He might be the only person in Boston with fond memories of the elevated Central Artery, the almost perpetually clogged highway through downtown Boston that became the raison d'être for the tunnels of the Big Dig.
Charlestown resident and former North End retailer Vincent F. Zarrilli wants visitors to the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway to know the urban oasis winds its way through Boston only because the once unsightly highway cleared its path.
Zarrilli's goal is to see a bronze plaque erected somewhere on the Greenway that lists what he asserts were the artery's considerable benefits before it came down in 2004: It provided an easier north-south route through the city; it pushed the stream of commuting cars from ground level to the elevated highway; provided hundreds of parking spaces for the North End; and it protected from development the patch that has become the Greenway.
Big Dig and park officials say that erecting a monument to what many ultimately saw as Boston's other green monster is something to consider.
Zarrilli acknowledges, though, that since his recollections of the highway differ markedly from the prevailing view of the roadway, namely that it was an overutilized eyesore that cut off the city's waterfront from downtown, the idea is likely to encounter resistance.
"Even I am happy to see it gone," said Zarrilli, a longtime critic of the Big Dig who dreamed up an alternative proposal during its planning stages called the Boston Bypass, which would have consisted of a series of bridges from Neponset Circle to Sullivan Square. But he says a plaque is necessary to "counter 20-plus years of artery bashing and do justice to the benefits the artery provided."
Former North End city councilor Paul J. Scapicchio was puzzled by the idea.
"I've heard of memorials to fallen firefighters; I've heard of memorials to fallen soldiers and heroes. I've never heard of a memorial to a fallen highway," said Scapicchio, who resigned from the City Council in 2006. "It was a big piece of metal and steel in the middle of Boston. It served its purpose and had its time. I don't think anybody really remembers that fondly."
Anticipating that sort of reaction, Zarrilli is starting by offering a decidedly more modest proposal. The elevated artery was also known as the John F. Fitzgerald Expressway, for Boston's early 1900s mayor. Two highway plaques honoring the man affectionately called Honey Fitz now sit in storage in Chinatown, and Zarrilli is pressing the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority to place them on the Greenway, which is named after Fitzgerald's daughter Rose.
Turnpike Authority spokesman Mac Daniel said the agency is in talks with Zarrilli to find an appropriate location for the plaques.
"We are very much in favor of bringing these plaques back to the light of day," Daniel said. "The details about where they will be placed and when have yet to be determined."
Nancy Brennan, executive director of the Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy, said the group's board has not considered whether it would be appropriate to place the plaques in the public space. With the exception of brick tributes on "Mother's Walk," the conservancy generally has opposed placing memorials along the 1-mile stretch of parks, but Brennan said she does not think the plaques are considered memorials.
She was particularly interested in the idea of recognizing that the park is a legacy of the old highway, though she thought a plaque might not be the ideal method.
"Mr. Zarrilli's idea really has us talking over here," she said. "A big part of our mission, besides caring for the parks, is an educational mission that allows people to understand the parks and their bigger Boston historical context. Our education people would like to think about it some more and maybe take the idea and make it a little broader and more universal than a plaque that some people may not be able to read or find in strolls along the Greenway."
Daniel said memorials to the elevated artery actually exist, in fact if not in name. "There are two old sections of the elevated artery at Congress Street and Clinton Street that are meant to kind of memorialize or in some way remember what once stood on that ground," Daniel said. "They were left there on purpose to be incorporated as part of the Greenway and as a form of public sculpture."
Describing his ideas over coffee at a Charlestown Dunkin' Donuts recently, Zarrilli rifled through a tattered leather briefcase to pull out documents, including clippings from the Globe, that he says prove the Central Artery was seen as beneficial by motorists when it opened in the 1950s.
He is not trying to make the case that it should not have been replaced, nor is he looking to reignite battles over whether the Big Dig was a good idea.
"I'm saying let's get the truth out to counter 20 to 25 years of artery bashing," he said. "It's setting the record straight."
Scapicchio was incredulous at the idea of a formal memorial. He remembers sitting in his grandfather's North End blacksmith shop, which was in the shadow of the Central Artery.
"I think people are happy that it's not there," he said. "If you want to do a memorial to John Fitzgerald or the Fitzgerald family somewhere, that's fine. But because they named the highway after him, you memorialize the highway? I just don't get it."
John C. Drake can be reached at jdrake@globe.com.
Correction: Because of a reporting error, a story in yesterday's City & Region section about a proposal to memorialize the elevated Central Artery incorrectly stated that former city councilor Paul J. Scapicchio remembered sitting in his grandfather's North End blacksmith shop in the highway's shadow. The shop was closed before Scapicchio was born, but he grew up a few blocks away.
