Brutal

Latitude: 42.36008400
Longitude: -71.05875500
The wind was cold. Downtown is almost right on the waterfront so it's that much colder, but the light was good for shooting my cesspool. I also wanted to capture the Brutalist architecture of city hall.
I thought it interesting that one of the more progressive cities in the U.S. would have such an Orwellian structure at the core of its administration. Its design was supposed to be open and inviting to the public with the idea that the first levels have wide access to the average Joe, but its function seems more in line. The first few tiers are for the public, then the representatives like the councilors and mayor. It's the least accessible, most on high that the bureaucrats and their function resides.
The looming building itself might be acceptable on its own, but the plaza design surrounding the structure insures that one doesn't want to be out on it for very long. Surrounded by other sterile, Logan's Run type structures it makes a person anxious for cover lest a sniper's round finds its mark.

Blank Maxine and I arrived around 13:30 and made our way from Faneuil Hall to the plaza. Along the way I was snapping shots and learning the very basics of photography. When we made our way to the top, the cesspool was gone. I was crest fallen. One piece of evidence of the fall of western civilization was filled in and paved over, the expanse of concrete marking the place of the disused fountain/wade pool sunken beneath the brick walking/sniper target level. THEY covered the body, but THEY didn't disguise the grave.
We made due with the late twentieth century monoliths to bureaucracy collectively known as government center, our faces slowly numbing in the arctic wind. After getting some shots that I felt were satisfactory for a first time photographer, I had Blank Maxine take portrait shots of me. After giving her a multitude of goofy instructions, she got her shots.
"I'm looking for something that captures a sort of WWI pilot meets Thomas Dolby with a touch of Mad Max" I told her.
"Um...yeah."
So we knocked out a few more shots in the wind swept plain, feeling the shadows that lay across the public space. With a bright, cold sun and modernist buildings chilling our psyches and the final arrival of winter in New England getting to our flesh after this year's greenhouse gas delay, we called it quits for the day.
Rather than reviving the area the mayor (a good guy, although I think he may be a bit beholden to developers), who's often affectionately known as Hizzona or Mumbles in that distinctly Bostonian way, has proposed that they abandon the structure and build a new hall in one of our southern neighborhoods, conveniently named South Boston or Southie for short. After a couple of hours with the behemoth, I think I would miss it. It has become part of the Boston landscape and probably most offends the senses of the 495ers.
Just before I got into the car, some of the old vaudeville/strip club district known as Scollay Square, peeked out at me from slow Disneyfication of the Revolution's birthplace.

Some further reading about Boston City Hall:
Boston City Hall @ Wikipedia
Brutalized in Boston - Boston City Hall