LET’S BAN hand-wringing. News that the New Center for Arts and Culture is abandoning plans for a showplace home on the Rose Kennedy Greenway should be met not with resignation but with resolve — and fresh thinking (“Another jewel lost in Greenway crown,’’ Page A1, March 12).
How about trying something new in Boston — collaboration?
Six years ago, the New Center designer, Daniel Libeskind, was at City Hall with another world-famous architect, Moshe Safdie, who was designing the Boston Museum for another Greenway parcel. Asked whether it might be possible to combine their efforts, both agreed they could — if anyone asked.
If men of such towering reputations, and egos, could collaborate, so could the civic-minded and powerful backers of these two projects. Their goals, while distinct, have not been that different from the start. Even some of the people behind the aborted Garden Under Glass proposal might contribute to a new project.
The New Center’s intended home, the ramp parcel in front of Rowes Wharf, might still be the best location, but building there is tough.
City, state, and Greenway Conservancy officials should consider other possibilities, such as Parcel 22, near South Station, where the looming vent stack cries out for amelioration. What could be better than a new cultural facility, convenient to the city’s public transportation hub, that would attract thousands of Bostonians and visitors 12 months a year?
Robert L. Turner
Milton 
