GREENWAY BOARD SEEKS ARMENIAN PARK DELAY
By Thomas C. Palmer Jr., Globe Staff | May 3, 2006
Boston Globe, MA
May 3 2006
Members of the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway Conservancy board
don’t have the authority to reject a proposal to build a memorial
park along the Greenway, but its chairman said yesterday it would
exert influence to delay or relocate the park.
“We have talked, on the conservancy board, about not having any
memorials or statues on the Greenway for at least five years,”
said Peter Meade, chairman of the conservancy’s 10-member board,
which includes Edwin Schlossberg, the husband of Caroline Kennedy
Schlossberg, granddaughter of Greenway namesake Rose Kennedy.
Yesterday the board was briefed for the first time on a proposal to
build a park that would memorialize the Armenian genocide along the
Greenway, a series of parks being created along the corridor of the old
Central Artery. A state law, passed in 2000, directed the Massachusetts
Turnpike Authority to study building an Armenian memorial.
The conservancy, which was set up to endow, maintain, and organize
events for the Greenway, has no direct authority over what is built
there; the turnpike authority controls that. But, asked whether the
board has a say in the matter, Meade said, “I think we do.”
Fred Yalouris, director of architecture for the Big Dig, said what
goes on that location is “not part of the conservancy’s area of
purview.” But he added, “Obviously, we will talk with them.”
Yalouris said the Armenian proposal “fit perfectly” on the space
available, next to a planned history museum. Asked whether it was of
concern to him that the proposal memorializes Armenians in particular
more than other immigrant groups, Yalouris said, “Yes it is, but it’s
what they proposed.”
“This is like a public park at no expense to the taxpayer,” he said.
The proposed Armenian park would be the sole memorial along the
Greenway. There is not even a plan for a bust or statue of Rose
Kennedy. Throughout Boston, there are numerous memorials to ethnic
groups and causes, such as the New England Holocaust Memorial, erected
near Faneuil Hall in 1995. But many people involved in Greenway design
during the last decade — from neighbors to members of the Mayor’s
Central Artery Completion Task Force — have said they wanted to
steer clear of statues or monuments to causes.
The memorial park’s supporters emphasize that it is intended as a
tribute to all immigrant groups, not just Armenians.
When Erkut Gomulu, president of the Turkish American Cultural Society
of New England, objected to the placement of an Armenian memorial
on the Greenway at yesterday’s board meeting, Meade said: “This is
exactly what we’re trying to avoid on the Greenway. There will be a
number of groups coming to say, ‘What about me?’ ‘What about us?’ ”
The memorial has also drawn critics because the Armenian Heritage
Tribute and Genocide Memorial Foundation, which proposed the park to
the Greenway board yesterday, has not gone through a public process,
as advocates of other projects have.
Instead, the Armenian group got its chance because of a 33-word
section of law passed in 2000 directing the turnpike authority to
study building “a monument to the Armenian Genocide 1915-1922.”
State Representative Peter J. Koutoujian, a Waltham Democrat who
is Armenian-American, supported the law, and has been involved in
planning for the memorial. “We had some legislation passed directing
the turnpike to look into the feasibility of siting a park,”
Koutoujian said.
The legislation did not specify a location, but the turnpike is
formally proposing the design on a Greenway parcel of a little under
a half acre between Cross Street and Surface Road near Faneuil Hall.
Neighborhood groups have reacted favorably to the design itself,
which would feature an elaborately designed sculpture, fountain and
reflecting pool, and a labyrinth of pavement and grass.
Turkish groups have long disagreed with Armenians over whether what
happened starting in 1915 constituted a genocide of 1.5 million
Armenians. Gomulu, the president of the Turkish American Cultural
Society of New England, unsuccessfully opposed the legislation that
paved the way for the current proposal.
“This amendment represents an intolerable degree of ethnically oriented
propaganda infiltrated to public spaces,” wrote Gomulu to one state
official when the 2000 law was being proposed.
James M. Kalustian, president of the board of directors of the Armenian
heritage foundation, said his group met privately with many public
officials, including Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino, to inform them
about the proposal.
“The mayor was supportive in the meeting,” Kalustian said. “I don’t
know what his official stance is.”
Menino declined to comment yesterday.