"Protests Kill Plan"

Towering opposition
Protests kill plan for a glass-walled garden at Hancock
By Casey Ross
Boston Globe
Globe Staff / June 27, 2008
The Hancock Tower's owners dropped plans to build a glass-enclosed public square outside the Clarendon Street doors after neighbors and the famed building's architect protested that the addition would mar the tower's slender design and the views of neighboring Trinity Church.

Architect Henry Cobb doesn't like what has happened inside the Hancock Tower but is glad the exterior won't be changing.

WORRIED ABOUT HIS MASTERPIECE
Architect Henry Cobb, who designed the 60-floor Hancock in the 1960s, strongly objected to Broadway Partners Fund Manager LLC's plan for a 12,000-square-foot glass "winter garden" on the plaza at the base of the building.

Back Bay residents were also marshaling opposition, arguing the changes would have ruined the tower's architectural integrity.

Parties involved in negotiations over the plaza said Cobb, who is known to be particular about the iconic Hancock, was immediately concerned that an addition would block views of Trinity Church across the street.

The addition would have fundamentally changed the forbidding, half-acre plaza, long known for umbrella-buckling wind gusts that torment passers-by.

Now, Broadway Partners and Elkus | Manfredi Architects are instead proposing to add only landscaping and glass benches. A pair of restaurants would still be opened underground, on the concourse level, but they would be entered through the tower's lobby, not through a winter garden.

"That's certainly what I had been urging. They have been very respectful of my views," Cobb said yesterday about the end of the plan for a new structure.

Alan G. Rubenstein, director of asset management for Broadway Partners, said the plaza will remain open and views of Trinity Church unobstructed. "The constituent groups with whom we spoke led us to the realization that less would be more," he said.

Broadway Partners also faced opposition from politicians and a powerful residents' group.

"There was tremendous concern about changing the face of the building," said state Representative Marty Walz, a Cambridge Democrat whose district includes the Back Bay. "It's world famous for a reason, and there was a consistent feeling that the new structure would not be a good addition."

The initial plan, announced in January, included an enclosed seating area with a small bar for drinks or coffee. Under the new concept, that lounge would be in the Hancock's lobby, where patrons could congregate before heading down to the concourse.

Rubenstein said new portals on the north and south sides of the lobby will help patrons get to the restaurants.

Broadway may file its revised design with the Boston Redevelopment Authority as early as next week, with construction of the restaurants to be completed in about 12 months. Rubenstein said Broadway Partners has not begun speaking with potential tenants but suggested at least one occupant would be a "white tablecloth" restaurant in the mold of the nearby Davio's or Grill 23.

While there was considerable opposition to a glass-walled structure, some of the business neighbors supported the idea as a way to enliven the barren plaza, which has never realized its potential as a public gathering place.

"I thought the new structure would help with the [windy] conditions," said Meg Mainzer-Cohen, president of the Back Bay Association, which represents business and property owners. "I still think adding the restaurants is a great way to open the Hancock to Bostonians. Right now, unless you have a business meeting, most people don't go there."

The public's connection to the monolithic skyscraper diminished after its observatory was shuttered amid terrorism concerns following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Broadway Partners' initial plan was designed to make the plaza a destination for residents and visitors. Cobb and others argued that the way to enhance the space is to preserve sight lines with the sandstone and granite facade of Trinity Church, designed by Henry Hobson Richardson.

Broadway Partners sought to accommodate those concerns with the all-glass structure, but Cobb fretted that even that would block outdoor views and interfere with the tranquility of the plaza. The glass design was inspired by spaces such as the atrium at the IBM Building and the Apple store at the General Motors Building, both in New York.

Cobb has long been concerned about changes to the Hancock, a masterpiece whose concept he finished over two harried weeks in the fall of 1967.

In a 2006 retrospective on the building's opening, he told the Globe that the building's interior had been wrecked: "The last time I was in it, I turned on my heel and walked out. . . . I'm happy that the external statement of the building is so completely independent of what happens inside it."

Casey Ross can be reached at cross@globe.com.