Freedom Trail gets some fresh attention> Boosters seek to spruce up Boston attraction

BOSTON — Sound-and-light shows, virtual reality exhibits and other 20th century ideas would be used to boost attendance at the 18th century historic sites that make up Boston’s famous Freedom Trail under a plan to be released on Friday.

The number of people who visit Faneuil Hall, the Old North Church, the Paul Revere House and the other places linked by the 3-mile trail has been stagnant for 10 years in the face of competition from the city’s aquarium, museums and other attractions with big marketing budgets.

“For a long time, especially in a place like Boston, history didn’t have any competition,” said David Dixon, a consultant who prepared the plan. “There’s been a recognition that the competition has arrived and been effective, and now you’re seeing the reaction.”

The proposal calls for a 25,000-square-foot, $6.5 million-dollar high-tech visitor center, $2.5 million worth of public art and sidewalk improvements, costumed actors, audio headsets for visitors, a 360-degree theater and a nightly summer sound-and-light show at the USS Constitution.

“This is hallowed ground,” said Dixon. “It’s as sacred as Gettysburg or any of the battlefields that come immediately to people’s minds. The idea is to reawaken people’s interest.”

Under the proposal, a new director would be named to the nonprofit Freedom Trail Foundation and new signs would be in place in time for the 200th birthday of the USS Constitution next summer.

“The more you think about this, it’s basic. It’s not schlock. It’s really basic concepts of how to beef this up,” said John Burchill, superintendent of the Boston National Historical Park, an arm of the National Park Service that operates many of the Freedom Trail sites and commissioned the report.

Some of the slow trickle of tourists along the Freedom Trail Thursday had differing reactions.

“I guess you’re entering the multimedia age. You sort of have to upgrade everything,” said Jason Stillwagon of Pittsburgh, who wanted to walk the trail once before he graduates from Boston College Monday. He said he tried to get some friends to come along, but no one would.

“There’s a lot of apathy,” Stillwagon said. “It’s here, people talk about it, but nobody goes.”

Mindy Batchelor of Mount Carmel, Ill., said as she left the USS Constitution that she had never heard of the Freedom Trail; she had been taken to the ship by a tour bus. But Batchelor said she thought “Old Ironsides” was just fine the way it was.

“I don’t even live here and I don’t think there should be light shows over the USS Constitution,” she said.

“That’s commercializing it,” echoed Roy Hinz, a visitor from Appleton, Wis. “For that, you go to Disney World.”

A tourist from Atlanta, Kim Moses, said outside the Old North Church that she didn’t know anything about the Freedom Trail until a friend studying in Boston took her there. She recommended: “Do a brochure. Talk it up.”

In fact, there is no Freedom Trail brochure. Many of the sites are operated independently by everyone from private foundations to the Navy and have different operating hours and admission charges. Information about them in travel guides often is inaccurate or contradictory and the red line in the sidewalk that denotes the trail disappears at some points and seems to go in opposite directions at others.

In the last 10 years, the park service has spent $45 million renovating Faneuil Hall, the Old State House, the Old South Meeting House and other sites, but still attendance has been steady at about 2 million while the Museum of Science, New England Aquarium and Museum of Fine Arts all have seen dramatic increases in attendance.