Armenian memorial on Greenway gets go-ahead
By Thomas C. Palmer Jr., Globe Staff | July 7, 2006

Boston Globe, MA
July 7 2006

Despite opposition from Mayor Thomas M. Menino and community leaders,
the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority is paving the way for an Armenian
genocide memorial park on the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway.

At its meeting late last week, the Turnpike board authorized chairman
Matthew J. Amorello to negotiate with a nonprofit group from the
Massachusetts Armenian community to place its proposed park, sculpture,
fountain, and inscriptions on land near Christopher Columbus Park.

But the 4-0 vote came only after one member of the board insisted the
motion be amended to require that any agreement come back before the
board again later.

A fifth board member, Thomas Trimarco, recently appointed by Governor
Mitt Romney, abstained.

Most proponents for Greenway locations — like a YMCA facility in the
North End or a history museum nearby — went through months or years
of public review and comment, but the Armenian park hasn’t undergone
the same process.

Boston Memorials
A look at other notable memorials in and around the Hub.

The Turnpike Authority has promoted the $4 million project at the
request of the Legislature, but even the Mayor’s Central Artery
Completion Task Force — an advisory group that has guided design of
the Greenway — has yet to be briefed on the proposal.

The Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway Conservancy, a private nonprofit
group set up to fund and oversee the Greenway, has supported a
moratorium of at least five years on proposals for memorials on the
corridor of parks that is being created atop the old Central Artery.

"We don’t have any memorials or monuments or statues in the North End
or Chinatown," said Nancy Caruso, a North End activist and member of
the mayor’s task force who opposes locating the Armenian memorial on
the Greenway.

Although the Armenian park has been praised for its innovative design,
Menino and others have worried that the Greenway could become a magnet
for ethnic-related memorials. He said he would work with the group
to find another location.

Meanwhile, a legislative proposal that died in committee last week
would have considerably increased the voice that the conservancy’s
10-member board has over changes and additions to the Greenway once
it is finished.

The proposal, in an amendment to the budget submitted by Senator
Dianne Wilkerson, a Boston Democrat, was vigorously opposed by
community activists and neighbors of the Greenway.

"We felt that it was not appropriate to give a private nonprofit
organization a veto of future uses along the Greenway," said Rob
Tuchmann, a lawyer at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP and
cochairman of the mayor’s task force . "We were very concerned the
public would have the opportunity to review and consider any changes."

The Turnpike Authority, as manager of the Big Dig, now effectively has
control over what goes where on the Greenway. The authority is supposed
to make decisions in collaboration with community groups and the city.

Conservancy board chairman Peter Meade said this week that the
legislation was not intended to give the conservancy veto power over
what is put on the Greenway.

"I didn’t think it was a lot of power," he said. "The intent was to
give us a seat at the table along with many other people."

Several objections have been raised concerning the way the conservancy
operates as it begins to exercise control over public space on the
Greenway — including disclosure of the conservancy’s sources of
money .

"I believe you are a government agency, bound by open-meeting and
public-records laws," Shirley Kressel, a community activist, told
conservancy officials at a recent Task Force meeting.

Nancy Brennan, executive director of the conservancy, said the board
is trying to be "as transparent as possible," but, "It’s an unfortunate
consequence of fund-raising that donors want their privacy."

The issue of public accountability has also come up repeatedly.
"It’s a secret society," said Chris Fincham, a resident of Harbor
Towers. "I’ve always worried about how it was set up."

Said Meade: "People worry about others’ using the conservancy for
their own ends, and that’s a healthy fear. We’ll figure all that out."