Don't Walk that way
(Correction: Because of a reporting error, the surname of comedian Lenny Clarke was misspelled in Tuesday's Brian McGrory column in the City & Region section.)
When, exactly, did Boston turn into Toledo? Or maybe it's Scranton we've become.
A Walk of Fame? Codfish or lobsters embedded into a Theater District sidewalk in recognition of Marky Mark? Overhyped parties honoring the celebrities in our midst, even if most of them have actually moved someplace very far away?
Before I go on, congratulations to John Tobin, who, according to yesterday's Globe, is a Boston city councilor, but more germane to this discusssion was apparently able to keep a straight face when he told a reporter, ''From an economic point of view, it's a way to make the Theater District more vibrant and bring more people."
Councilor, just a thought, but maybe some better theater would do the trick.
Oh, they'll be flocking to Tremont Street, all right, people from as far away as Medford and Melrose, shrieking, ''Hey, Marge, there's a codfish here with Loren and Wally's names on its fins." Then Marge yells back, ''Henry, here's one for Wally the Green Monster, that guy you're always screaming at on the TV."
I hate to say it, but that's what passes for celebrity in this town: Matt and Ben and Barry and Eliot and God knows who else, because once you've gone through Steve Sweeney, Lenny Clark, and the two prominent members of Aerosmith, the pickings quickly get pretty slim.
Nonetheless, this civic embarrassment appears to be on rails. Harry Collings, executive director of the Boston Redevelopment Authority, said he hoped to have the first codfish or lobster in the ground by the end of the year. I can all but hear the jackhammers of progress already.
In Boston in the very odd year of 2006, this is the kind of creativity coming out of City Hall. A couple of weeks ago, Mayor Thomas M. Menino offered a plan that he said would demonstrate ''the full scope of this city's greatness." And here's what it is: a really tall building.
The mayor wants to make us more like New York or Houston, while his BRA and the City Council are stealing their ideas from Branson, Mo.; Palm Springs, Calif.; Las Vegas; and Anaheim, Calif., which have already stolen the idea from Hollywood. Guys, I know you're better than this.
How about finding the money to hire more police to make this city's neighborhoods safe again? In the late 1990s, Boston was all over the map, not for some tourist gimmick or its skyline, but for an abnormally low violent crime rate that cities the nation over tried to replicate.
Or how about getting truly bold with our schools, not as part of yet another 20-year plan that moves at a glacial pace, but something that shows progress and innovation now?
Or if City Hall is really stuck on its Walk of Fame, then here's its Walk of Fame: In Copley Square, there's a wide new promenade just outside the Boston Public Library, which, best as I can tell, was built solely for the use of obnoxious teenage skateboarders. The city could create a literary Walk of Fame at the doors of the nation's oldest public library. Embed the names of authors from all eras, all styles, and all corners of the region in the sidewalk, writers ranging from Ralph Waldo Emerson to Dennis Lehane, from Henry David Thoreau to Robert Parker, with Sue Miller, John Updike, Robin Cook, and David McCullough in the mix, as well. The list could go on indefinitely, which is part of the appeal.
And rather than faux glitzy parties stocked with pseudocelebrities looking over each others' shoulders at the next Botoxed B-lister to walk into the room, sponsor an annual festival designed to again make Boston the literary capital of the world.
Tame, you say? Maybe, but rather than try to be like everywhere else, why not be proud to be ourselves?
Reporter's note: The think tank MassINC, accepting some advice offered in this space last week, has extended an invitation for Ed King to join every other former, living Massachusetts governor at a May forum. No word yet on whether he'll attend.
Brian McGrory is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at mcgrory@globe.com. 
