AT LEAST THEY HAD A PLAN
By Adrian Walker, Globe Columnist
Boston Globe, MA
Oct 2 2007
The people who don’t think memorials should be part of the Rose
Kennedy Greenway suddenly have a lot to fend off.
The longstanding plan for a memorial to victims of the Armenian
genocide has been joined by suggestions that room be made for victims
of the tragedy in Darfur and by a Boston Peace and Heritage Park,
proposed by the Turkish-American Cultural Society of New England.
Caught in the middle of the dueling memorials is Peter Meade, longtime
mover and shaker and chairman of the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway
Conservancy board. Meade has never cared for the idea of an Armenian
memorial.
The Armenian Heritage Foundation has been pushing for a memorial
for at least seven years, raising close to $3 million in support of
the idea. The group envisions parkland with a sculpture that would
discreetly pay homage to the Armenians who were massacred in and
around 1915.
Despite an informal decision years ago that the Greenway would
not contain any memorials for at least the first five years of its
existence, the Armenian group went through a planning process and
won designation to build the park. That decision should stand, even
if the conservancy doesn’t like it.
At one level, I can understand the notion that the Greenway was
intended for other purposes. Like many major cities, Boston has its
share of memorials.
However, this process, or lack thereof, has been indefensible from the
beginning. The fact that the no-memorial policy is not even binding
is emblematic of the back-room negotiations that have plagued the
Greenway.
Meade told me yesterday that he is not opposed to the Armenian memorial
in particular. His beef, he said, is with memorials on the Greenway,
period.
"I think an Armenian Holocaust Memorial is an important idea and a
good idea, and if the world had admitted the Armenian genocide, we’d
all be better off," Meade said. "The question is where it ought to go,
and I think that’s an open question."
That position strikes Armenians as disingenuous. "The Armenian Heritage
Park represents, in our estimation, an opportunity to be part of the
fabric of the city, part of the fabric of Massachusetts," said Anthony
Barsamian of the Armenian Assembly of America, a lobbying group.
State Representative Rachel Kaprielian, a Watertown Democrat,
insisted that the proposed park falls within the guidelines for the
Greenway. "It’s not a memorial; it’s a park," she said. "Unless you
look closely, you won’t even see what’s on the plaque."
This dispute has echoes of the recent battle between the Armenian
community and the Anti-Defamation League over the ADL’s reluctance
to embrace the term genocide to describe the massacre of Armenians
by Turks. The Armenian community won that round handily.
The decision on what will be allowed on the Greenway seems headed
for the desk of state Transportation Secretary Bernard Cohen. He has
not taken a position, though the Turnpike Authority has supported
the Armenian Heritage Park thus far. Many have complained, though,
that their decisions were made in the absence of a real public process.
No one I know wants to see the Greenway covered with memorials. It
was never meant to be the Washington Mall. But the Armenian group
has pursued its goals with determination and vision for years, in the
face of a process that could charitably be called chaotic. Even now,
no one can say when, or exactly how, this is all to be resolved.
I say going through the process, such as it was, coming up with the
only real and viable plan for the parcel, and raising the money to make
it happen should count for something. If that means the conservancy
has to live with one idea it doesn’t like, so be it.
Ultimately, it is public land, not Meade’s backyard.
Meade sounded as if his fondest wish is for the whole controversy to
end. When I asked him when a final decision would be made, he quipped:
"Someone told me Aug. 15. I forgot to ask which year."