A Gaping Hole (Day 13)

Well wow, can I call the obvious or what? As I was complaining yesterday about the unbuilt space for the Harvard Bookstore at the Prudential Center, the bookstore was putting out a statement that, in fact, they were abandoning the project. Apparently, an entity that's been in business for decades and was possibly partnered with the owners of the Red Sox and the Boston Globe couldn't make the financing for the project they had agreed to build work. They will instead be investing whatever money was going to go into the second location into spiffing up their existing store in Cambridge.

They can keep it. And they should be ashamed of themselves.

There are two bookstores on nearby Newbury Street: Trident Booksellers (and Cafe) and Posman Books. There is also the very charming Beacon Hill Books and Cafe. There is also an independent bookstore in my area that packs a lot of selection into a small space. Between them, I can probably find the majority of what I'm looking for when I want to spend money on books, games, and puzzles. And if worse comes to worst, I can go to Bookshop.org. I'm not hurting for bookstores, so this isn't a tragedy for me.

What bothers me is that there is another big hole at the other end of the Prudential Center ever since Lord & Taylor closed in 2021. The Pru is a big space and there is a bunch of activity in between, but Barnes & Noble (the predecessor of the aborted Harvard Bookstore) and Lord & Taylor were anchors. There is also something eerie about an empty space that big.

There are ways to repurpose those spaces, and Meet Me By The Fountain lays out a lot of them. I would love to see, oh, maybe a place for all of those people in need of shelter right now. That really is the most pressing need, but I won't hold my breath since I don't feel like passing out. If not, the emptiness could be used as a space for a community college, or maybe a community center. It could be a play space for families that can't afford to pay for the privilege. It could be a teenage recreation center. It could be a lot of things, but the Prudential Center is going to wait until the find the perfect tenant that can pay them the rent they feel The Market has entitled them to, and thus it's going to be a long time before either of those spaces get filled.

This is not good. We need spaces where we can meet up. Yes, the library, but just because one space exists doesn't mean we shouldn't have any more of them. We need places where we can interact with each other, not merely pass them by. And we need to not feel like we are living in a shell, because there's enough of that as it is.

Deb in the City