge government centers. This was a small, manageable, Boston-sized project. I think this was the very first project that we tackled. And it was the beginning of our lesson about how you fix the city – one small incremental piece at a time.

At the turn of the century the market was a busy, working place. Now it is still busy, but also festive, lit up at night. The cars have been removed and the narrow streets now have benches and plantings. It is a wonderful place, active all-year long, from early in the morning until late at night, and it is a great connection between the downtown and the city waterfront. It is a short, ten-minute walk out the door of City Hall, across the street through the market, underneath the elevated highway — which will soon come down — directly to a park at the water’s edge.

The City of Boston keeps a huge model showing what it will look like when the elevated artery comes down. The highway will be replaced by a series of parks and institutional uses like museums and recreational facilities, and visitor centers. And the project will create a wonderful pedestrian scale public realm that will help reconnect Boston to its now-highly-animated waterfront.

Thirty years ago the waterfront was completely moribund. The fishing fleet had vanished, shipping had all but disappeared, and the pier was rotted. Now, we have got our tourist business. There must be somewhere between 20 and 30 tour boats for Boston harbor, as well as high-speed commuter boats that bring people from the north shore and south shore. They don’t have to drive into Boston. They can park their cars outside of Boston, hop on the high-speed ferry, and be downtown and at their jobs in a short period of time.

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