After wondering out loud whether the press should start referring to Kevin McCrea as Boston’s mayoral frontrunner, by default, David Bernstein has ratcheted up the pressure on Michael Flaherty, Sam Yoon, and Hizzoner. He’s giving the three men seventeen days to officially jump into the mayor’s race. If they don’t comply, the Phoenix, internet edition, will begin referring to the South End developer/warblogger as “presumptive mayor-elect.”

I like where Bernstein is going with this. So much so that I don’t think anybody should have to wait seventeen days. We’ve all been waiting long enough.

This blog is officially endorsing Kevin McCrea’s unopposed bid for mayor. If anybody else wants to jump onto the dance floor and give Kevin a race, then, well, maybe you can talk me into rescinding this endorsement. Until then, put the champagne on ice.

Moreover, I endorse the bloodbath that this race will devolve into, assuming it ever gets going. (That one’s not revocable.) And that’s where McCrea’s candidacy really helps.

He’s not shy, and he knows how to use the internets, which means he’s got the potential to really piss some people off – and possibly goad them into front-page screaming-headline mistakes or misstatements. This story, for one, isn’t dead by a long shot.

And, given McCrea’s animosity towards the BRA, you can expect every real estate deal gone bad from the last fifteen years to get a full, public airing. Reporters: Save yourselves the trouble at deadline, and start boning up on some old Hayward Place clips now.

And here’s one other reason that McCrea changes the race: He lengthens the campaign schedule by guaranteeing a preliminary. That plays into Mayor Menino’s warchest, but it also leaves him much more vulnerable to extended public battering. Before, with Yoon and Flaherty thought to be in but undeclared, everybody assumed that we’d have a long, hot summer campaign; now, it’s virtually assured. Even if Yoon gets cold feet.

[Boston magazine image]

(Cross-posted from Boston Daily)

Back in April, I suggested that Ron Druker would likely have an easier time demolishing the old Shreve’s building than Apple, which had a hellish experience putting its new flagship store on top of an old copy shop. Must’ve forgotten that this is Boston. When it comes to development – especially in the Back Bay – nothing’s ever easy.

The BRA is now throwing the brakes on Druker’s Cesar Pelli-designed office building. It’s no International Finance Centre, but the BRA believes that the building – which fits neighborhood zoning for height and density – is “not sympathetic with the existing historic environment.” This, despite previous support from Mayor Menino, who initially said the project “certainly looks like something that will meet the muster of the neighborhoods.”

In the Back Bay, the words “existing historic environment” are loaded. Buildings between the north side of Boylston Street and the Charles are protected by the Back Bay historic district, and, as Apple learned, are all but untouchable. The south side of the street, where the Shreve’s building sits, is different. Preservationists once tried to lump that side of Boylston into the historic district, but the city ultimately decided that it wasn’t historic or cohesive enough. The Pru was brand new; the BPL and Copley Square were already covered by existing preservation safeguards; and the rest of the buildings, including Shreve’s, just weren’t good enough for the blanket protections that their neighbors to the north enjoy.

In fact, the south side of Boylston was where developers were supposed to be building. It was a compromise that preserved what really needed to be preserved without stifling growth. This block was left exposed for a reason.

Back in February, I spoke with William Young, the Back Bay Architectural Commission’s senior preservation planner, and he explained why: “Although no one would say that, socially or culturally, those blocks aren’t part of the Back Bay, they don’t have the architectural and visual cohesion that exists north of the central line. Outside the district, there are individual buildings that people have thought of as significant, but their significance has not yet been established. With two notable exceptions, the Berkeley Building and the Public Library, the individual designs on the south side are generally not of the same degree – so it’s difficult to recognize them. People feel strong affection towards Shreve’s as an institution. But does that familiarity and affection extended beyond the institution’s history? Does it rise to an intrinsic architectural level?” Young suggested it didn’t. That’s why the Landmarks Commission recently passed on the chance to save it from the wrecking ball.

So why does a city government that’s repeatedly passed on the chance to save Shreve’s suddenly decide to fifth look at the block? Is it because a neighborhood that opposes everything has suddenly started making sense with its opposition? Or is there some other reason for the mayor to be throwing candy at neighborhood activists?

But who needs rent money when you’ve got totally subversive and unprofessional government memos? That’s what we’ve got here. By all means, please do read on.

Here’s a quick addendum to a post from last month on urban renewal run amok in the Back Bay, and to this item in the April issue of Boston (On newsstands now! Buy buy buy!).

While I was researching the history of the Back Bay Architectural District’s borders and the debate over whether the district could be saved from itself with the addition of a couple modernist residential towers, I came across this July, 1967 memo from a BRA planning official named William Weismantel.

Weismantel sketched out three possible outcomes to a proposal to build towers in the Back Bay. High-rises might mix attract new residents and spur rehabilitation of the neighborhood’s increasingly shabby row houses; they might not mix with the neighborhood, and instead become oases of wealth in the midst of a death-spiraling slum; or, the city could block the towers altogether, and instead focus on preserving and rehabbing the Back Bay’s existing buildings.

It’s the second possible outcome that terrifies Weismantel, and he sketches it out in language that, it’s safe to say, rarely finds its way into BRA memos anymore:

New high rise fails to stimulate rehabilitation of row houses. High rise face out towards Public Garden or Charles River, on Arlington Street and the water side of Beacon Street, trying to ignore the “environmental sink” overcoming the middle of the district. In the middle, old row houses get older without the benefit of rehabilitation, except the worst kind: conversion to tiny apartments, dormitories, rooming houses, fraternities. William Lloyd Garrison’s statue on the Commonwealth Avenue Mall is pulled down and Dr. Timothy Leary’s lifted onto the empty pedestal during one of the spontaneous love-ins.

BRA planners don’t exactly write like that anymore. Sad.