Letter to the Internet (formerly to the Editor)

Here's a hot & spicy slice of Harangue Pie I cooked up for the Boston Globe yesterday, which I decided against hurling.

Is it really a pedestrian mall?

The 2009 AIA Twenty-five Year Award recognized Faneuil Hall’s success - vibrant pedestrian streets morning, noon and night, unmentioned in the recent article about abandoning the pedestrian mall at Downtown Crossing. Downtown Crossing's sidewalks are either hectic or abandoned, and always unwelcoming. Why? My anthropology professor identified ancient active districts by the number of doors per block. Faneuil is all doors - and no curbs. Downtown Crossing has big, blank walls and deep curbs. Sidewalks are jammed; nobody steps off the curb - call it what you like, Washington Street’s still shaped like a vehicular road. Maybe its written designation is “pedestrian mall”, but the message delivered by curbs, blank walls and unwelcoming sidewalks - "keep off; keep out; keep moving"- is, unfortunately, written in stone.