Discovery Green Thrives while Boston’s Greenway Struggles

A coworker forwarded me this very interesting article comparing Houston’s Discovery Green with Boston’s RFK Greenway.

…since Discovery Green opened in spring 2008, people have flocked to the 12-acre park, especially on weekends, when downtown streets feel empty enough for tumbleweeds. It boasts a signature restaurant, a café, an express branch of the public library, and two dog runs.

The grassy lawns and small stages have hosted some 700 concerts, costume parties, and yoga sessions. Thousands attended an outdoor silent-movie series.

Discovery Green has quickly become everything that Boston’s Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway is not: a sought-out destination.

…

Two years after opening, Boston’s Greenway still suffers from the systemic deficiencies of being an afterthought, designed more as the roof of a bloated federal highway project than a park. Built atop the Big Dig, the $40 million Greenway lacks some crucial comforts and subtle touches that could keep people coming back, like portable umbrellas for shade not yet provided by immature trees.

The most verdant stretch, where lushly landscaped hills block the groan of passing traffic, is short on seating. Because no food is sold, the purchase of a sandwich necessitates a trip across three lanes of cars and trucks, off the Greenway.

The absence of even a simple stage, never mind the kind of amphitheater that has been included in other urban parks, can make events prohibitively expensive, forcing organizers to rent all equipment. That leaves day-to-day happenings modest, and tends to make the mile-long crescent of parks more of a walkway than a place to gather.

“I think a lot of people like me don’t see it as a destination,’’ Mark Thompson, 43, an insurance underwriter from Norwood, said as he ate a Caesar salad for lunch in Post Office Square. “It’s kind of a thruway.’’

This is a testament to the hard work of the people in Houston who designed Discovery Green. As I’ve said before, on their own parks are a condition multiplier – that is, they simply magnify the characteristics of the surrounding environment. Put a big open park in a crime-ridden slum, and it will become a battlefield. Put it in the middle of a thriving urban neighborhood, and it will be the beloved centerpiece of a community.

What Houston did right with Discovery Green was recognize that there wasn’t an existing condition that they wanted to multiply – that side of downtown was boring at best prior to the opening of the park. Instead they invested in the park and designed it to attract people. This, plus good programming, results in a tremendous asset for the city.

The folks in Boston didn’t do that, they just put grass on the roof of their freeway. Such things look good in renderings, but don’t pan out as well in the real world.

Major kudos to the entire Discovery Green team, I’m glad to see that their work is getting some well-earned press outside of the region.