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The two-newspaper town, Tea Party Museum edition
By adamg on Mon, 04/18/2011 - 11:41am
The Herald follows up today on the Globe's fluff piece yesterday about the rebuilt Tea Party Museum with a front-pager:
A planned new Boston Tea Party Museum - dedicated to the history of America’s first tax revolt - is receiving millions of dollars in city and state aid while the private project's price tag has tripled in just five years, a Herald review shows.
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Comments
Tea Party
From the Herald article it sounded like only $3million of the $27million price tag was actually being given to the museum developer - the remaining funds come from the developer and from an interest bearing loan from the convension center authority that takes 5% of the admissions fees to boot. The $3million comes from the BRA's developer mitigation pool, meaning they are taking it from one developer to give to another. It is troubling that the pool was, according to the Herald, set aside for affordable housing. I'll give the Herald that. However, this is hardly the kind of boondoggle that the state got into with giving businesses tax breaks and grants to build industries that then pick up an move (which the Tea Party Museum can't). Considering how much tourist traffic the old Tea Party Museum used to get, there is something to be said for the argument that it is worth it for the City to put up funds (to be recouped in rooms/meals tax), but hopefully this isn't actually taking money away from an affordable housing project.
Not government's job
Why should government be giving out money to private developers or lending to them? What is their expertise in risk management etc. - what if the Museum is a bust and goes under - the BRA would lose millions. I'm sure there's some collateral but not collateral the city of Boston should be owning.
Govt's job is to creat a level playing field and reasonably regulate businesses - they need to step away from favoring one biz over another (did you see the list of people benefiting from this deal - it's a who's who of Menino's kitchen cabinet).
It is Government's Job
The job of government includes, and has always included, fostering economic growth through the funding and/or construction of engines of commerce. Even before the revolution, the colonial government funded, or providing monopoly rights in exchange for the construction of, the building of the City Dock to foster commerce. In fact, much of the early commercial infrastructure of Boston was build by private developers at the behest of the colonial government in exchange for monopoly rights, if not direct payments. These kinds of projects continued after the revolition and right up to the present. The kinds of infrastucture and instititutions are myriad: railroads, ferry services, universities, the Common, etc., etc. Government's job is not simply to enact laws and sit by while "the invisible hand" works its wonders.
I generally agree - but
A private (for profit?) museum is not infrastructure. Nor was the money intended as a grant for a private entity to benefit friends of the mayor and the governor. Nor should the govt be in the banking biz (other than the federal reserve).
Funding the engines of commerce is one thing, but tricking out the interior for private well-heeled and well connected individuals is a whole different matter.
I don't understand what they
I don't understand what they need three replica ships for. The story of the Boston Tea Party is not the story of those particular ships. The fact that the tea was in the hold of those ships was trivial to the event. It was the people getting together and throwing the tea in the harbor that was the event. It's not like the Mayflower, where you had people living and dying in the ship during the voyage.
There's no money for a Boston History Museum, but they can find money for this? That miserable Greenway would be a good place for the museum, and the land is available. It's a disgrace to the city that a single history museum couldn't be done. I can only assume that there are people pulling strings behind the scenes to prevent it from happening. There are existing historical organizations that probably don't want the competition.
How about a Boston Corruption
How about a Boston Corruption Museum? It'll be huge!
Welcome to privatization
If it's a commercial project, they probably don't care about telling accurate historical stories. They care about making money.
"Bob, what do tourists from Bumfudge, Indiana come to see? I'll tell you. We know they like those tall ships. Get me three of those sumbitches! What else? Tour rides so they don't have to walk? Fattening foods? Gift shops of crap that have 'Boston' printed it? Done and done. We'll have all that shit!"
3 ships vs. 1
1) It's an accuracy issue. There were three ships, not one.
2) It's part of the reason it was quite revolutionary that this protest even happened. Boston, more than Philly and New York, was actually willing to go along with purchasing tea from "validated" sellers who were tithing to the royal government via the East India company. That's why we got 3 ships and not just 1 in the first shipment after the reinstated tax began (a tax that was far less than previously put on the East India tea because it enabled East India to sell below the smuggler prices that had been established during the original tax structure in the previous years). In fact, two groups wanted to protest the new duty: the Whigs because they were tired of taxation without representation (even if the tax was now relatively trivial compared to where it was when it expired the first time), and the smugglers who just had their entire business model undercut in an attempt to "lock-in" the colonies with the East India company again.
So, it's pretty amazing that Boston (the LAST place to kick out the "validated" resellers in the colonies) was sent THREE ships to every other cities' one ship because they expected us to be the MOST willing to just tote the Parliamentary water....and yet HERE is where the protest began out of the town meeting, not NYC or Philly.
Very well-informed post
Thank you. I'm glad you took the time to explain the actual historical facts behind what happened instead of resorting to the typical "development in Boston SUX!!!!!!!" attitude.
OK
HISTORICALLY, FACTUALLY, development in Boston SUX!!!!!!!