Museum Of Science Renovations | 1 Science Park | West End

If you're looking for prime, core, state-owned, transit-accessible pacels on Charles River Dam Rd. for a 800+tower, I'd suggest:
- Boston End: State Police barracks catty-corner from Science Park T
- Cambridge End: Historic (but decrepit) MDC structure

And throw in privately held:
-- Boston: 100 Nashua St Parking
-- Cambridge College building, surface lot, and scrubland @ Museum Way
 
Just want to say that @Arlington has done a great job making this point re both MOS and Aquarium, and as someone who was very skeptical of the value of these garages I've been convinced both of their necessity and their limited downside (due to high rates of carpooling). My only question would be in regards to the MFA, which is significantly less reliant on "family" traffic. However, without signifigant E Line upgrades it also has worse transit access than the others
 
FitchburgLine said:
My only question would be in regards to the MFA, which is significantly less reliant on "family" traffic. However, without signifigant E Line upgrades it also has worse transit access than the others
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We un-schooled 4 kids--which in Boston means lots of awesome trips (ranging from Sturbridge Village to "Plimoth" to Merrimack) and teaching them to take all transit (the MBTA makes it easy for homeschoolers to get student T passes, too). The E Line is simply too far from connecting to where families live in the metro area. I'd wager that the E has the most-skewed "no kid" catchment of any transit line. (GLX will partly solve this)

I hate to say this, but I wondered how much of the "kids don't go to the MFA" is "art is boring" vs bad parking. Neither is a reason to be proud of, but it seemed to me to be a self-reinforcing spiral: kids don't go to the MFA because... garage-beyond-surface-lot isn't good for exhausted kids... because the MFA is not expecting kids to come...

My (tweens) kids can take the 80 to MOS (or, really, to the Cambridgeside Mall), and we know lots of families in Somerville that take the 87/80/etc to MOS, but, even so, once a parent decides to go too, the car wins.

MOS will clearly gain from GLX...now instead of "mostly-just-the-E" you'll get both D&E and real North Station connections will be possible. But I'm an outlier. Most families live far from the MOS's transit, and so back to the garage they go...
 
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One more huge "must have garage" thing:

The Stuff:
- where to take off your coat and mittens (leave them in the car)
- where the books, stuffed animals, and "trip companion" items end up (leave them in the car)
- where the juice box(es) and puffed nonsense is stashed (leave it in the car, fetch at snack time)
- where the Exit Through the Gift Shop haul is hauled (home, via car)

The MOS has nailed this.
 
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The MOS does have rental lockers also, which in my experience are very well used.
 
cden4 said:
The MOS does have rental lockers also, which in my experience are very well used.
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All the museums have lockers (NEAq, MOS, MFA, BCM) and they are essentially recognition that people bring a lot of stuff to manage the I'm Hot/Cold Full/Hungry In/Out cycles that they experience as visitors. Young kids add even more "comfort gear" (books, plushies, screens) for the trip itself.

The MOS' directly-attached garage allows you to most clearly realize: "I've already got a locker, in the form of a car, with 10x the cubic capacity, 4x the doors, 2x the "keys" (that I already hold and know how to use), and involves less schlepping (drop and pickup at the threshhold, rather than after "the tickets"), and for which I've already paid"

So the car wins on both "stuff" and on low-carbon-per-passenger-mile and HOV urban mobility.
 
So this is technically a different project than the thread was established for, but whatever... the name still works.

www.bostonglobe.com

Museum of Science to unveil major renovation in mid-2026 - The Boston Globe

President Tim Ritchie says the new Public Science Common, funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies, will help the community “think out loud.”
www.bostonglobe.com www.bostonglobe.com

Once again, our favorite love-to-hate-him former NY Mayor is footing the bill... I don't remember the Cahners Theater being nearly this big, though. My most memorable moment in there was getting freaked the heck out at 7 years old on a Cub Scout sleepover - they did a movie where the T-Rex came to life and walked around the museum, and it ended with her approaching the door to the theater... and then it opened... and then I didn't sleep.

I was in there a few other times as a kid. It has the same vibe/size as a university lecture hall. This seems like a total concept change that requires much more than a simple curtain wall.

“If the museum stands for anything, I would say it stands for the concept of ‘active hope,’” said Ritchie.
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I hope it stands for promoting scientific literacy more than anything, but whatever.

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Equilibria said:
Once again, our favorite love-to-hate-him former NY Mayor is footing the bill... I don't remember the Cahners Theater being nearly this big, though. My most memorable moment in there was getting freaked the heck out at 7 years old on a Cub Scout sleepover - they did a movie where the T-Rex came to life and walked around the museum, and it ended with her approaching the door to the theater... and then it opened... and then I didn't sleep.
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Oh man, I did a sleepover there too around the age of 7 as well, and the T-Rex already freaked me out. I didn't see that movie, but I was so very grateful we got placed in the temporary Sharks exhibit instead of by ol' Rexy. That movie would have ruined me, I'm glad they skipped it.

Looks to me as if they're clearing out not only Cahners Theater and the current exhibit test area on the upper level, but also the Arctic and Engineering Design exhibits on the first floor. Which, as an engineer myself, I'm pretty disappointed by, though there's certainly ample space on the lower level for some of that stuff to be relocated. When I was last there in January the museum as a whole seemed more sparse than I remember. I wonder if the travelling exhibit business has dried up since the pandemic - the "exhibit test" space used to be one of two halls for such fare. I do find the renders cool in that they show a FIRST Lego League competition - MOS hosted one of, if not the first, FLL competition back in 1998 (which I competed in!).
 
RandomWalk said:
I remember doing a sleep over near Mathematica in the Blue Wing, before they hid it behind the Van De Graff generator.
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Man, the Museum of Science was one of my favorite places. When I was in grade school I would go there myself and really enjoy it. This was back in the late 1950s. I loved the science library, the transparent woman exhibit, Spooky the Owl, the Planetarium. It was like my second home.
 
Charlie_mta said:
That can't be right, because 63 years ago I was going to the Museum of Science and the planetarium..
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Whiglander wrote that 17 years ago, so it's likely that both his statement and your recollection are accurate. According to Wikipedia, the current facility opened in 1951.
 
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