Reporters as architecture critics.

Reporters love parking garages. That’s because their profession as journalists qualifies them to be critics of architecture. All parking garages must be described as hulking. Back in the old days of news reporting, adjectives were prohibited. Not any more. It’s open season for adjectives and adverbs. What brings this on is a May 20, 2021, Boston Globe column about a scheme (scheme is journalese for a plan or proposal the reporter does not like, and I don’t like it) to replace Boston Harbor Garage with a 600-foot office/residential/retail tower that critics say would overwhelm the harborfront and ruin access to and smother the adjacent New England Aquarium.

OK, the column, by Shirley Leung, is identified as “Commentary”, but it’s a treasury of parking garage adjectives, starting off with “…a plan to replace a decaying parking garage with a shimmering tower .” Now who could be against a shmmering tower? A bit down in the column it gets better: “Love him or hate him, Chiofaro [Don Chiofaro, the developer] likes to think big and for more than a decade he has set his sights on the hulking Harbor Garage, an architectural atrocity.” Wow! A hulking atrocity! Of course, the writer doesn’t mention that if the garage is “decaying,” it should be blamed on Chiofaro, who not only set his sights on the garage, but has owned it for a more than a decade.

The proposed high-rise would be the tallest on the Boston harborfront, one and one-half times taller than two neighboring condo buildings, Harbor Towers, built in the 1970s and whose architect, Henry Cobb, said was the biggest mistake of his long career. He described his Harbor Towers as a “disaster,” in the wrong location, and “gobbling up a beautiful misuse of a very precious asset. It’s not what one would wish to see there.” Perhaps this was the only time an architect admitted a misdeed.

Shirley Leung does not mention that the late Mayor, Thomas Menino, killed the plan when Chiofaro proposed it. No reporter has ever found out why Menino wouldn’t give Chiofaro the time of day, no less a go-ahead with Chiofaro’s tower. Could it be the clash of Giant Egos?

In link below to Harbor Towers, the “hulking” garage is the seven-storey building at the right of the tower on the right.. The proposed Chiofaro tower would replace the garage. It would be the second-highest building in Boston.
www.Harbor Towers (harbortowersonline.org).

Reporters love parking garages. That’s because their profession as journalists qualifies them to be critics of architecture. All parking garages must be described as hulking. Back in the old days of news reporting, adjectives were prohibited. Not any more. It’s open season for adjectives and adverbs. What brings this on is a May 20, 2021, Boston Globe column about a scheme (scheme is journalese for a plan or proposal the reporter does not like, and I don’t like it) to replace Boston Harbor Garage with a 600-foot office/residential/retail tower that critics say would overwhelm the harborfront and ruin access to and smother the adjacent New England Aquarium.

OK, the column, by Shirley Leung, is identified as “Commentary”, but it’s a treasury of parking garage adjectives, starting off with “…a plan to replace a decaying parking garage with a shimmering tower .” Now who could be against a shmmering tower? A bit down in the column it gets better: “Love him or hate him, Chiofaro [Don Chiofaro, the developer] likes to think big and for more than a decade he has set his sights on the hulking Harbor Garage, an architectural atrocity.” Wow! A hulking atrocity! Of course, the writer doesn’t mention that if the garage is “decaying,” it should be blamed on Chiofaro, who not only set his sights on the garage, but has owned it for a more than a decade.

The proposed high-rise would be the tallest on the Boston harborfront, one and one-half times taller than two neighboring condo buildings, Harbor Towers, built in the 1970s and whose architect, Henry Cobb, said was the biggest mistake of his long career. He described his Harbor Towers as a “disaster,” in the wrong location, and “gobbling up a beautiful misuse of a very precious asset. It’s not what one would wish to see there.” Perhaps this was the only time an architect admitted a misdeed.

Shirley Leung does not mention that the late Mayor, Thomas Menino, killed the plan when Chiofaro proposed it. No reporter has ever found out why Menino wouldn’t give Chiofaro the time of day, no less a go-ahead with Chiofaro’s tower. Could it be the clash of Giant Egos?

In link below to Harbor Towers, the “hulking” garage is the seven-storey building at the right of the tower on the right.. The proposed Chiofaro tower would replace the garage. It would be the second-highest building in Boston.
www.Harbor Towers (harbortowersonline.org)