Designing a moment in time : First Night and Boston's public spaces

From the international Olympic Games to small-scale neighborhood street festivals, ephemeral events produce profound effects on the image of their host cities; in turn, these cities' images influence the character of the ephemeral events produced within the public realm. Boston's annual New Year's Eve celebration, First Night Boston, is among a small group of ephemeral events that significantly contribute to the image of the city. This thesis contains an analysis of the successes, failures, and challenges faced by First Night Boston over the past three decades. Through an analysis of First Night's financial records, event siting, attendance, programming, and in-depth qualitative interviews with key informants, I examine the growth of First Night Boston from a grassroots New Year's Eve celebration on and around Boston Common to one of the largest New Year's Eve events in the world, and the subsequent scaling back of the celebration after the millennium. I trace how First Night's constituency and mission has changed throughout this process, specifically focusing on how changes in funders' priorities and shifting interpretations of First Night's four pillars have caused First Night's programming to become dominated by community arts groups and youth artists rather than professional artists and performers. I frame this discussion by profiling other cities' First Night celebrations and several of Boston's other ephemeral events.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2008

Author dc:creator

• Stone, Ben (Ben Joshua)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• John de Monchaux.

• Urban Studies and Planning.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/44344

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/44344