INTRO TEXT
not long ago, there seemed to be as many civic organizations in Boston’s Fenway neighborhood as there were game-day parking lots. And they had one enemy in common: the Red Sox, with their scheme to build a new ballpark, redevelop the wedge-shaped block between Brookline Avenue and Boylston Street, and transform the neighborhood into a modern baseball monstrosity that residents saw as the antithesis of everything the quaint playing field had come to represent.
“The group called Save Fenway Park was viewed as the Japanese during World War II—the last holdouts,” says Janet Marie Smith, the Red Sox senior vice president in charge of planning and development.
Under the Red Sox ownership of John Henry, Larry Lucchino, and company, however, Fenway Park itself has indeed been saved, albeit with commercial twists that neither the old ownership group nor the fan base would have imagined. From the Monster Seats and Carlton Fisk Pole to an annual rock concert (this year featuring the Dave Matthews Band), the new Red Sox have turned marketing into an art form, and we’re not just talking about 2004 World Series memorabilia. But the Fenway’s once-feisty neighborhood groups aren’t squawking.
hospital traffic will be worse than the Red sox snarls.
Photography by Meghan Moore.
“You really can’t argue with how they’re doing business,” says Bill Richardson, president of the Fenway Civic Association. “We butted heads with them over the concerts a bit, but we could live with one per year, and they reserve the right to hold a second.”
The whole Fenway landscape has changed, with most of the changes having nothing to do with the departure of the Yawkey Trust. First came the Landmark Center, the long-empty Sears building redeveloped by the Abbey Group, which is owned, curiously enough, by Boston Celtics managing partner Robert Epstein. Now comes the Trilogy residential and retail complex near the point of Brookline and Boylston. The Fenway, it seems, is going upscale.
But if these changes raise no hackles in the Fenway, Richardson wishes he could say the same about what’s happening on the western border of his small neighborhood, where the vast conglomeration of hospitals, universities, and research facilities known as the Longwood Medical and Academic Area continues to expand, putting the squeeze on a district still 90 percent occupied by renters.
“I know the LMA doesn’t stand for any one thing, but whether it’s [the Joslin Diabetes Center], Children’s [Hospital], or whatever else, the city continues to give them all of the area they need,” says Richardson. “And it’s every bit as close to us as Fenway Park. The LMA is growing at leaps and bounds, and where are all of these people going to live?”
Even the Boston Redevelopment Authority points to housing shortages and traffic problems spurred by institutional expansion in the area, including a 300,000-square-foot Merck biopharmaceutical research facility and a 575,000-square-foot Blackfan Research Center, currently under construction. A 489,000-square-foot research facility headed by the Joslin Diabetes Center—approved by the BRA three years ago—is still in the planning stages.
“The LMA is almost like a second downtown,” says Randi Lathrop, the BRA’s deputy director for community planning. “Now these colleges and institutions are expanding in a way very similar to a downtown area.”
According to Richardson, the medical complex’s potential to generate traffic far outstrips the snarls associated with Red Sox games. A new on-street parking ban on Boylston has led to the creation of a third westbound lane during rush hour.
“The most egregious is the Merck development on the back of Emmanuel College,” he says. “They’ve started putting up buildings that are high enough to cast shadows on our neighborhood.”
Mike Ross, the district city councilor who represents the Fenway, points to a recently completed commercial development project, which brought a supermarket and chain pharmacy to Brigham Circle, as an example of how a LMA boom can benefit the neighborhood, Mission Hill in particular. But he also admits that the balance is fragile. Ross was among those who opposed plans for the Joslin research facility, in part because the building will include residences in the midst of a tight hospital area.
“It’s a challenge and also a blessing that we have [the LMA] in Boston,” says Ross. “But for this, Boston could look more like Detroit in terms of the economic downswing. But this also shouldn’t undermine Boston’s livability and its neighborhoods.”
While the growth of Longwood institutions has Fenway neighbors on edge, maneuvers by Red Sox owners no longer set off alarm bells. When the team quietly purchased the property holding the McDonald’s on Boylston Street across from Yawkey Way, few objections were raised. Nor have the negotiations now under way with Robert Sage, owner of the Howard Johnson’s Motor Lodge at 1271 Boylston, with one plan reportedly to turn the building into an extended ballpark entrance, drawn fire.
If nothing else, the team’s owners seem to have learned the art of community relations, though neighborhood activists say they haven’t been taken in.
“They do sometimes make things available to us, like concert tickets, on instructions from the mayor,” says Richardson. “We give them out to people who do volunteer work for us. And when the playoffs come, they call and ask if we’re interested in buying tickets. But it’s important for us to keep some distance.”