Today was the official opening of the Rose Kennedy Greenway - and the second-to-last night of Boston Illuminale. I took a stroll along the Greenway this evening (others took in the new linear park this afternoon - see tons of photos). A big hit among kids and teens was this lit-up mist generator. I wonder if TriGen sponsored it?

Wednesday's Globe contains a glossy supplement advertising this Saturday's all-day inaugural celebration of the Rose Kennedy Greenway. If you want a schedule for this event, I strongly advise you to keep the ad booklet and forget about the Web site.

Because the online schedule is close to useless. There's no way to navigate it except forward and backward page by page, one page at a time. You can't search by time of day. You can't put all the events on a single page for printing. You can search by Location, but then you have to decide between "Wharf District" and "Wharf District Parks" and half a dozen other variations on that. There's a free-form text box, but it won't help you unless you somehow happen to know the exact words used in some event description. ("Bicycle", no; "Bicycling", no; "Cycling", yes.)

The Greenway Conservancy would have done much better to simply post a PDF of the ad booklet on their web site.

Tom Menino wants to limit building heights along the Greenway.

Ablarc discusses (with photos) appropriate scale of buildings along Newbury and Boylston streets.

Vanshnookenraggen calls for a new role for the BRA:

... The BRA used to work along the top-down approach. They were the educated elite and their new plans for the city would fix all its problems. As time has proved over and over this is the wrong way to do things. We need a bottom up approach. But can a massive bureaucracy work bottom-up? I think it can and it has to if we are going to seriously start fixing the problems of the city. ...

Dave Atkins took a walk along the Rose Kennedy Greenway recently and was amazed at the change it's meant:

... Gazing along what used to be an impassable mass of green steel and concrete once can see an arc of green and from one vantage point, glimpse South Station and the spire of the Old North Church at the same time. It is possible to walk between all these parts of the city--and also to see the harbor. I remember how as a college student I was hardly even aware there was a Boston Harbor--it was hidden behind the highway. Today the city is connected and once can see the bay, the airport, and beyond. ...

He notes the Greenway is holding a coming out party on Saturday, Oct. 4.