Tyler Hayden has written a terrific article on State Street’s condition, “The Fight for State Street" in the July 26 issue. He collected opinion and information from a wide swath of interested participants, and I learned a lot reading it. Nonetheless, I felt it overemphasized the importance of development and commercialization of El Pueblo Viejo. The piece was long on one-off stories about process woes and city nastiness, but short on examples of good results from initially outrageous proposals after city review. There were a lot of comments from owners, architects, and businesspeople, all of whom have a primary economic interest.
As discovered countless times before, nobody views the problem as their own; there was a lot of finger-pointing. A notable exception was the anonymous city employee who acknowledged, “The first step is to even admit we have a problem.” I didn’t read similar ownership from the other main players. Instead, they all had some excuse: It’s inadequate police presence. It’s the size and shape of the spaces. It’s the onerous permitting process. It’s the Funk Zone. It’s the rigid design standards. It’s not me, look over there!
The city, once again, played the role of whipping boy. We were told, oh, they’re all fine people; it’s the process. Every applicant for development has a quotable story about how much easier and cheaper it is to do business somewhere else. That may be so, but applicants continue to fill the agendas of design review boards with new projects. When their projects involve designated historic districts (like El Pueblo Viejo) or buildings older than 50 years, they must be reviewed by our Historic Landmarks Commission (HLC). Thank goodness!