The University of Massachusetts thought it was doing a neighborhood-improvement thing when it tried to organize a sculpture garden of important work. But now the neighborhood is objecting big time, and someone even went so far as to smash the base for one of the sculptures. “The big issue isn’t the desirability of a sculpture park filled with millions of dollars’ worth of work that would go a long way toward improving Boston’s current reputation as a completely dysfunctional city when it comes to public art. The issue is town-gown friction, a variation on what happens every time Harvard wants to expand its art museums, world-class institutions that enrich not just the university community, but the community at large.” – Boston Globe