Boston’s Civic Table
Two women walk up to the chest-high table where I’m standing. One wears a clean white linen blazer, the other a green silk top and a straw hat. I can just barely hear their conversation as they wipe the surface with their palms, feeling its coolness, looking pleased. I guess it would be nice to have your coffee here. Or if you are waiting for someone, you could wait here; It’s in a good spot. They nod approvingly over at me, with my backpack on its surface, scrawling away in my notebook, as if to say, Or you could do your writing here.
About fifty feet from where I stand, the finish line of the Boston Marathon is painted directly onto the street. Over 60,000 runners charge past this point each year. Directly in front of me is the site of the first of the marathon bombings that occurred on April 15, 2013. Setha Low and Neil Smith, in their introduction of The Imperative of Public Space, claim that after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, a new kind of public space emerged which was coopted by commercial interests and hamstrung by security fears. As a designer, I’ve certainly seen this in the increase of uncomfortable bench designs, the insertion of new types of spikes that can be integrated into floor surfaces, and increased surveillance intended to keep undesirable constituencies from lingering too long.
Here, instead of recoiling in the face of such tragedy, the Boston Public Library extended its gracious mission, “free for all”, out into the sidewalk. There are many tables in the city of Boston where one can rest within the urban fabric. Most of them are café style, or two person chess tables. The table here marks the introduction of something new, something reminiscent of a grand dining table. We are all called to gather at its edges, to stand side-by-side, and face-to-face.
The installation of a grand public table, floating out in the Boylston Street sidewalk, is only one piece of a new frontage design for the Johnson Building at the Boston Public Library. As a somewhat new employee at Reed Hildebrand Landscape Architects, where this landscape was designed, I had heard much about this table as it was in development. Now, three days after its opening, it is nearly complete, and already full of activity.
I am standing leaning on the table with the library to my back. It is from here one can look out and watch the action, and look at the blue and gold paint that mark the marathon’s finish line. Last January, members of the community sought to uncover the identity of a man who came out in the many snows to shovel the surface and uncover this near scared mark on the surface of Boston. Boston takes pride in its ability to come together, and this table is a new testament to that.
The table itself is both grander and more humble than I imagined. Looking into the granite is akin to looking off the docks into Boston Harbor. The sun’s rays that hit its surface penetrate down into the stone, revealing its translucency. It swallows the light, revealing hues of blue-green and brown algae.
It is massive. People seem to wonder at its structure as they pass by. Still more lean over, looking up under the table trying to understand the tectonics of its apparent levitation over the sidewalk. It mystifies, with its massive legs gently erupting from the ground, alternating their support, and canting away from each other. They appear delicately stacked, their simplicity adding to their mystery.
Two men from the construction company finishing the work walk by, inspecting it. One leans over, brushes the brass strip running up the sides, and knocks his knuckle against it with a nod as if to say, Yep. It’s solid. There are just a few more pavers to set around its edges, just a few more horseshoe-shaped setting spacers to remove. An electrician walks up next to the crew, sets down a large jug of water, and examines some plans. Soon the table will be able to provide electricity to those charging phones or laptops.
The table’s deliciously smooth sides and pops of skate stop fins beg to be touched. Indeed, it seems none that pass can resist it; people slow as they walk along it, maybe dragging a fingertip, slapping the brushed skate stops, tugging at its sides. Even those lost in another world on the other side of their cell phones seem to unintentionally graze it, a physical reminder of their true surroundings. Some like to hop their palms between the bronze blades. A skateboarder rolls by, reaches out, and softly grabs the corner with his fingertips, before the momentum of his longboard whisks him away.
The philosopher Henri Lefebvre wrote of public space such as this. He claimed that lived space is the melding of perceived, physical space and conceived, mentally constructed space. If this is so, then the frontage zone of the Boston Public Library enacts civic values of tolerance and democracy in providing the surfaces of exchange between people. This table allows for new moments of exchange. I saw this several times throughout my stay writing at it. This place embodies the best intentions of that mission — that though our backgrounds and ideas may be divergent, we can fill the spaces we share with common civility and good will.
I saw a woman with three large bags and a dog in her backpack stroll up and open a pack of doughnuts on the table. Later, a woman joined her with red sunglasses in a black and white striped shirt on the other side. I saw them chat. I don’t know what they said, but the second woman lifted her hand in a soft wave before continuing her walk.
A man standing diagonally across from me asks how I’m doing. He heaves his weight against the table, using it to prop himself up so he can rearrange his crutches that reach up his forearms and around his biceps. We smile, and he goes on his way, perhaps a little more comfortable after the adjustment.
Months pass. I’m here again, a cold, slate and silver November day. The last of the leaves, little gold confetti, alight and rest on the table before blowing away. The table has been open now for three months, and the passage of time is marked on its surface: dots of bird droppings from the tree above, some ketchup dried to the top, a coffee stain on the ground around its leg. A palimpsest of city life.
As dozens of people pass by, I hear wisps of different languages. I decide to keep track and lose count after seven. Two women walk up immediately across from me speaking Portuguese. One touches the table. The only word I understand her repeat is “aqui, aqui” — “here, here”. Beyond her I see a runner walk out of Marathon Sports and stop on the street nearby, looking down, scuffing his feet in the spot where the explosion occurred.
The table performs, and it signifies. Our power as designers is great — we have the ability to make a shared ideal of civics spatial and physical. We can offer a place to pause. A place to watch the life of the city wander by. A place to look out and remember.
