KICK-STARTING METRO BOSTON'S BEST URBAN OPPORTUNITY
Deep in Nepal's Himalayan reaches, an elixir is rumored to exist. In whoever ingests it, this potion is said to induce the most eleemosynary of impulses. Lifelong foes fall rapturously into each other's arms, Yankee fans toast Red Sox victories, Allston residents send love letters to Harvard's President and muggers put away their Glocks.
While touring monasteries in a saffron robe, Harvard researcher J. Doe was urged to smuggle back a potent dose of elixir, which he promptly slipped into the Cambridge water supply. Among many observable consequences, NIMBYism in Cambridge sank without a trace.
It was the start of the Era of Good Will.
* * *
Swept up in good feeling, politicians and planners of Cambridge immediately set about devising improvements to their neat little city. They decided to concentrate first on slightly shopworn Central Square:
Potential both obvious and unrealized.
Because all improvements they proposed made sense, no one in the attitude-enhanced city rose in opposition. Clear sailing lay ahead in every direction.
Here's what they did:
1. They banned new parking lots.
They didn't immediately ban the existing parking lots, and they didn't ban new parking garages --though they required these to have ground floor retail, mechanical ventilation and glass windows (if aboveground).
2. They lifted all reference to height limits in all parts of Central Square where buildings touched or were permitted to touch.
This constituted the de facto redevelopment district. Along Mass Ave its boundaries were set at Dana Street in the west and Main Street in the east.
3. They forbade more than two existing adjacent properties (of whatever size) to be developed by the same entity as part of a single project.
This had the effect of preserving Central Square's scale, which had nothing whatever to do with building height --something the elixirized former-nimbys readily perceived in their new-found intimacy with Truth.
4. They landmarked all nine of Central Square's buildings that had lasting architectural or historic value.
And they did so with wisdom that was applauded by historians, preservationists and architecture critics.
5. They notified all owners of unlandmarked single-story buildings and existing parking lots that they had three years to submit redevelopment plans
or have their properties taken by eminent domain (with market-value compensation). You can imagine how quickly these fallow properties sprouted development.
Parking lots just one block off Mass Ave on Bishop Allen Drive extend to both sides of Prospect Street and render Central Square as one-street shopping.
6. They requested and got permission to build additional entrances to Central Square's subway station at the southeastern end.
This had the effect of providing MIT with a second usable subway stop, while stimulating development of the parking lots on that institution's northwest fringe.
7. They founded the Prospect Street Railway, a historic streetcar line to run up Prospect Street to Inman Square and down River Street,
across the bridge, to Brighton Center. Like the old, much-lamented Huntington Avenue line, this was to have no ROW separation, therefore it was not light rail. Power is from a winter-snowstorm-heated slot between the tracks, thus eliminating unsightly overhead wires. Visitors love it and residents ride it too. Inman Square is now on the tourist circuit with even more top-notch restaurants stretching along Prospect Street Railway between the two squares. Ridership is surprisingly high (must be because it's fun).
Prospect Street Railway.
Melbourne, Milan, Budapest, Lisbon, Istanbul, Toronto and Bratislava all contributed streetcars, while Newark sold Cambridge the last six of its PCC's. Farebox revenues support the line ($3 for tourists paying cash, $1 for residents swiping a pass). Weekend and holiday drivers are unpaid volunteers, drivers at other times are non-union (most are graduate students working part-time).
8. They adjusted Central Square's zoning such that night-time entertainment uses were encouraged --including a two-block stretch for adult entertainment
parallel to Mass Ave on parking-lot-blighted Bishop Allen Drive. The good bishop's name provided the Square a droll disconnect of street name and function. Boston was glad to see combat zoning move across the river.
9. They revised the signage code to allow unlimited neon --including flashing and moving signs-- on unlandmarked buildings, while limiting backlit plastic signs
to a modest dimension. LED and plasma signs would be considered case-by-case.
Massachusetts Avenue and Prospect Street were enlivened, and parts of Bishop Allen Drive acquired bawdy neon similar to what had once animated lower Washington Street.
10. They convinced the T to run railed transport till 3am on Friday and Saturday nights throughout the MBTA system --including hourly commuter rail.
Late night drunks deserted driving in droves, and nightlife thrived.
11. They devised a system of mid-block alleys perpendicular to Mass Ave toward both Green Street and Bishop Allen Drive.
This had the effect of expanding Central Square's business district to three parallel shopping streets --Allen Drive, Mass Ave, Green Street-- connected to each other by the alleys.
12. Parking could be underground or on upper floors if ventilated and equipped with glass windows, but no off-street parking was allowed anywhere at grade.
All parking produced revenue. Residents paid by the month, workers by the day, and shoppers parked free with a store receipt; shops were assessed a monthly fee from their revenues.
13. As a basis for providing incentive bonuses, they adopted an FAR of 8 for Central Square, but they exempted retail, entertainment and indoor parking,
meaning any amount of these could be built. Thus you could build 8 stories above your retail and parking if your tower had the floor area of your lot, or 16 stories if it took up half your lot's area, or 32 stories if a quarter ... and so forth.
Since you could include floor upon floor of retail and indoor parking without any effect on your FAR, you could build a skyscraper of forty stories or more or a boulevard building of, say, 11 stories; or pretty much anything else you chose. But whatever you did, there were always those FAR bonuses gently promoting the city's goals.
14. They provided generous FAR bonuses for art and entertainment uses they wished to promote.
If you put in a nightclub, a theatre, cinemas or a gallery, you got an FAR of 14. So you could build theoretically a five-story shopping mall with cinemas and five stories of parking beneath a tower that took up a third of your lot's area and soared forty-two additional stories, for a total height of, say, 52 stories. Within that tower could be a mixture of offices, apartments and hotel rooms.
Terra-cotta.
15. If on top of all else you provided Grade B back office space or affordable housing, you got an FAR of 16.
This caused a migration of clerical functions from Financial District banks, and proliferated purpose-built profit-making student housing. Commercial dormitories were developed whose only requirement was enrollment in a college --any college.
16. In a flash of inspiration, they granted a 20% FAR increase to any set of plans that included substantial ornament of durable material such as terra-cotta, stone or iron --or 7% for a bold color scheme.
Because they had been drinking the water, even the achitects agreed. A committee was empowered to monitor for blatant kitsch. Central Square became known for its ornamented architecture, and looked lke it had been around for a while. The public felt comfortable because it seemed like the developers of new buildings were motivated by something besides greed (little did most folks know about the FAR ploy); and the developers liked it because though they were motivated by greed, it didn't show.
17. With incentives, they convinced the Culinary Institute of America to open a New England branch in Central Square.
The Institute's three teaching restaurants formed the nucleus for an explosion of new eateries and cafes. Central Square became a mecca for gastronomes and students alike, who flocked there nightly from all over metropolitan Boston --attracted by transport accessibility and the critical mass of over 50 hip, new restaurants and their customers. The sidewalks and newly-created alleys filled up with tables and chairs, and folks braved the weather to eat and drink alfresco from April through October. Four-star restaurants with table cloths jostled for business with stroop waffle stands and gyro. Funnel cakes, bratwurst, even Bismarck herring vied for Greater Boston's gastronomic dollars.
18. They bought the Post Office from the Feds and leased it to a developer who converted its splendid deco presence into a multi-story shopping mall.
Bustling commerce moved in right across from City Hall.
The developer re-opened the skylights and added a swathe of shops and offices and a thirty-story sliver of condominiums facing Green Street. This spurred immediate redevelopment of that street's dismal parking lots with retail restaurants and bars, surmounted by apartments, offices and a boutique hotel.
19. They pedestrianized two blocks of Green Street between Magazine Street and Sellers Street.
The street blossomed. Exuberant color appeared spontaneously in place of former drabness.
Pedestrianized Green Street teeming with eateries.
20. At municipal expense, they built a partly glass-roofed City Market structure.
Thursdays were to be for stamps and coins, used books, music, prints and artwork, Fridays for serious antiques and collectibles, Saturdays for produce and fish, and Sundays for crafts, retro clothing and funky antiques. First Sunday in May sees the invitational Louis Vuitton Cambridge Concours d'Elegance, where each year fifty of the world's finest cars are judged and premiated.
Louis Vuitton Concours d'Elegance.
21. A mile up Mass Ave in Harvard Square, they banned further proliferation of national or multi-state chain stores and restaurants to preserve that square's ambient quirkiness.
They simultaneously welcomed the same chains' rent-inflating presence to Central Square. They allowed just one branch bank per block, limited to forty feet of frontage. The Gap moves to Central Square, and banks sprouted mezzanines for loan officers. So many clothing stores located in Central Square that Filene's Basement forsook its Washington Street location to anchor the sartorial chaos in Central Square; they got tired of waiting for their new digs to be completed. Tattoo parlors, body piercing, hair tinting establishment and designer jewelers joined the mix; the latter qualified as galleries and came with FAR bonuses, so some actually got free rent from their developer-landlords.
22. They lured consulting engineers, Arthur D. Little, to develop the Square's signature skyscraper: a slender 46 stories of green design by Christian de Pontzamparc with Jean Nouvel.
Central Square's world-class monument, the world's most energy-efficient building, features a three-story Museum of the Environment. The Little Building is Central Square's tallest. This started a migration of engineering firms to Central Square, where they became the first class office market's specialty. England's Arup opens an American headquarters. Transportation consultants proliferate.
From the rooftop restaurant of an engineering firm's building you can see for miles.
23. They invited Harvard to locate its new state-of-the-art museum in Central Square in place of one of the parking lots.
Rejected by the view-obsessed gent down by the river side and the mother hens of Allston, this Renzo Piano-designed attraction put Central Square firmly on the tourist map. Michelin gave it two stars, and two displays hastened to heep it company; the West Coast's Blackhawk Collection of million dollar cars opened an East Coast showroom ($5 admission) and Arthur D. Little unveiled the world's definitive Museum of Energy and the Environment: five stories of do-gooding.
24. For improved access from the Airport and Downtown Boston, they got the MBTA to finish the Blue Line all the way to Charles/MGH.
The whole world got a little closer to Central Square.
25. In a bold gift to walkers, they closed Western Ave. and River St. between Mass Ave and Franklin St., thus finally creating the Square in Central Square.
The big church became a focal point of the plaza, and slender towers sprang up on the fallow parcels on Green at Western Avenue and on Green between Western and River. The latter parcel welcomed the Arthur D. Little Building, Central Square's tallest.
Now Central Square was no longer just a name for an intersection. It was as real as the one in Venice, and an international competition produced for it a magnificent redesign, complete with a monumental work of sculpture by Gregg Wyatt.
Three views of a sculpture by Wyatt:
26. As a public service, the Parks Department built a recreational park for readers. It consisted of seven stories of low rent space for used bookstores.
It sat on top of a reborn Orson Welles Cinema, also low rent, that tempts with seven silver screens: two for revival double features of classic movies, two for indie movies, two for foreign films and one for non-stop Bollywood.
27. They licensed electric-assisted pedicabs (regenerative braking) to operate to Harvard Square in one direction and to Boston's Boylston Street in the other.
Tourists loved them, and the mostly-student drivers built leg muscles and cardiovascular health.
28. They required party hats atop all buildings over 21 stories.
This yielded an entertaining little skyline visible from Boston, where it caused twinges of envy.
29. They planted 400 5" caliper Sycamore trees. All Central Square streets were beneficiaries.
Mature sycamores provided dense shade and tree cover. Mass Ave came to resemble a Parisian boulevard with dense street cover.
* * *
.
Deep in Nepal's Himalayan reaches, an elixir is rumored to exist. In whoever ingests it, this potion is said to induce the most eleemosynary of impulses. Lifelong foes fall rapturously into each other's arms, Yankee fans toast Red Sox victories, Allston residents send love letters to Harvard's President and muggers put away their Glocks.
While touring monasteries in a saffron robe, Harvard researcher J. Doe was urged to smuggle back a potent dose of elixir, which he promptly slipped into the Cambridge water supply. Among many observable consequences, NIMBYism in Cambridge sank without a trace.
It was the start of the Era of Good Will.
* * *
Swept up in good feeling, politicians and planners of Cambridge immediately set about devising improvements to their neat little city. They decided to concentrate first on slightly shopworn Central Square:
Potential both obvious and unrealized.
Because all improvements they proposed made sense, no one in the attitude-enhanced city rose in opposition. Clear sailing lay ahead in every direction.
Here's what they did:
1. They banned new parking lots.
They didn't immediately ban the existing parking lots, and they didn't ban new parking garages --though they required these to have ground floor retail, mechanical ventilation and glass windows (if aboveground).
2. They lifted all reference to height limits in all parts of Central Square where buildings touched or were permitted to touch.
This constituted the de facto redevelopment district. Along Mass Ave its boundaries were set at Dana Street in the west and Main Street in the east.
3. They forbade more than two existing adjacent properties (of whatever size) to be developed by the same entity as part of a single project.
This had the effect of preserving Central Square's scale, which had nothing whatever to do with building height --something the elixirized former-nimbys readily perceived in their new-found intimacy with Truth.
4. They landmarked all nine of Central Square's buildings that had lasting architectural or historic value.
And they did so with wisdom that was applauded by historians, preservationists and architecture critics.
5. They notified all owners of unlandmarked single-story buildings and existing parking lots that they had three years to submit redevelopment plans
or have their properties taken by eminent domain (with market-value compensation). You can imagine how quickly these fallow properties sprouted development.
Parking lots just one block off Mass Ave on Bishop Allen Drive extend to both sides of Prospect Street and render Central Square as one-street shopping.
6. They requested and got permission to build additional entrances to Central Square's subway station at the southeastern end.
This had the effect of providing MIT with a second usable subway stop, while stimulating development of the parking lots on that institution's northwest fringe.
7. They founded the Prospect Street Railway, a historic streetcar line to run up Prospect Street to Inman Square and down River Street,
across the bridge, to Brighton Center. Like the old, much-lamented Huntington Avenue line, this was to have no ROW separation, therefore it was not light rail. Power is from a winter-snowstorm-heated slot between the tracks, thus eliminating unsightly overhead wires. Visitors love it and residents ride it too. Inman Square is now on the tourist circuit with even more top-notch restaurants stretching along Prospect Street Railway between the two squares. Ridership is surprisingly high (must be because it's fun).
Prospect Street Railway.
Melbourne, Milan, Budapest, Lisbon, Istanbul, Toronto and Bratislava all contributed streetcars, while Newark sold Cambridge the last six of its PCC's. Farebox revenues support the line ($3 for tourists paying cash, $1 for residents swiping a pass). Weekend and holiday drivers are unpaid volunteers, drivers at other times are non-union (most are graduate students working part-time).
8. They adjusted Central Square's zoning such that night-time entertainment uses were encouraged --including a two-block stretch for adult entertainment
parallel to Mass Ave on parking-lot-blighted Bishop Allen Drive. The good bishop's name provided the Square a droll disconnect of street name and function. Boston was glad to see combat zoning move across the river.
9. They revised the signage code to allow unlimited neon --including flashing and moving signs-- on unlandmarked buildings, while limiting backlit plastic signs
to a modest dimension. LED and plasma signs would be considered case-by-case.
Massachusetts Avenue and Prospect Street were enlivened, and parts of Bishop Allen Drive acquired bawdy neon similar to what had once animated lower Washington Street.
10. They convinced the T to run railed transport till 3am on Friday and Saturday nights throughout the MBTA system --including hourly commuter rail.
Late night drunks deserted driving in droves, and nightlife thrived.
11. They devised a system of mid-block alleys perpendicular to Mass Ave toward both Green Street and Bishop Allen Drive.
This had the effect of expanding Central Square's business district to three parallel shopping streets --Allen Drive, Mass Ave, Green Street-- connected to each other by the alleys.
12. Parking could be underground or on upper floors if ventilated and equipped with glass windows, but no off-street parking was allowed anywhere at grade.
All parking produced revenue. Residents paid by the month, workers by the day, and shoppers parked free with a store receipt; shops were assessed a monthly fee from their revenues.
13. As a basis for providing incentive bonuses, they adopted an FAR of 8 for Central Square, but they exempted retail, entertainment and indoor parking,
meaning any amount of these could be built. Thus you could build 8 stories above your retail and parking if your tower had the floor area of your lot, or 16 stories if it took up half your lot's area, or 32 stories if a quarter ... and so forth.
Since you could include floor upon floor of retail and indoor parking without any effect on your FAR, you could build a skyscraper of forty stories or more or a boulevard building of, say, 11 stories; or pretty much anything else you chose. But whatever you did, there were always those FAR bonuses gently promoting the city's goals.
14. They provided generous FAR bonuses for art and entertainment uses they wished to promote.
If you put in a nightclub, a theatre, cinemas or a gallery, you got an FAR of 14. So you could build theoretically a five-story shopping mall with cinemas and five stories of parking beneath a tower that took up a third of your lot's area and soared forty-two additional stories, for a total height of, say, 52 stories. Within that tower could be a mixture of offices, apartments and hotel rooms.
Terra-cotta.
15. If on top of all else you provided Grade B back office space or affordable housing, you got an FAR of 16.
This caused a migration of clerical functions from Financial District banks, and proliferated purpose-built profit-making student housing. Commercial dormitories were developed whose only requirement was enrollment in a college --any college.
16. In a flash of inspiration, they granted a 20% FAR increase to any set of plans that included substantial ornament of durable material such as terra-cotta, stone or iron --or 7% for a bold color scheme.
Because they had been drinking the water, even the achitects agreed. A committee was empowered to monitor for blatant kitsch. Central Square became known for its ornamented architecture, and looked lke it had been around for a while. The public felt comfortable because it seemed like the developers of new buildings were motivated by something besides greed (little did most folks know about the FAR ploy); and the developers liked it because though they were motivated by greed, it didn't show.
17. With incentives, they convinced the Culinary Institute of America to open a New England branch in Central Square.
The Institute's three teaching restaurants formed the nucleus for an explosion of new eateries and cafes. Central Square became a mecca for gastronomes and students alike, who flocked there nightly from all over metropolitan Boston --attracted by transport accessibility and the critical mass of over 50 hip, new restaurants and their customers. The sidewalks and newly-created alleys filled up with tables and chairs, and folks braved the weather to eat and drink alfresco from April through October. Four-star restaurants with table cloths jostled for business with stroop waffle stands and gyro. Funnel cakes, bratwurst, even Bismarck herring vied for Greater Boston's gastronomic dollars.
18. They bought the Post Office from the Feds and leased it to a developer who converted its splendid deco presence into a multi-story shopping mall.
Bustling commerce moved in right across from City Hall.
The developer re-opened the skylights and added a swathe of shops and offices and a thirty-story sliver of condominiums facing Green Street. This spurred immediate redevelopment of that street's dismal parking lots with retail restaurants and bars, surmounted by apartments, offices and a boutique hotel.
19. They pedestrianized two blocks of Green Street between Magazine Street and Sellers Street.
The street blossomed. Exuberant color appeared spontaneously in place of former drabness.
Pedestrianized Green Street teeming with eateries.
20. At municipal expense, they built a partly glass-roofed City Market structure.
Thursdays were to be for stamps and coins, used books, music, prints and artwork, Fridays for serious antiques and collectibles, Saturdays for produce and fish, and Sundays for crafts, retro clothing and funky antiques. First Sunday in May sees the invitational Louis Vuitton Cambridge Concours d'Elegance, where each year fifty of the world's finest cars are judged and premiated.
Louis Vuitton Concours d'Elegance.
21. A mile up Mass Ave in Harvard Square, they banned further proliferation of national or multi-state chain stores and restaurants to preserve that square's ambient quirkiness.
They simultaneously welcomed the same chains' rent-inflating presence to Central Square. They allowed just one branch bank per block, limited to forty feet of frontage. The Gap moves to Central Square, and banks sprouted mezzanines for loan officers. So many clothing stores located in Central Square that Filene's Basement forsook its Washington Street location to anchor the sartorial chaos in Central Square; they got tired of waiting for their new digs to be completed. Tattoo parlors, body piercing, hair tinting establishment and designer jewelers joined the mix; the latter qualified as galleries and came with FAR bonuses, so some actually got free rent from their developer-landlords.
22. They lured consulting engineers, Arthur D. Little, to develop the Square's signature skyscraper: a slender 46 stories of green design by Christian de Pontzamparc with Jean Nouvel.
Central Square's world-class monument, the world's most energy-efficient building, features a three-story Museum of the Environment. The Little Building is Central Square's tallest. This started a migration of engineering firms to Central Square, where they became the first class office market's specialty. England's Arup opens an American headquarters. Transportation consultants proliferate.
From the rooftop restaurant of an engineering firm's building you can see for miles.
23. They invited Harvard to locate its new state-of-the-art museum in Central Square in place of one of the parking lots.
Rejected by the view-obsessed gent down by the river side and the mother hens of Allston, this Renzo Piano-designed attraction put Central Square firmly on the tourist map. Michelin gave it two stars, and two displays hastened to heep it company; the West Coast's Blackhawk Collection of million dollar cars opened an East Coast showroom ($5 admission) and Arthur D. Little unveiled the world's definitive Museum of Energy and the Environment: five stories of do-gooding.
24. For improved access from the Airport and Downtown Boston, they got the MBTA to finish the Blue Line all the way to Charles/MGH.
The whole world got a little closer to Central Square.
25. In a bold gift to walkers, they closed Western Ave. and River St. between Mass Ave and Franklin St., thus finally creating the Square in Central Square.
The big church became a focal point of the plaza, and slender towers sprang up on the fallow parcels on Green at Western Avenue and on Green between Western and River. The latter parcel welcomed the Arthur D. Little Building, Central Square's tallest.
Now Central Square was no longer just a name for an intersection. It was as real as the one in Venice, and an international competition produced for it a magnificent redesign, complete with a monumental work of sculpture by Gregg Wyatt.
Three views of a sculpture by Wyatt:
26. As a public service, the Parks Department built a recreational park for readers. It consisted of seven stories of low rent space for used bookstores.
It sat on top of a reborn Orson Welles Cinema, also low rent, that tempts with seven silver screens: two for revival double features of classic movies, two for indie movies, two for foreign films and one for non-stop Bollywood.
27. They licensed electric-assisted pedicabs (regenerative braking) to operate to Harvard Square in one direction and to Boston's Boylston Street in the other.
Tourists loved them, and the mostly-student drivers built leg muscles and cardiovascular health.
28. They required party hats atop all buildings over 21 stories.
This yielded an entertaining little skyline visible from Boston, where it caused twinges of envy.
29. They planted 400 5" caliper Sycamore trees. All Central Square streets were beneficiaries.
Mature sycamores provided dense shade and tree cover. Mass Ave came to resemble a Parisian boulevard with dense street cover.
* * *
.
