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– Quincy news from Quincy Quarry News
Quincy Mayor Thomas P. Koch’s long pending grandiose plans for creating the Adams Green green space in front of City Hall would clearly appear to not be happening anytime soon.
In a tacit admission that Mayor Thomas P. Koch’s grandiose plans for his $30 million but acre and a half dream theme park in front of Quincy’s City Hall is not happening anytime soon, construction workers were laying asphalt in front of City Hall this week in advance of the planned December 5 gala photo op reopening of old City Hall.
Old City Hall will be finally be reopening over two months late from its last announced reopening of by the end of September as well as at last count at a cost just short of twice the original promised maximum figure of $6.5 million.
The current and but potential start date for actual construction of the Adams Green is perhaps by 2017.
With the past as prologue, the actual start date will surely be pushed back to a future year to yet be determined.
While the City of Quincy recently received a $4.2 million grant from the state for primarily underground infrastructure work necessary in support of the perhaps eventual construction of the long pending Adams Green project, the mayor has yet to have lined up the additional $25 million needed nor is his long proposed basis to do so likely to occur anytime soon.
That and the Koch Maladministration has yet to make any announcement as to its plans for repurposing the memorial bricks that were formally in front of City Hall, much less what is planned for the many memorial ornate cast iron street lights along the route of the Hancock Street misalignment project that have been replaced with expensive new ornate street lights.
Similarly, the Koch Maladministration has yet to publicly acknowledge that it has apparently already spent upwards of $500,000.00 on “heroic” new statues of John Adams and John Hancock for the still pending Adams Green even after the maladministration claimed to be reversing these plans in favor of repurposing the current beloved statutes of Abigail, John Quincy and John Adams that have long graced Quincy Square.
Then again, Mayor Koch never has been known for being forthcoming about his profligately free spending ways with taxpayers’ money.
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This “park” is going to be some sort of freakish tribute to tackiness — an unintended consequence perhaps, but let’s just say there ain’t going to be any drama. It’s going to be grotesque, in your face, kitsch on steroids — pretending to be historically themed. And, of course, taxpayers won’t mind that maintenance for all this stuff is going to line someone’s pockets with OT dollars.
Apparently, neither good taste nor the concept of ‘less is more’ ever crosses Koch’s mind.
There’s already a heroic bust of John Hancock at Adams Academy.
Dom,
No offense, but merely but kitsch would be an unlikely best case scenario.
Koch has long utterly misunderstood that spending silly money is not necessarily any indication of good taste – just look at the WWII memorial statue near the fountain opposite Keohane Funeral Home on Hancock Street. Heck, why not also take a look at the fountain.
That and let’s not forget that the heroic John Hancock bust in front of the Quincy Hysterical Society will likely become available for a short money relocation after Woodward School finally manages to see the $100 a month for 50 years sweetheart deal lease that City Fathers gave the Hysterical Society for use of the Adams Academy building voided by the State Supreme Judicial Court.
In short, as long as Mayor Joch is the mayor of Quincy, Quincy will be little more than a joke.
… memorial benches, memorial bricks, memorial streetlights, memorial fountains, memorial (heroic and otherwise) statues, memorial plantings — plaques on trees, plaques on shrubs, plaques in flower beds — memorial trash receptacles, the memorial granite ball, memorial who knows what the hell else.
And of course there will be interpretive signs, “historical” this, “historical” that.
That and keep off the grass, no swimming in the fountains, no climbing on the “heroic” statues, no smoking, no hunting, no fishing, no soliciting.
Hysterical at every turn!