By John McColgan

Edward Everett Square in Dorchester is a crossroads of six thoroughfares, a strategic connecting point between a great many places. It is also a place rich in history.

In the environs of the Square the first town meeting in America took place in 1633. The oldest house in Boston and the oldest of its kind in America, the nearby Blake House, built in 1650, is owned and maintained by the Dorchester Historical Society. The Square is a segment of the Knox Trail, where in 1776 the Continental Army marched to Dorchester Heights, forcing the British evacuation of Boston. The outstanding statesman and orator of the 19th century, Edward Everett, was born here in 1794. John W. McCormack, for many years Speaker of U.S. House, lived a few doors down from Everett's home.

Despite its significance as a crossroads, and despite so many important historic associations, the Square for decades has languished in a physical atmosphere that is unassuming, drab, insignificant - an asphalt tundra that is at once banal and challenging for pedestrians. Long-term residents of the area see the existing physical environment of the Square as falling far short of the standards deserved by so important a communications link, deserved by a place with such historic connections, deserved by taxpaying residents of the City of Boston. The existing aesthetic environs of Edward Everett Square provide no hint of its importance - not as a transportation crossroads to so many parts of the city, not of its historic significance, not of its potential as a place of attraction and ambience for residents and indeed tourists.

Since 1995, residents of the Edward Everett Square have had a vision to make the Square a place of beauty, pedestrian safety and acknowledged historic significance. The Edward Everett Square Project Committee, representing several local community organizations and businesses, has sought improvement and beautification for Edward Everett Square. The Eastman/Elder Neighborhood Association, the Neighborhood Eye at Annapolis Street, the John W. McCormack Civic Association, and the Dorchester Historical Society were all founding constituent organizations, with the Columbia Savin Hill Civic Association giving its consistent support to the Project from the beginning. The Committee has twice successfully applied for grants from the Edward Ingersoll Browne Fund. A grant of $10,000 in 1997 produced a conceptual proposal ("A Proposal for Edward Everett Square", January 20, 1999), which in 2000 won for the Project a further Browne Fund award of $150,000 to fund historically interpretative features.

In 2001, several public officials, civic associations and businesses wrote to Mayor Menino in support of capital funding by the City of Boston to reconfigure the Square's streetscape for greater pedestrian safety and thereby provide the proper infrastructure for public art supported by the Browne Fund grant. In a 2001 letter to state Representative Martin Walsh, the Mayor wrote of his confidence for a positive review by the Public Works Department, and that "the next step would be to submit an appropriation for the plan to the City Council for approval in the next Capital Plan for FY03-07." In 2002, Public Works Commissioner Joseph Casazza reaffirmed the Mayor's commitment to the project, stating that capital funding would be available for urban design and construction in the Square, and that this work would go hand-in-hand with the design and implementation of public art funded by the Browne Fund.

Immediately, the committee set to the work of artist selection. With professional assistance from the Urban Arts Institute at Massachusetts College of Art, the committee viewed the work of dozens of artists. A process of elimination eventually reduced the list of artists to three, each of whom was commissioned to develop a preliminary artistic concept. All three artists have solid reputations in public art, and two are known nationally for their permanent art installations. But when the artists submitted their proposals last February, it was the third, Laura Baring-Gould of UMass Boston, who astonished the committee with a presentation of such passion, intensity, depth of research and intuitive ability to connect with community spirit, that they awarded her the commission in a clear, unanimous, undisputed vote.

Simultaneously with artist selection by the committee, the City of Boston Public Works Department went through the public bidding process to select the engineering consultant to develop a new urban design for the Square. The Charlestown firm, Edwards & Kelcey, engineers, architects, planners, constructors, was awarded the bid. The firm's Associate Vice President, Fayssal J. Husseini, P.E., will be urban design project manager and work with Ms. Baring-Gould in producing overall design for Edward Everett Square.

The Edward Everett Square Project now enters a period of three phases, the first of which is gathering community input. Ms. Baring-Gould, Mr. Husseini and Para Jayasinghe, City Engineer with the Public Works Department, are currently (May and June) attending local civic association meetings accompanied by members of the community project committee. A community-wide meeting is slated for Tuesday, June 24, 7 p.m. - 9 p.m. at the Plumber's Union, Local 12, 1230 Massachusetts Avenue (between Edward Everett Square and South Bay). The Project Committee and the Public Works Department are inviting the views and opinions of the community on both art and heritage and traffic and pedestrian safety.

Based upon their researches, the artist and urban design consultant will develop design. This is the second phase in which design options will be formulated and again presented to the community at a public meeting in the autumn.

Following a decision on final design, construction, the third phase, is expected to begin in the Spring of 2004.

John McColgan is the Chair of the Edward Everett Square Project Committee. More information on the plans for the Square will be featured in next week's Dorchester Reporter.