Monday, 10 October 2011

Government of Boston

Boston has a strong mayor – council government system in which the mayor is vested with extensive executive powers. The mayor is elected to a four-year term by plurality voting. The current mayor of Boston is Thomas Menino. He was elected in 1993 and was reelected in 2009 for a fifth term, the longest in Boston history. Boston City Council is elected every two years. There are nine district seats, each elected by the residents of that district through plurality voting, and four at-large seats. Each voter casts up to four votes for at-large councilors, with no more than one vote per candidate. The candidates with the four highest vote totals are elected. The president of the city council is elected by the councilors from within themselves. The school committee for the Boston Public Schools is appointed by the mayor. The Boston Redevelopment Authority and the Zoning Board of Appeals (a seven-person body appointed by the mayor) share responsibility for land-use planning.




Government Service Center
Map of  Government Service Center Of Boston 


Another very large Brutalist building at Government Center, less prominently located and thus less well known than City Hall, is the Government Service Center, designed by architect Paul Rudolph. The building is unfinished as the tall central tower in the original plan was never built. The adjacent space was filled with the Edward W. Brooke Courthouse in the mid-1990s. This irregularly shaped, sloping lot was the last parcel to be developed of the Government Center urban renewal plan; in the interim the space was used as surface parking.




References to in popular culture


Boston-based seminal proto-punk band The Modern Lovers recorded a song called "Government Center". It was originally released on Beserkley's Chartbusters sampler album. It has been included in re-release versions of "The Modern Lovers" album. In it, singer Jonathan Richman humorously croons about his intent to "Rock non-stop tonight at the Government Center" in order to "Make the secretaries feel better / As they put the stamps on the letters." The song appears in the film "Harmony and Me."
Long Island rock band Brand New, on their debut album Your Favorite Weapon, included a song called "Logan to Government Center".
The Government Service Center building played the role of the Massachusetts State Police headquarters in the 2006 film The Departed.






Geography and transportatio
Government Center T-stop


Government Center is located between the North End and Beacon Hill neighborhoods. It is directly across Congress Street from historic Faneuil Hall and popular Quincy Market and very near the Old State House. It is two blocks away from Interstate 93 (the 'Big Dig') which runs through the historic bloodline of the city.
There has been a subway station here since the first subway in America was built in Boston in 1897. Initially named Scollay Square Station, it was made famous in 1959 when The Kingston Trio performed a cover of a 1948 Boston protest song, originally known as "Charlie On the MTA" but became a national hit as "M.T.A.," about a man who is trapped to ride on the subway forever due to exit fares, an unpopular fare-collection method that survived until 2007 on some MBTA extensions. Today the station, with its brick ziggurat-shaped entrance is known as Government Center Station and is the interchange for the Blue and Green Lines.
Several major city streets either surround or lead to the plaza, including Tremont, Congress, Cambridge, Beacon, State, Washington, and Devonshire Streets. Hints of another street, Cornhill, still exist along one edge of City Hall Plaza—one of the few remaining old buildings (Sears Crescent) facing the square follows the original curve of the street, and one Cornhill Street address is still in use by a veteran's shelter.



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