Collins Looks Back Over Years as Mayor

In 1960:

"...A feeling of despondency, almost municipal hypochondria, had settled over the

In 1968:

"...Anyone who looks around the City and doesn't realize that it is a better city than it was in 1959, has blinders on..."

It is difficult to assess my eight years as Mayor unless one can remember the situation which confronted us in 1960. You might recall that the tax-rate had been rising at an average annual rate of $8.00 a year; the city had lost 100,000 people in ten years; we had lost $500 million in assessed valuation in 25 years (that's one quarter of our total assessable base. But more importantly than any of these losses, the city had lost the confidence of both its investors and its residents: only two buildings of any significance had been built in Boston in over 35 years; major insurance companies across America would not loan money in Boston; our credit rating had been recently changed; and a feeling of despondency, almost municipal hypochondria had settled over the City. It was necessary, as I saw it, to do three things simultaneously, with perhaps more haste than one might have chosen to use had other options been available.

You remember that the first one was to cut the cloth and tighten the economic belt, reorganize city departments and bring about greater efficiency; the second--to rebuild, restore, and revitalize investor confidence. Admittedly these have been done. There is more building going on in the City of Boston at this moment than in any city in America--that's by dollar volume in relation to per square yard area and in relation to population served. The third aspect of the program was to endeavor to have the Commonwealth assume its fair share of the responsibility for the City.

First: We quite often forget now the belt-tightening period in 1960, when we had to initiate a no-hire-no-fire policy to cut the fat from municipal operations. We re-organized a number of city departments over the 8 years; we combined the Health and Hospital Departments which has set an example for America, an example which has now been emulated in half a dozen cities; we created the new Public Facilities Department (this I think is one of the most significant reorganizations we have made); and we reorganized the Assessing Department. We made a number of other internal and organizational changes all of which were designed to bring more efficiency and less expense.

Think back again to the physical side of the City in 1960. When I was elected the new city hall was to have been built on the site of the old Boston Post on Washington St.; the new Federal Building was to have been in Back Bay next to the Trinity Church on that block where the new John Hancock 60-story skyscraper will be and the State had some idea that they might want to build something, at sometime, somewhere. The first thing we did was to go to Washington and change the decisions which had already been made both in Boston and Washington. We brought about the concept of the Government Center to replace Old Scollay Square. We then determined, that since a new city hall is built only about once a century, that it was better to build a building that was worthy of the City of Boston and which would hopefully blend in with historic Old Boston in a sensible way, but without any effort to build a $20 million colonial building with leaded windows. So we held a national competition and came up with a very exciting design which some faint-hearted people, you might remember, were somewhat afraid of. The building will be and is already being described as the most exciting public building to be built in America in this century. I'm sure in the years to come that many people will come to Boston for the primary purpose to see this building.

It is difficult to visualize even now in its final form, because the red-brick plaza which is the cement which holds the whole project together isn't finished yet. With pedestrian underpasses going through, a plaza with trees, walks, benches, etc., one will be able to see clearly the cencept which I.M. Pei developed for the Government Center. It will provide some continuity between Beacon Hill--the State House and the red-brick sidewalks -- down through Scollay Square, to Dock Square, and ultimately to the waterfront which is also to be renewed.

This leads us next to the next renewal area. There will be some change in the off-ramps affording the pedestrian some means of direct access to the Waterfront. With a relocated Atlantic Avenue, a combination of highrise apartment houses, town houses, and some converted warehouses (into apartments), hundreds of millions of dollars is being invested in new construction for Boston in the Waterfront Project.

The plan for a Central Business District is not quite so far along though we have already entered the early land-acquisition and construction stage. The Project will be carried on in stages and will endeavor to put some order into the mish-mash of narrow streets which we inherited from our forebears.

This plan and other plans were carried out with a unique blend of private enterprise and the public sector. You will remember that nonprofit corporations took part in both the Waterfront and the Central Business District. Merchants in the business community raised the "seed" money: in one case $200,000, and in the other case $250,000. We then signed a memorandum of understanding between the BRA and the non-profit organization agreeing, not to the adoption of their plan in toto, but rather that there would be consultations between their staff and the BRA as to any significant changes.

Think back to the residential components of the renewal program. We did not wait for the riots and the disorders of 1965, 1966, and 1967 to start work on the poorer sections of Boston and the Negro sections of Boston, which were badly in need of renewal and rehabilitation. In 1960 we made the Washington Park Project a matter of first priority. Contrary to the lamentations of some in the last campaign, thousands of new apartment houses, low income "221d3" apartment houses were built; literally hundreds of individual rehabilitation jobs have been completed or are underway; a new YMCA, a new Boys' Club, a new community shopping center, and many other improvements in Washington Park have been built where formerly there existed only squalor and hopelessness. This is not to say we have done enough. But we made a start in 1960 and we are a long way along the road in 1967. Where might we have been if we had waited until 1967 to start?

The same thing might be said for the project in Charlestown which was greeted by something less than unanimous approval. There was a slightly more acrimonious debate after which the vociferous minority had more than its day in court. The minority ultimately bowed to the wish of the majority. That project is now underway.

The South End and the South Cove Projects, including the completed sections of Castle Square with its mixed housing, public housing, and "221d3" non-profit housing are also well underway.

The South Cove Project features two highly unusual and greatly misunderstood projects: the Tufts Complex and the New England Medical Center involves the use of the new Quincy School not only as a school but also as a community health resource with all the social amenities and health services made available in that building. A plan for the expansion of the N.E. Medical Center has also been worked out with the neighborhood. It is substantially a horizontal design which has already been given an award from London "as one of the ten most outstanding architectural innovations in the world."

Very few people know about it, and I suppose that represents one of the areas in which we have not been too successful: the ability to communicate.

There have been other more controversial projects, the West End, for instance. People don't remember anything of when it was started, all they might remember is that it was cleared in 1957. They forget that I wasn't Mayor then. I inherited a place that was cleared with a contractual obligation. The West End hurt because it was a total clearance project; the nation learned a lesson from the West End. Federal policy at the time almost mandated that procedure. It wouldn't have been done that way if I had been Mayor, even if we had to wait to change the policy. In any event it was done.

I also inherited a project in Allston which some professors in my soon to be academic community interested themselves. I suppose with some beneficial results. The plan wasn't a perfect one. Some of the people involved in protesting it were at least as irresponsible as the plan was less than perfect.

I think most of what we tried to do succeeded--granting the exigencies of the way we did it. We had to take ten projects at once; we didn't have the luxury of taking one project, finishing it, and carefully looking at it before starting another one. We involved the community; we had as many as 200 meetings for one project.

Anyone who looks around the City and doesn't realize it is a better city than it was in 1959, has blinders on.

The third aspect of the program which I set out to accomplish in 1959 led to my fight for the sales tax, not because I wanted to make enemies with the tax, but because it was the only tax which could be enacted to bring about some state assistance with some of the great burden, since no one would then put in an income tax. It was passed.

I then led the fight for state assumption of welfare costs, that was originally supposed to be paid for by the sales tax; apparently that money wasn't forthcoming. I pushed that bill through the legislature and with an assist from Mayor-elect White, Speaker Davoren, Majority Leader Bob Quinn, and the Governor, they have now set about funding it. That's a very important piece of legislation for Boston. Admittedly it benefits Boston more than some of the more affluent communities, but that is proper. The distribution procedure now will pay some attention to need. That's the third part of the program; tying together the three are the federal funds. We have been quite successful. Contrary to published reports, Boston has fared better by any radstick than any other city in America with Federal funds.

There remains, however, a significant change in the federal-local relationship which I'm going to be dealing with further on while I'm at MIT. This finding a better way to bring the resources which are in Washington, because of the foresight of our forebears in enacting a graduated income tax, this is the only reasonably progressive and reasonably equitable way of raising the amount of money which is necessary to deal with the crisis of the city