Letters
Krutch Park in Knoxville, Tennessee.
(Knoxville Tourism & Sports Corporation)The Best and the Worst
It is not often that one can read 105 interesting features about food, fashion, elegance, entertainment, sports, stem cells, culture, and collecting in one compact, consolidated section. I did read every one. Why wait another year for the next Best of the New?
Mary Atwater
Medfield
Globe restaurant critic Devra First was so displeased with Clink in the Liberty Hotel that she gave it one and a half stars ("Dining Out," Food section, January 23). Then in the Globe Magazine, you listed it among the "Best of the New" (January 27). Get your stories straight! Granted, the brief "Best of the New" blurb focused on the setting and presentation, not the quality of the food, but the average reader who sees a "best of" rating would assume food quality is included. If I hadn't seen First's more complete and thoughtful review, I would have walked into Clink and been disappointed, at no small expense.
Lori Dougherty
Brighton
Greenway Acres
A Greener Alternative?
I could not agree with Tom Keane more ("Perspective," January 27). I was originally hopeful the Greenway would at least convey the same sense of place that Krutch Park (above), a truly delightful space in downtown Knoxville, Tennessee, does. Charles Krutch bequeathed his parking lot to the city with the proviso (and a maintenance endowment) that it be transformed into a space that would remind Knoxville residents of their proximity to the mountains. The small park has a stream through it, indigenous trees and plantings, and benches. The result is just wonderful. While one does not feel exactly as if he or she is meandering in the Smokies, it comes mighty close.
Susan Parker Brauner
Harwich Port
Rarely does a historic city have the opportunity to create open space. While Tom Keane thinks Boston missed the chance to unite once-connected neighborhoods on either side of the Greenway with more buildings ("Perspective," January 27), his strategy would do nothing to bring together people (except for real estate developers). The Greenway's parks, which are only made more intimate by intersecting streets, give Bostonians a place to walk outside, enjoy amazing views, and meet one another.
Allan Telio and Katie Britton
Watertown
I totally agree with Keane. The Greenway is the most useless parkland I have ever seen. Put up a huge Ferris wheel like in London, an ice skating pond, an outdoor pool, food markets - something. Or knit together buildings, as he suggests. It is hard to believe that people so smart came up with so little.
Peter G. Hill
Weston
Keane's "Perspective" was unbelievably negative and sadly wrong. I walk the Greenway daily and enjoy all aspects of it, including the traffic on each side - after all, we are in a city. He should try looking up at the views of the wondrous architecture on all sides. Obviously he didn't walk the Greenway in September, when not just office workers enjoyed lunch outdoors (but what's wrong with that?). Residents and tourists were also having lunch and cappuccinos outside.
Nancy Johnson
Boston
Why is Keane proposing buildings on the Greenway? We'd just have to tear them down someday to make way for new roads over the flooded Big Dig tunnels.
Brett Randolph
Cambridge
Keane's article was spot-on. I am a landscape architect, and I understand that the only way the Big Dig was ever going to be sold to the public, so the promoters thought, was to create a vast series of open spaces where the elevated Central Artery had stood. The memberships of the American Society of Landscape Architects and the American Institute of Architects were apparently embroiled in this chicanery, with the landscape architects prevailing. The result is no credit to the profession of landscape architecture.
So many opportunities were lost to knit the city together. Low buildings would make effective urban links along key cross streets. Imagine the opportunities for terraces, roof parks, and "green architecture." It is difficult to imagine what the designers were thinking of, since this "boulevard" is blighted with several chopped-off gable-ended buildings fronting the roadways at odd locations.
John Sparks
Rockport
Keane's piece bemoaning the shortcomings of the Greenway takes a short-term view of what he calls failed open space. He rightly points out that not all of our hopes for the healing and inspirational power of urban open space have yet been realized there. Keane may dismiss what landscape architects did as failed "gimcracks," but it is not the fault of the landscape architects that the client and the voices of so many stakeholders were so diffuse and confused and the budget so paltry.
Keane is dead wrong that Boston already has enough outdoor spaces for office workers to have lunch. Post Office Square's crowds are quite clear on that point. Having just returned from a year in the landscape design world of Shanghai, where narrow open spaces provide total immersion and the upkeep is phenomenal, I know we have a lot to learn to take landscape design into the 21st century here in Boston.
Thomas M. Paine
Wellesley
Pleasing Story
The letter about the hairdresser who asked an 8-year-old "Blow-dried what?" ("Miss Conduct," January 27) cracked me up. Many years ago, my then 4-year-old daughter asked my sister-in-law, "Can I have some milk?" My sister-in-law responded, "Can I have some milk what?" My daughter, without missing a beat, said, "Can I have some milk in my cup?" We all cracked up, she got the milk, and for years, "in my cup" was a family synonym for "please."
Helen Marcus
Lexington
Love on Ice
The column on the challenges of winter romance ("Coupling," January 27) was terrific. As the parent of a 2- and 4-year-old, I can tell the author that the warmer months don't (for us) get much better. Here's hoping things warm up for him.
Lawrence Fahey
Brookline
