I’ll welcome a sprucing up of Downtown Crossing but I worry when I read stuff like this:
‘It’s tired, it’s dirty, and it can be a real downer,” said David Levin, chief executive of Casual Male Retail Group Inc., which opened a store recently in Downtown Crossing. ‘’It has a real identity crisis.”
The reality of Downtown Crossing is increasingly at odds with the higher-end image that some residents, retailers, and city officials want the neighborhood to have. Stylish boutiques, swank restaurants, and simple conveniences — perhaps a supermarket — are in growing demand.
In recent years, the arrival of luxury hotel Nine Zero and million-dollar condominiums at the Ritz-Carlton Towers have brought an upscale vibe, along with new residents, to the outskirts of Downtown Crossing.
For heaven’s sake, does everything have to be upscale? The great thing about Downtown Crossing is that it’s served as the People’s shopping district, accommodating rich and poor alike. On much of Washington Street at least, it’s a vital retail area, everything you could hope for from a city distict.
Further down Washington and on some of the side streets in the Ladder District, vacancy rates and absentee landlordism are problems. But let’s address those without making everything Newbury Street.
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