William Ashmore of Ivy Restaurant (center) with Ivy manager Patrick DeFreitas (left) and Demetri Tsolakis of Mantra, a restaurant across the street from Ivy in Boston's Downtown Crossing.

Downtown Crossing is perhaps best known to outsiders as the location of Filene's Basement, one of the city's biggest tourist attractions, which closed in September 2007 while the building is being renovated. The area has been a place that many people simply pass through - as many as 230,000 pedestrians course through the streets on a given day.