Chiofaro Circus

Forget about that big top parked on City Hall Plaza right now.

This season’s real must-see circus pulled into the lobby of International Place last week, as Hub developer Don Chiofaro called a press conference to pillory the Boston Redevelopment Authority and to call for an end to the nasty, highly personal back-and-forth that has dominated the debate over the future of Chiofaro’s Harbor Garage.

In Boston, most developers fear crossing Mayor Tom Menino at all, let alone in public. Chiofaro took the opposite approach, inviting a sizable crowd to come watch him launch a gleeful broadside at City Hall.

He jabbed at the mayor, while saying he just wanted to have "an intelligent discussion, like adults." He called the BRA’s Greenway development study "a foregone conclusion in search of data," and spoke wistfully of years past, when the BRA, "as an economic development agency, actually thought about economic feasibility." He said he wouldn’t relent "until we can, at the very least, get an audience with the people pulling the strings on the Greenway development. And everybody knows who that is."

He smiled broadly, taking questions from reporters ("Bruce, it’s nice to see you, it’s been a long time"), and parrying with protesting Harbor Towers residents.

Asked why he won’t turn the monstrous garage into a park modeled on Post Office Square, he told one neighbor, "I don’t know where you’re going to park while I do it."

And none of it was personal, he insisted.

"This is not about personal vendettas," he said. "There’s no place in this conversation for that. I’d like to focus on the merits of the project. I’d like to elevate the dialogue so all the people who have a vested interest in the Greenway have a chance to be heard. It’s the people’s Greenway."