Adding to a long, if mixed, legacy
To a man not accustomed to losing, it was a striking admission. ``Quite honestly, I'm never going to win the battle," Jerome Rappaport told a Globe reporter in 1996 when asked whether he could ever get out from under the cloud of public disapproval that had long hung over his name.
A decade later, the longtime Boston developer has reason to hope his civic contributions may one day earn equal billing with the notorious business ventures that have been a source of such controversy.
In a Boston City Hall ceremony late last month, the 78-year-old businessman announced a gift of $12.35 million to Harvard University to permanently endow the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston, a policy center at the Kennedy School of Government that he launched six years ago with $2.75 million in seed money.
For the region's most worldly institution, the Rappaport Institute represents a welcome focus on the communities right around it.
In its short tenure, the institute has put out valuable research on such topics as the impact of regulations on housing supply, and convened conferences on everything from the region's economic future to education funding issues. It has provided a forum for officials in local and state government to study policy issues at Harvard, and it has created fellowships for Harvard graduate students to apply public-policy theories to the real world work of local governance through paid internships in state and local government.
Though the institute has earned high marks from local pols and policy types, Rappaport is far better known as the developer of Charles River Park, the high-rise housing that rose in the 1960s on the rubble left after the razing of the old West End neighborhood.
It was an act of urban clear-cutting touted at the time as a key to the city's revitalization, but viewed as an abominable act of governmental hubris and destruction by many of the thousands of working-class families displaced from their homes.
Some might see more than a little irony in the fact that a man whose signature development is often cited as an example of urban renewal gone awry is now funding an institute dedicated to scholarly scrutiny of local policymaking. But Rappaport's roots in Boston civic life actually extend even deeper than the more than 40-year-old development battle to which he is forever linked.
The Bronx-born Rappaport arrived in Boston in the 1940s at age 16 to attend Harvard, graduating with undergraduate and law degrees by the time he was 21. While at Harvard, he signed on to the 1949 mayoral campaign of John Hynes, a reform-minded challenge that toppled the colorful -- but not exactly open-government oriented -- James Michael Curley.
Rappaport thought students should dive into the issues of the day, and he founded a public issues forum at Harvard Law School that continues to this day. He went on to work in City Hall under Hynes, and helped form major civic groups focused on bringing Boston out of the economic backwater where it had been stagnating, as well as promoting regional approaches to local issues.
``It was a great opportunity for me," Rappaport said of the chance to work in city government. His Ivy League chums had a somewhat different reaction. ``All my Harvard classmates wondered what happened to me," he said at last month's dedication ceremony, recalling the low regard held for such work by the highfalutin.
Trying to mend the town-and-gown divide that has long separated Harvard from its neighbors has been a nearly 60-year pursuit for Rappaport.
In that, the June 28 event was a stunning symbolic victory. Gathered at City Hall for the announcement were Mayor Tom Menino and Harvard's president, Larry Summers, in one of his last public events before leaving the position two days later.
Rappaport said he hopes the institute provides resources that help local leaders to govern better. But he said there is plenty of learning for Harvard to do as well.
``I also believed very strongly," Rappaport said, ``that what was lacking in Harvard's perspective was the appreciation and respect for political leadership -- for the people who served in the trenches, and that they could bring a tremendous amount of insight to the university, into not only how to adopt public policy, but how to get it implemented."
Michael Jonas can be reached at jonas@globe.com. 
