Government Center is an area in downtown Boston, centered on City Hall Plaza. Formerly the site of Scollay Square, it is now the location of

Boston City Hall Boston City Hall is the seat of city government of Boston, Massachusetts. It includes the offices of the mayor of Boston and the Boston City Council. The current hall was built in 1968 to assume the functions of the Old City Hall. It is a con ...

, courthouses, state and federal office buildings, and a major

MBTA subway The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) operates rapid transit (heavy rail), light rail, and bus rapid transit services in the Boston metropolitan area, collectively referred to as the rapid transit, subway, or the T system. Th ...

station, also called Government Center. Its development was controversial, as the project displaced thousands of residents and razed several hundred homes and businesses. Controversial in design since before it was completed, the use of

Brutalist architecture Brutalist architecture is an architectural style that emerged during the 1950s in the United Kingdom, among the reconstruction projects of the post-war era. Brutalist buildings are characterised by minimalist constructions that showcase the ...

for its main buildings, as well as the open brick-and-concrete plaza at the center of the development, have been alternately praised for its innovative design, and scorned for its lack of character and uninviting appearance. After decades of calls for a redesign to make it more friendly and usable, a major rebuild of City Hall Plaza, the main public space of Government Center, was begun in 2020 and is to include additional seating areas, play spaces for children, and space for public art.

History

Post-colonial development and commerce

Scollay Square was named for

William Scollay Colonel William Scollay (1756–1809) was an American developer and militia officer from Boston during the American Revolution who gave his name to the infamous Scollay Square. He was the only surviving son of John Scollay, a strong supporter ...

, a prominent local developer and

militia A militia () is generally an army or some other fighting organization of non-professional soldiers, citizens of a country, or subjects of a state, who may perform military service during a time of need, as opposed to a professional force of r ...

officer who bought a landmark four-story merchant building at the intersection of Cambridge and Court Streets in 1795. Local citizens began to refer to the intersection as Scollay's Square, and, in 1838, the city officially memorialized the intersection as Scollay Square. Early on, the area was a busy center of commerce, including the city's first

daguerreotypist Daguerreotype (; french: daguerréotype) was the first publicly available photographic process; it was widely used during the 1840s and 1850s. "Daguerreotype" also refers to an image created through this process. Invented by Louis Daguerre ...

(photographer), Josiah Johnson Hawes (1808–1901), and Dr.

William Thomas Green Morton William Thomas Green Morton (August 9, 1819 – July 15, 1868) was an American dentist and physician who first publicly demonstrated the use of inhaled ether as a surgical anesthetic in 1846. The promotion of his questionable claim to have been th ...

, the first

dentist A dentist, also known as a dental surgeon, is a health care professional who specializes in dentistry (the diagnosis, prevention, management, and treatment of diseases and conditions of the oral cavity and other aspects of the craniofacial c ...

to use

ether In organic chemistry, ethers are a class of compounds that contain an ether group—an oxygen atom connected to two alkyl or aryl groups. They have the general formula , where R and R′ represent the alkyl or aryl groups. Ethers can again ...

as an

anaesthetic An anesthetic (American English) or anaesthetic (British English; see spelling differences) is a drug used to induce anesthesia ⁠— ⁠in other words, to result in a temporary loss of sensation or awareness. They may be divided into two ...

. Local cultural landmarks took form, attracting visits from such intellectual contemporaries as

Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian er ...

Abolitionism

Scollay Square was also a flashpoint for the early

abolition Abolition refers to the act of putting an end to something by law, and may refer to: *Abolitionism, abolition of slavery * Abolition of the death penalty, also called capital punishment *Abolition of monarchy *Abolition of nuclear weapons *Abolit ...

movement. Author

William Lloyd Garrison William Lloyd Garrison (December , 1805 – May 24, 1879) was a prominent American Christian, abolitionist, journalist, suffragist, and social reformer. He is best known for his widely read antislavery newspaper '' The Liberator'', which he fo ...

was twice attacked by an angry mob for printing his anti-

slavery Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...

newspaper '' The Liberator'', which began publication in 1831.

Sarah Parker Remond Sarah Parker Remond (June 6, 1826 – December 13, 1894) was an American lecturer, activist and abolitionist campaigner. Born a free woman in the state of Massachusetts, she became an international activist for human rights and women's ...

's first act of

civil disobedience Civil disobedience is the active, professed refusal of a citizen to obey certain laws, demands, orders or commands of a government (or any other authority). By some definitions, civil disobedience has to be nonviolent to be called "civil". H ...

occurred in 1853 at the Old Howard when she was refused the seat she had purchased but was instead seated in the 'black' section. Many of the buildings in the area in and around Scollay Square had hidden spaces where escaped slaves were hidden, as part of the

Underground Railroad The Underground Railroad was a network of clandestine routes and safe houses established in the United States during the early- to mid-19th century. It was used by enslaved African Americans primarily to escape into free states and Canada. ...

The Old Howard

Among the most famous (and infamous) of Scollay Square landmarks was the Old Howard Theatre, a grand theater which began life as the headquarters of a Millerite

Adventist Adventism is a branch of Protestant Christianity that believes in the imminent Second Coming (or the "Second Advent") of Jesus Christ. It originated in the 1830s in the United States during the Second Great Awakening when Baptist preacher W ...

Christian sect which believed the world would end in October 1844. After the world failed to end on schedule, the building was sold in 1844 and reopened as a

vaudeville Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition ...

and

Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

an venue. Later, in the 1900s and 1910s, it would showcase the popular

minstrel show The minstrel show, also called minstrelsy, was an American form of racist theatrical entertainment developed in the early 19th century. Each show consisted of comic skits, variety acts, dancing, and music performances that depicted people spec ...

s. By around the 1940s the Scollay Square area began to lose its vibrant commercial activity, and the Howard gradually changed its image and began to cater to sailors on leave and college students by including

burlesque A burlesque is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects.

shows, as did other nearby venues such as the Casino Theater and Crawford House. "Always Something Doing" became the Old Howard's advertising slogan. The venue also showcased

boxing Boxing (also known as "Western boxing" or "pugilism") is a combat sport in which two people, usually wearing protective gloves and other protective equipment such as hand wraps and mouthguards, throw punches at each other for a predetermined ...

matches with such old-time greats as local

Rocky Marciano Rocco Francis Marchegiano (September 1, 1923 – August 31, 1969; ), better known as Rocky Marciano (, ), was an American professional boxer who competed from 1947 to 1955, and held the world heavyweight title from 1952 to 1956. He is the onl ...

and

John L. Sullivan John Lawrence Sullivan (October 15, 1858 – February 2, 1918), known simply as John L. among his admirers, and dubbed the "Boston Strong Boy" by the press, was an American boxer recognized as the first heavyweight champion of gloved boxing, ...

, and continued to feature

slapstick Slapstick is a style of humor involving exaggerated physical activity that exceeds the boundaries of normal physical comedy. Slapstick may involve both intentional violence and violence by mishap, often resulting from inept use of props such ...

vaudeville acts, from likes of The Marx Brothers and

Abbott and Costello Abbott may refer to: People * Abbott (surname) *Abbott Handerson Thayer (1849–1921), American painter and naturalist * Abbott and Costello, famous American vaudeville act Places Argentina * Abbott, Buenos Aires United States * Abbott, Arkansas ...

. But it was the success and prominence of the burlesque shows that brought the Old Howard down. In 1953,

vice squad A vice is a practice, behaviour, or habit generally considered immoral, sinful, criminal, rude, taboo, depraved, degrading, deviant or perverted in the associated society. In more minor usage, vice can refer to a fault, a negative character tr ...

agents sneaked a home movie camera into the Old Howard, and caught Mary Goodneighbor on film doing her

striptease A striptease is an erotic or exotic dance in which the performer gradually undresses, either partly or completely, in a seductive and sexually suggestive manner. The person who performs a striptease is commonly known as a "stripper" or an "exo ...

for the audience. The film led to the closure of the theater, and it remained closed until it caught fire mysteriously in 1961. The square was also the home of Austin and Stone's Dime Museum.

Destruction and redevelopment

As early as the 1950s, city officials had been mulling plans to completely tear down and redevelop the Scollay Square area, in order to remove lower-income residents and troubled businesses from the aging and seedy district. Attempts to reopen the sullied Old Howard by its old performers had been one of the last efforts against redevelopment; but with the theater gutted by fire, a city wrecking ball began the project of demolishing over 1000 buildings in the area; 20,000 residents were displaced. With $40 million in federal funds, the city built an entirely new development on top of old Scollay Square, renaming the area Government Center, and peppering it with city, state, and federal government buildings. A 1958 report by the Boston Planning Board, entitled Government Center Project, set out the case for construction of a center:

Major structures

Boston City Hall

The dominant feature of Government Center is the enormous, imposing, and

brutalist Brutalist architecture is an architectural style that emerged during the 1950s in the United Kingdom, among the reconstruction projects of the post-war era. Brutalist buildings are characterised by Minimalism (art), minimalist constructions th ...

, designed by Kallmann McKinnell & Wood and built in the 1960s as part of Boston's first large

urban renewal Urban renewal (also called urban regeneration in the United Kingdom and urban redevelopment in the United States) is a program of land redevelopment often used to address urban decay in cities. Urban renewal involves the clearing out of blighte ...

scheme. While considered by some to have architectural merit, the building is not universally admired, and is sharply unpopular among locals. Furthermore, it is resented for having replaced the Victorian architecture of Boston's Scollay Square, a lively commercial district that lapsed into squalor in the twentieth century.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy Federal Building

John Fitzgerald Kennedy Federal Building is a United States government office building. It is located across City Hall Plaza from Boston City Hall. An example of 1960s modern architecture, it consists of two 26 floor towers that sit on-axis to each other and a low rise building of four floors that connects to the two towers via an enclosed glass corridor. The two towers stand at a height of .

City Hall Plaza

City Hall Plaza is not a well-loved space, either. 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. ... t isso devoid of benches, greenery, and other signposts of human hospitality that even on the loveliest fall weekend, when the

Common Common may refer to: Places * Common, a townland in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland * Boston Common, a central public park in Boston, Massachusetts * Cambridge Common, common land area in Cambridge, Massachusetts * Clapham Common, originally ...

and Esplanade and other public spaces teem with Bostonians at leisure, the plaza stands utterly empty save for the occasional skateboarder…" The plaza is often colloquially referred to as "the brick desert."

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. In the mid-1990s, the adjacent space was filled with the Edward W. Brooke Courthouse, which houses a division of the

Boston Municipal Court The Boston Municipal Court (BMC), officially the Boston Municipal Court Department of the Trial Court, is a department of the Trial Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, United States. The court hears criminal, civil, mental health, rest ...

. 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. In a 2014 article, architectural historian Timothy M. Rohan praised the building for having "a wondrous interior courtyard like something from baroque Rome, a space that even in its incomplete and neglected state contrasts sharply with nearby City Hall and its alienating plaza."

Government Center Garage

This 2,300-space privately owned garage was built as part of the Government Center urban renewal project. In 2016, the Boston Redevelopment Authority gave final approval for the replacement of the garage with "Bulfinch Crossing," a

mixed-use development Mixed-use is a kind of urban development, urban design, urban planning and/or a zoning type that blends multiple uses, such as residential, commercial, cultural, institutional, or entertainment, into one space, where those functions are to ...

Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects Pelli is the surname of: * Arttu Pelli (born 1996), Finnish ice hockey * César Pelli César Pelli (October 12, 1926 – July 19, 2019) was an Argentine-American architect who designed some of the world's tallest buildings and other major ...

. Construction began in January 2017. The design of the office tower was revealed in June 2019.

Center Plaza

This office and retail structure, built by developer Norman B. Leventhal, is across Cambridge Street from City Hall Plaza. In 2014, the property was sold by the Blackstone Group to Shorenstein Properties. Shorenstein Properties has proposed a $25 million renovation designed "to add some new buzz" to the building. The renovation was approved by the Boston Redevelopment Authority in 2016.

Nearby public buildings

Several state and federal government buildings near Government Center were not built as part of the urban renewal project. These include the

Massachusetts State House The Massachusetts State House, also known as the Massachusetts Statehouse or the New State House, is the state capitol and seat of government for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, located in the Beacon Hill neighborhood of Boston. The buildin ...

, the McCormack Building, the Saltonstall Building, the

Suffolk County Courthouse The Suffolk County Courthouse, now formally the John Adams Courthouse, is a historic courthouse building in Pemberton Square in Boston, Massachusetts. It is home to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (the state's highest court) and the M ...

, and the Thomas P. O'Neill Jr. Federal Building.

Geography and transportation

Government Center is located between the North End,

Downtown ''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in North America by English speakers to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business district ...

, and

Beacon Hill Beacon Hill may refer to: Places Canada * Beacon Hill, Ottawa, Ontario, a neighbourhood * Beacon Hill Park, a park in Victoria, British Columbia * Beacon Hill, Saskatchewan * Beacon Hill, Montreal, a neighbourhood in Beaconsfield, Quebec United ...

neighborhoods.

Boundaries

Government Center does not have official boundaries. A 2011

Boston Redevelopment Authority The Boston Planning & Development Agency (BPDA), formerly the Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA), is a Massachusetts public agency that serves as the municipal planning and development agency for Boston, working on both housing and commercial d ...

map of Boston neighborhoods shows most of the Government Center area as part of the

neighborhood, and the rest as part of the West End. Other maps and documents show a variety of different boundaries for Government Center. The Boston Zoning Code has a map called "1H Government Center/Markets District." The map shows the Government Center portion of the district extending as far west as the

and including all of the major structures listed in this article. The Boston Redevelopment Authority map of "Urban Renewal Areas" includes a somewhat smaller area that excludes the McCormack and Saltonstall Buildings. By contrast, a search for "Government Center" on Google Maps yields a map showing an even smaller area that is bounded by Court, Cambridge, Sudbury, and Congress Streets. The AirBnB neighborhood map shows a somewhat larger area than the Google Map. An undated Boston Redevelopment Authority map entitled "Government Center Urban Renewal Area Illustrative Site Plan" showed similar boundaries.

Mass transit

Government Center station on reopening day, March 2016

Scollay Square station opened as part of the third phase of the Tremont Street Subway in September 1898, bringing subway service to the area with a stone headhouse in the center of the square. Court Street station opened on the East Boston Tunnel in December 1904; it was closed in 1914 and replaced by a lower level (Scollay Under) to the Scollay Square station in 1916. The station was rebuilt in 1963 as Government Center station with a low brick headhouse, and again from 2014 to 2016 with a large glass headhouse that dominates the south side of the plaza. It serves as the transfer point between the

MBTA The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (abbreviated MBTA and known colloquially as "the T") is the public agency responsible for operating most public transportation services in Greater Boston, Massachusetts. The MBTA transit network i ...

Blue Blue is one of the three primary colours in the RYB colour model (traditional colour theory), as well as in the RGB (additive) colour model. It lies between violet and cyan on the spectrum of visible light. The eye perceives blue when ...

and

Green Green is the color between cyan and yellow on the visible spectrum. It is evoked by light which has a dominant wavelength of roughly 495570 nm. In subtractive color systems, used in painting and color printing, it is created by a combin ...

Lines.

Surroundings

Government Center is adjacent to historic

Faneuil Hall Faneuil Hall ( or ; previously ) is a marketplace and meeting hall located near the waterfront and today's Government Center, in Boston, Massachusetts. Opened in 1742, it was the site of several speeches by Samuel Adams, James Otis, and others ...

and popular Quincy Market and very near the Old State House. It is two blocks away from the

Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway The Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway is a linear park located in several Downtown Boston neighborhoods. It consists of landscaped gardens, promenades, plazas, fountains, art, and specialty lighting systems that stretch over one mile through China ...

, which was created as part of the

Big Dig The Central Artery/Tunnel Project (CA/T Project), commonly known as the Big Dig, was a megaproject in Boston that rerouted the Central Artery of Interstate 93 (I-93), the chief highway through the heart of the city, into the 1.5-mile (2.4&n ...

. Major city streets in the vicinity include Tremont,

Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...

, Cambridge,

State State may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State * ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States * ''Our S ...

, New Chardon, and

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

Streets. Hints of another street, Cornhill, still exist along one edge of City Hall Plaza. Two of the neighborhood's few remaining old buildings, the Sears' Crescent and Sears' Block, face the plaza and follow the original curve of Cornhill. A veteran's home & services provider, still has an entrance with a Cornhill address. Plans for Government Center, including the Boston Redevelopment Authority's "Government center 2000 project", called for the construction of two footbridges over Congress Street to connect City Hall Plaza to the

area. Neither bridge was built.

Gallery

File:Government-Service-Center-Boston-05-2018d.jpg, Boston Government Service Center File:2007 Government Center Boston 872059350.jpg, Government Center Garage File:2006 JFKennedy FederalBuilding Boston byHighsmith LC 01581v.jpg, John F. Kennedy Federal Building File:Saltonstall Building (Boston).JPG, Saltonstall Building (100 Cambridge Street) File:2010 GovtCenter Boston8.jpg,

File:City Hall Area Construction 09.jpg, City Hall under construction in the 1960s File:2010 AdamsCourthouse Boston 4765611709.jpg, Suffolk County Courthouse File:Brooke Courthouse Boston P1000472.JPG, Edward W. Brooke Courthouse File:Bulfinch Crossing under construction P1020794.jpg, Government Center Garage during its redevelopment as Bulfinch Crossing, 2019

References

External links

footnote
Sophie and the Suburbs, Jewish Week, Sept. 27 2002
*(https://web.archive.org/web/20070616173402/http://www.tsomides.com/news/downloads/EditorCityHallPlaza2.pdf) * https://www.flickr.com/photos/arthurohm/sets/72157623853538550 * https://www.flickr.com/photos/gigharmon/sets/72157606318827540 {{coord, 42, 21, 38.52, N, 71, 03, 33.22, W, display=title 1960s establishments in Massachusetts Financial District, Boston History of Boston West End, Boston