Old Boston, new Boston: a work in progress

Between the city's gleaming financial district and red-bricked North End, just a few hundred yards from the site of next week's Democratic National Convention, unused pipes and palettes of wood litter block after block of city streets.

They are probably the most famous construction leftovers in the world.

For a city desperately working, even now, to put on a Sunday polish for a week of national attention, these reminders of the historically expensive and divisive Big Dig are alarmingly visible.

During the convention, the city will point to the near-complete megaproject as a symbol of a visionary "New Boston," a city that is brainy, innovative, progressive, and tolerant - part Athens, part Silicon Valley, part Greenwich Village.

But that's just one side of Boston's persona, and the Dig also symbolizes flaws in this city's character - from neighborhood turf wars to political cronyism that critics cite as a factor behind the project's huge cost overruns.

And beneath all that, the Dig encapsulates in 2004 a tension that has characterized this city since colonial days: the struggle between tradition and innovation.

That tension emerged as soon as the Puritans debated how best to retain the purity of their holy experiment amid the influence of commercial trade and modern comforts.

A fateful intensity, it seems, has always characterized Bostonians' struggle to shape their city. As John Winthrop, the city's first leader wrote, Boston was meant to be a "city upon a hill," an example for the world.

Today this metropolis, arguably more than any other major US city, still wrestles with how to preserve its historic character and close-knit neighborhoods while also striving for the elusive prize of being a world-class city.

As delegates gather next week, literally in the shadow of Boston's new answer to the Golden Gate Bridge, this is the context of Boston's 2004 biography.

"I think we're really at a crossroads," says Robert David Sullivan, associate editor of CommonWealth magazine. "Boston is divided between people who want it to become a dynamic world-class city, and those who want it to retain its small, local character."

The Big Dig was designed to cut through the tangle of outmoded highways and under the archaic maze of winding streets, allowing Boston's business to flow at 21st-century volume and velocity.

The Dig's tunnels and suspension bridges have eased congestion somewhat. And the project paves the way for a new greenspace, where trendy shops and luxury condos may prosper.

But this is all part of a longstanding, and often controversial process. As the city has welcomed an influx of urban chic in recent years, many believe the city's modest, working-class character could vanish.

Many of Boston's contradictions are embodied in its mayor, Thomas Menino, a quintessential city boss whose bearing seems more suited to construction than the capital.

Mayor Menino is from the neighborhood of Hyde Park, and "Da Mayor" has established his political base, block by block, among the working class.

Yet Menino is clearly trying to forge a legacy based on big ideas. It was under his watch, after all, that the Dig seemed to near completion, and he remains the steward over hundreds of real-estate projects sprouting across the city.

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