The Boulevard (née The Times/Littlest Bar) | 110 Broad St | Downtown

So they are demolishing the bullfinch building, leaving only two walls. Anyone taking bets for how long before they find *some unforeseen structural issue*, and have to "regrettably" tear down those walls too?
 
26973878144_6e9f9c0100_b.jpg
 
does anyone know when 55 india street (the other small triangular parcel next door) will break ground?
 
Its pretty sad between this and Emerson's dorm project. I really wonder how either got approval.
 
i thought one of the bldgs was to be left standing?

In the last photo it looks like both are coming down. wtf?
 
odurandina said:
i thought one of the bldgs was to be left standing?

In the last photo it looks like both are coming down. wtf?
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Looks like they are only keeping the front and side facade of the Bulfinch designed building.
 
They are keep two walls of the facade of the Bulfinch (Littlest Bar) building. Everything else is getting razed
 
No one among us, I believe, would argue that we need to keep everything. Even those of us who may be so inclined we understand that a city that doesn't change and evolve is a dying place.

However, most of us would agree that what gets built these days fairly mimics what's going up in many other cities. No matter the high-minded intention, the result too often is generic, V-E, rentable space. Economics aside, that's a loss. No matter how sensitive the design you can't replace history. Particularly in a block, like this one, that is steeped in the history that helps make Boston so very different. Can you imagine any tourist gazing at the new building? Why would they? They see plenty of its like where they're from.

This property, the Dainty Dot, what may happen on Stuart Street, in DTX, at the end of Newberry, the Emerson dorm and more, they are all small wounds. None fatal by themselves, but all told, they present a growing wound, if untended, that, cut by cut, diminishes this city.

Sure, the money stuff may pencil out and that's good for the tax collector, but a city thusly diminished is a city with a weakened biography.
 
genius post that i'll never be able to make,

But belongs on the wall of the BRA to remind them of the unpardonable sins of Scollay and the West End and the mindnumbing horror that has replaced it.

in recent days, the old block at 20 Kingston is also one that makes me wonder.
 
nm88 said:
No one among us, I believe, would argue that we need to keep everything. Even those of us who may be so inclined we understand that a city that doesn't change and evolve is a dying place.

However, most of us would agree that what gets built these days fairly mimics what's going up in many other cities. No matter the high-minded intention, the result too often is generic, V-E, rentable space. Economics aside, that's a loss. No matter how sensitive the design you can't replace history. Particularly in a block, like this one, that is steeped in the history that helps make Boston so very different. Can you imagine any tourist gazing at the new building? Why would they? They see plenty of its like where they're from.

This property, the Dainty Dot, what may happen on Stuart Street, in DTX, at the end of Newberry, the Emerson dorm and more, they are all small wounds. None fatal by themselves, but all told, they present a growing wound, if untended, that, cut by cut, diminishes this city.

Sure, the money stuff may pencil out and that's good for the tax collector, but a city thusly diminished is a city with a weakened biography.
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I'm frequently shocked when I look at pictures of gorgeous old buildings - Mechanics Hall, the Providence and Boston Terminal (all of Boston's old stations, really) and a bunch of others - how many of them were torn down in the 19th and Early 20th Centuries. Look in those old DTX pictures - a lot of those buildings were torn down back in the 1920s, and that was the same time period when the original NSRL and Central Artery were going to run through Downtown Crossing and obliterate Scollay Square 30 years before Urban Renewal got to it.

Point is - the City's been tearing down old things to build new things forever. Boston has a huge stock of 19th Century structures still standing. It's important to retain that heritage, so any project that's going to impact it has to be specially approved, as I assume this one and Emerson were. That's not a corrupt process - no one is paying off the commissioners - in each of these cases the benefit of removing an old (and potentially dangerously out-of-code) structure outweighed the cost.

Heritage is something to be managed, not worshiped. I'd rather Boston be Brussels than Bruges.
 
Equilibria said:
Point is - the City's been tearing down old things to build new things forever. Boston has a huge stock of 19th Century structures still standing. It's important to retain that heritage...that's not a corrupt process - no one is paying off the commissioners - in each of these cases the benefit of removing an old (and potentially dangerously out-of-code) structure outweighed the cost...
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I think that's a good perspective to be mindful of: that we were in fact much, much worse at preserving heritage a few decades ago than we are today. I think today we are more mindful of it, respectful of it, see the value in it, and probably less corrupt (though I wouldn't bet on zero corruption).

I think the missing piece here is that, looking to the future, we need to establish a more systematic and proactive process to retaining heritage. It can't always be "oh crap, look what's happening." If we're serious about this, we should set up a more algorithmic system (coupled with case-by-case human review too, of course) that identifies in advance what should be barred from razing. It could be based on era built, condition, architecture, etc. I'm not saying to designate everything as a national historic landmark, but it seems there could be a more systematic approach to encoding each structure with some sort of a "preservation score" that could help us deal with this fairly.
 
Equilibria said:
I'm frequently shocked when I look at pictures of gorgeous old buildings - Mechanics Hall, the Providence and Boston Terminal (all of Boston's old stations, really) and a bunch of others - how many of them were torn down in the 19th and Early 20th Centuries. Look in those old DTX pictures - a lot of those buildings were torn down back in the 1920s, and that was the same time period when the original NSRL and Central Artery were going to run through Downtown Crossing and obliterate Scollay Square 30 years before Urban Renewal got to it.

Point is - the City's been tearing down old things to build new things forever. Boston has a huge stock of 19th Century structures still standing. It's important to retain that heritage, so any project that's going to impact it has to be specially approved, as I assume this one and Emerson were. That's not a corrupt process - no one is paying off the commissioners - in each of these cases the benefit of removing an old (and potentially dangerously out-of-code) structure outweighed the cost.

Heritage is something to be managed, not worshiped. I'd rather Boston be Brussels than Bruges.
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This!
People need to stop freaking out anytime load bearing masonry is pulled down. Much of what is being demolished was a firewall prior to the central artery. The important portions of the facade are being preserved.
You can't have cheaper housing and a growing population and a dynamic architectural scene if nothing ever gets replaced.
Now if your just ideologically opposed to facadectomies, that's a different argument. But let's keep things in perspective as to what is worth preserving.
 
bigpicture7 said:
I think that's a good perspective to be mindful of: that we were in fact much, much worse at preserving heritage a few decades ago than we are today. I think today we are more mindful of it, respectful of it, see the value in it, and probably less corrupt (though I wouldn't bet on zero corruption).

I think the missing piece here is that, looking to the future, we need to establish a more systematic and proactive process to retaining heritage. It can't always be "oh crap, look what's happening." If we're serious about this, we should set up a more algorithmic system (coupled with case-by-case human review too, of course) that identifies in advance what should be barred from razing. It could be based on era built, condition, architecture, etc. I'm not saying to designate everything as a national historic landmark, but it seems there could be a more systematic approach to encoding each structure with some sort of a "preservation score" that could help us deal with this fairly.
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Bigpicture --you probably would really like Havana -- its been frozen in time circa 1960 -- I think the Princess Telephone had just been introduced for the trendy set and cars had really big fins

Boston has made some mistakes in losing some of its irreplaceable structures [e.g. Hancock House, Province House, Old Feather Store, Mechanics Hall, the original Back Bay MIT building, the Tontine Crescent, the original Jordan Marsh] there were also some near losses such as the Old State House and the Revere House

However, Boston has by and large done as good a job as any US city in preserving the essence of its essence. Some of that is the key historic sites and structures, some of it is having neighborhoods of general fabric buildings.

However, much of that essence of Boston is in the streets themselves and how they were laid out, not by random cattle wanderings -- but rather as the most efficient means of getting from here to there. In turn that meant that you went around the tops of hills and circumnavigated coves and such. Today of course most of the hills such as Fort Hill are gone but the streets are still curved. Similarly we have streets that followed causeways and canals both of which are gone but the relics of there having been are found in the somewhat random alignments of structures which have been built subsequently.

Consider just Franklin Street -- the site of Bulfinch's Tontine Crescent -- a crescent because of the curve in the street.
View_of_Franklin_Street,_Boston_(Ballou's_Pictorial_Drawing-Room_Companion,_September_1,_1855).jpg
Tontine-Crescent-map.jpg

later
1860s+franklin+st+bpl.jpg
destroyed by the Fire in 1872

pg2oct16.jpg

what is there today


Walking down Washington St and turning to your left at the MT onto Franklin -- you would be aligned with the Headhouse of South Station. At the other end of Franklin at India Street just after crossing Broad Street -- you realize that the direction which you are walking has rotated over 90 degrees and you are essentially heading back parallel to Washington St. Somewhere in the middle you passed the intersection with the curving Congress Street, sandwiched between Federal and Pearl. Both Federal and Pearl make perpendicular intersections with Franklin -- yet far from being parallel they would intersect at the Old State House on State Street.

These street level and city-scale visible alignments and juxtaposition of buildings can not be duplicated in any other city in the US. You couldn't arrange the alignments of the MT, South Station Tower and 111 Federal without the streets doing it for you.

So yes we need to preserve the fabric of the city -- but that certainly doesn't mean assigning a numerical value to every structure and then ranking them; defining a cutoff line separating the kills versus the saves -- No -- Nein , Non, Nyet
 
Honestly, where are the NIMBYs when something other than a parking garage is getting torn down? I would have thought they'd be preserving more of this rather than unceremoniously smashing it down. I was more ok with this when I thought they would at least be keeping 3 walls. The lack of thought and respect put into this project just in the demolition gives me little hope for what they will build in this location. How cheap.

However I do think they'd have to make a concerted effort to make this development as depressing as what happened with this: http://www.archboston.org/community/showthread.php?t=4657
 
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That always blows my mind too. Try to build on a garage, a parking lot, or a hole in the ground and people go crazy. Meanwile the dainty dot is history, they were concerned about Millenniums height as the 1905 facade is getting bulldozed, and this is getting the wrecking ball without a flinch. Next thing you know theyll protest over building over the pike while the old city hall gets imploded.
 
Jouhou said:
Honestly, where are the NIMBYs when something other than a parking garage is getting torn down? I would have thought they'd be preserving more of this rather than unceremoniously smashing it down. I was more ok with this when I thought they would at least be keeping 3 walls. The lack of thought and respect put into this project just in the demolition gives me little hope for what they will build in this location. How cheap.

However I do think they'd have to make a concerted effort to make this development as depressing as what happened with this: http://www.archboston.org/community/showthread.php?t=4657
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Jouhou -- there was very little of the original Bulfinch that could be so-identified

Just the front facade and part of the western? end wall -- everything else was completely compromised over the years of B and C-dom into just another Boston-hybrid melange

Note that we do have hope in that if done right these facetectomies can actually turn-out OK -- and we have a number of successful examples of such.

Remember the "big stink" over the demise of Kennedy's
kennedy%2527s%2B1960%2527s.jpg


and how they preserved the partial front facade and one end wall of Kennedy's -- but only the uncompromised top 3 stories which were left was hanging from a steel framework for nearly 2 years
BPA_selectprop_kennedys.jpg

while they built 101 Arch St. below, above and behind it.
71646_101%20arch%20st%20_opt.jpeg


This current facade-job is almost an act of preserving the mahogany veneer on a nice old but much loved piece of furniture while the wood is sliced away from the backside and replaced by particle board -- will just have to see how it comes out
 
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