“A lot of folks write a lot of stories about the greenway — nobody uses it; it’s a barren wasteland,” Menino said. “But did anybody come down here this weekend and see how many thousands of people were on the greenway?”
With his characteristic pugnacious humor, Menino said critics of the greenway return to the suburbs on the weekend and miss out on the real popularity of the parks. “This place is a beehive of activity. It’s a new great place to come in the summer months, fall and spring,” the mayor said.
Douglas M. McGarrah, chair of the Boston Harbor Island Alliance’s board, had some fun with the supposed impossibility of building on the greenway as well. He opened the ceremony with a list of the legislation and approvals necessary for the pavilion to be built: an act of the US Congress, an act of the Massachusetts legislature, approval of the Federal Highway Administration and other “federal bureaucracies,” the approval of the state Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, as well as the approval of the Boston Redevelopment Authority and other city agencies.
Amid the humor, though, the celebration was touched with somberness. Two of the planned speakers — Governor Deval Patrick and Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Rick Sullivan — were unable to attend because they were surveying the destruction in Western Massachusetts wrought by Wednesday’s tornados that killed four people.
Located on the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway between Faneuil Hall Marketplace and Long Wharf, the pavilion marks a victory as well for the federal, state and nonprofit partners that oversee the islands: the National Park Service, the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation and the Boston Harbor Island Alliance. The new pavilion will serve as a gateway to the islands, offering maps, information, ferry tickets and island-related merchandise.
