Wake Up, Boston!

It’s time that Boston cultural leaders wake up to the fact that we are rapidly losing our passion for the arts.

This Friday’s edition of The Boston Globe featured a page one story entitled “Another Jewel Lost in the Greenway Crown.” It lamented the demise of the New Center for Arts and Culture, a proposed centerpiece of the Rose Kennedy Greenway, and attributed its failing to the moribund economy. Like other cultural facilities planned for the Greenway, such as the Boston Museum and the Massachusetts Horticultural Society’s Garden Under Glass, the New Center was unable to raise sufficient funds to bring its noble vision to reality.

In this Sunday’s Boston Globe, Dushko Petrovich issued a compelling wake-up call, characterizing Boston’s art scene as “fragmented” and “complacent”…he even called it sleepy! ”If Boston took the initiative”, Petrovich said, “if its political and cultural leaders got behind the idea, it could make itself into a real engine for the creative life”.

This brings me to the opportunity that the Boston Society of Architects is now considering, namely the relocation of its offices and the opening of a museum for Design and Architecture at the new Russia Wharf building on the Fort Point Channel. A task force is currently studying the proposal and the Board will thoroughly vet the subject in the coming weeks. This Tuesday evening at 6PM, during an open forum at BSA headquarters on Broad Street, the membership has been invited to air their views on the proposal and contribute their suggestions. I would encourage all interested BSA members to attend. To use Petrovich’s words, this could be the BSA’s “moment of opportunity” to play a role the cultural and artistic renaissance of our city.

Let’s not be caught napping.