CultureNOW - Pemberton Square: Peter Vanderwarker

Pemberton Square

Dates

ca. 1835

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Description

ABOUT THE HISTORICAL PHOTOGRAPHS
Pemberton Square is a backwater, hidden behind the sweeping curve of the office building at right in the new photo. The curved building is the mysteriously named One, Two, and Three Center Plaza, although Boston possesses no such place as Center Plaza. Bordering the

square on the left in both photos is the Suffolk County courthouse of 1895, architecturally clumsy but impressive. Beyond it is its tall annex, the so-called new courthouse, which opened 60 years ago. One-Two-Three, built in 1969, traces a crescent that dates to the 17th century. A bronze plaque identifies the location of the home of the Rev. John Cotton, minister of the First Church of Boston from 1633 to 1652. Other markers tell us that two _governors lived here when Massachusetts was a British colony, and that Elihu Yale, the founder of the university, was born here. And there are other icons: a Bill of Rights walkway, in which the text of each of the first 10 amendments to the US Constitution is crammed into the shape of the appropriate Roman numeral, and a "judge's bench," a sort of lectern in the form of the capital of an elaborate Ionic column.

But plaques and artworks aren't enough to create either a sense of history or a vital public place. Pemberton Square suffers from being on no pedestrian's natural route to anywhere. That wasn't always true: Once, the lobby of the old courthouse served as a walking street on the way to the State House, up Beacon Hill. But today, blocked from view by One Two- Three, and plagued by security checkpoints at its doors, the courthouse attracts little traffic. Worse, Pemberton Square is thrown into winter shadow by the One Beacon Street tower, which stands on the south side of the square, behind us in the new photo.

Pemberton's pavement is cracking, and its planters are plant less. Seating kiosks, which double as vents for an underground garage, are seldom used. The plaza level of One-Two Three, intended for shops and restaurants, is lined instead with banks and offices that pull blinds across their all-glass walls. Only two small delis punctuate the dreariness. Both the old and "new" courthouses are soon to be renovated, thanks to the opening of a genuinely new courthouse nearby. Perhaps then someone will find a way to enliven this handsome urban space.

-Robert Campbell and Peter Vanderwarker, "CITYSCAPES - Pemberton Square",Boston Globe, 1998

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Location

Beacon St & Bowdoin St
Boston, MA 02108
United States

Nearby Items

Garden of Peace		72 feet
Suffolk County		469 feet
Boston Athenaeum		564 feet
Looking for a Landscape		660 feet
Congregational House Bas-Reliefs		673 feet
Pulse of the City		680 feet
One Beacon Street		686 feet