The Revitalist

Bamboo will fill the red gates to create a hedge that isolates this park from the bustling city.

The Globe's architecture critic Robert Campbell takes a pre-winter walk through the Rose Kennedy Greeway and comes out largely disappointed. He loved the simplicity of the North End park and enjoyed the naturalistic pathways of the Chinatown park but left cold by the largest of the parks, the Wharf District parks. He points out that sections remain unfinished and the several buildings that were to be on the Greenway have yet to be realized, or even imagined. Even though the Greenway is behind schedule, we have yet to see how some of its most significant features will be impact the whole. As Campbell puts it, with an air of resignation, "it's helpful to remember that even great cities don't always get things right for the first few centuries. It took half a millennium to finish the Piazza San Marco, in Venice." Hardly inspiring, but while we're waiting for the evolution of a century, perhaps we could bask in some winter sun on one of the North End benches anyway.