Saw this in Thursday’s Boston Globe:
From Samuel Adams’s calls for revolution in the 1700s, to Frederick Douglass’s antislavery orations of the following century, to Senator John F. Kerry’s concession in the 2004 presidential race, Boston’s Faneuil Hall is one of America’s most storied public stages.
But Murphy’s most recent proposal, to substantially raise the fees for renting out Faneuil Hall’s meeting space, brought rebuke from some fellow councilors yesterday who see the brick building with its famous grasshopper watching over the city as all-but-hallowed space.
“I think it should be free,” Councilor John Tobin said. “It’s a public building. It’s the people’s building, really.”
Murphy insists he’s not looking to turn the cradle of liberty into a cash cow.
He said it costs the city much more to maintain the building than it collects in rental fees, currently capped at $150 per hour for a minimum of four hours. Murphy’s proposed ordinance, which yesterday was referred to committee, would increase the maximum charge for renting the iconic building’s Great Hall to $500 an hour.
RUThinking what IMThinking? One hundred fifty an hour? Let’s see, eight hours equals twelve hundred dollars. It was built to hold sheep. Maybe we could bring ponies.
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Loved the Quincy market area. I will post a photo essay on some of the cool things I saw.
seems like their number of rentals would drop drastically… then how much more would the city be paying for its maintenance??
i agree with Tobin… public buildings should be free… ALL public buildings!
Author
As a grand poo-bah manager I’ve booked off-site meeting places many times. Faneuil Hall is pretty low rent, it’s in a great city, the Black rose is just around the corner for the DD’ettes to party (plus dozens of other places) and it sits on something called the Freedom Trail. I love appropriate metaphors. I think thats what we do here. Freedom to think and share and grow. No Orange Screams, just ponies and thoughtful responses.
As an added bonus, the hall is The Cradle of Liberty. It has symbolism coming out of every pore in its bricks. Walk around the corner and there’s the Union Oyster Bar. take a while to sit in Daniel Webster’s old seat. Go see the Constitution – it’s the only one we have left.
Anyway, loose change, spare thoughts. It’s Sunday, sunny, the garden needs work and I want to be on the beach for the moon-rise tonight.
Shanti.