Government Center circa 2000
is an area in downtown
Boston, bounded by Cambridge, Court, Congress, and Sudbury Streets. Formerly the site of
Scollay Square, it is now the location of
Boston City Hall, two
Suffolk County courthouses, two state office buildings, and two federal office buildings, a major
MBTA subway interchange station, and
City Hall Plaza, a large open square used for large outdoor community events, including free concerts in the summer and a large
Santa's-workshop display in the winter.
Major buildings
Boston City Hall
Boston City Hall
The centerpiece of the main plaza is the uniquely imposing and
brutalist Boston City Hall. While considered by many an architectural masterpiece, it is not popular among locals. Furthermore, it is resented for having replaced Boston's historic and architecturally significant West End neighborhood. The mayor has proposed moving City Hall to a new building (most recently in July 2008) elsewhere in the city and selling off the land. Some urban planners propose to bulldoze the complex and redevelop the area in the future.
City Hall Plaza is not a well-loved space. As Bill Wasik wrote in 2006, "It is as if the space were calibrated to render futile any gathering, large or small, attempted anywhere on its arid expanse. All the nearby buildings seem to be facing away, making the plaza's of concrete and brick feel like the world's largest back alley. … [It is] so devoid of benches, greenery, and other signposts of human hospitality that even on the loveliest fall weekend, when the
Common and Esplanade and other public spaces teem with Bostonians at leisure, the plaza stands utterly empty save for the occasional skateboarder…" (Wasik 2006, 61)
Government Service Center
Another very large Brutalist building at Government Center, less prominently located and thus less well known than City Hall, is the
Government Service Center, designed by architect
Paul Rudolph. The building is unfinished as the tall central tower in the original plan was never built. The adjacent space was filled with the
Edward W. Brooke Courthouse in the mid-1990s. This irregularly shaped, sloping lot was the last parcel to be developed of the Government Center urban renewal plan; in the interim the space was used as surface parking.
References to in popular culture
- Boston-based seminal proto-punk band The Modern Lovers recorded a song called "Government Center". It was originally released on Beserkley's Chartbusters sampler album. It has been included in re-release versions of "The Modern Lovers" album. In it, singer Jonathan Richman humorously croons about his intent to "Rock non-stop tonight at the Government Center" in order to "Make the secretaries feel better / As they put the stamps on the letters." The song appears in the film "Harmony and Me."
Geography and transportation
Government Center T-stop
Government Center is located between the
North End and
Beacon Hill neighborhoods.
It is directly across Congress Street from historic
Faneuil Hall and popular
Quincy Market and very near the
Old State House. It is two blocks away from
Interstate 93 (the '
Big Dig') which runs through the historic bloodline of the city.
There has been a
subway station here since the first subway in America was built in Boston in 1897. Initially named Scollay Square Station, it was made famous in 1959 when
The Kingston Trio performed a cover of a 1948 Boston
protest song, originally known as "
Charlie On the MTA" but became a national hit as "M.T.A.," about a man who is trapped to ride on the subway forever due to
exit fares, an unpopular fare-collection method that survived until 2007 on some
MBTA extensions.
Today the station, with its brick
ziggurat-shaped entrance is known as
Government Center Station and is the interchange for the
Blue and
Green Lines.
Many major city streets either surround or lead to the plaza, including
Tremont, Congress, Cambridge,
Beacon, State, Washington, and Devonshire Streets. Hints of another street, Cornhill Street, still exist along one edge of City Hall Plaza—one of the few remaining old buildings (Sears Crescent) facing the square follows the original curve of the street, and one Cornhill Street address is still in use by a veteran's shelter.
Nearby skyscrapers include:
