God Bless This [Economic] Mess

[a Boston Globe photo from 1962. from the Sep./Oct. 07 edition of ArchitectureBoston, an issue dedicated entirely to reimagining City Hall.]

Well, not really -- if there's a level of expertise below that of layperson, it is from this vantage point that I can speak of current or future state of the global economy. From down here, it appears to be an unmitigated disaster which has not yet hit bottom, bringing hurt to every socioeconomic bracket out there. That being said, if there's one good thing about the shriveled economy and dearth of new construction [something I am personally experiencing], it appears to have saved Boston City Hall, at least temporarily.
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Mayor Thomas Menino has shelved the initial $2M planning budget for what since 2006 has been an obsession to move City Hall to the Fan Pier area beside the new ICA. The article details some other priorities the Mayor has shifted his focus to, such as $15M in pedestrian accessibility upgrades, as well other more urgent spending areas...presumably snow removal, if the recent snowstorm was any indication.

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Most of the "man on the street" commentary about the building is negative in this article. It brings to mind the question, can a building [especially a public building] be considered good architecture if it is almost universally hated? Even though it was recently crowned "World's Ugliest Building", I don't feel that it is universally hated -- I feel like it evokes incredibly strong, polarized responses.
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They inspire, be it positively or negatively. It seems that some of the best projects are the most hotly debated, while more milquetoast architectural efforts become accepted gradually by a public that want buildings to be pretty, if not ignorable.
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It's true that it needs something -- but that something will be in the form of a scalpel, not a sledgehammer. This graphic essay from ArchitectureBoston has some very intriguing conceptual proposals for re-envisioning City Hall. Some of these designs slice away, some add on, but most importantly, all substantially maintain the existing building and use it as a foundation for new ideas about civic space that make more sense to this century.
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Or, to put it more clearly, from the Boston Preservation Alliance:

“A sustainable revitalization of the existing City Hall could be as innovative today as the original construction was in 1968,” said Mark Pasnik, a designer and director of the gallery pinkcomma, which hosted an exhibition last year on rethinking City Hall. “Boston is missing an incredible opportunity to implement a creative and responsible plan that will revitalize the existing structure, while keeping our government offices in the heart of downtown Boston.”