West Cambridge / Alewife Area Infill & Small Developments

DZH22 said:
Lanes and Games would no-doubt be a huge loss, but nothing fills the void left behind by Good Times. That one still kills me. No place like it that I know of in Massachusetts.
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https://zerogravityskatepark.wordpress.com/2014/05/17/page2textlarge-jpg/

One of the sad moments in the history of Cambridge - was the closing of America's first indoor skateboard park–Zero Gravity!! It's construction was a bold, expensive - and visionary effort... In 1977, the park quickly gained national notoriety and lengendary status. Imagine being able to skate a massive half-pipe (the largest in the world at that time) in the dead of winter before heading to class!!! Zero-Gravity ended too soon. It was a tough loss in the early history of skateboarding!!
 
odurandina said:
https://zerogravityskatepark.wordpress.com/2014/05/17/page2textlarge-jpg/

One of the sad moments in the history of Cambridge - was the closing of America's first indoor skateboard park–Zero Gravity!! It's construction was a bold, expensive - and visionary effort... In 1977, the park quickly gained national notoriety and lengendary status. Imagine being able to skate a massive half-pipe (the largest in the world at that time) in the dead of winter before heading to class!!! Zero-Gravity ended too soon. It was a tough loss in the early history of skateboarding!!
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Catch a glimpse inside during these opening credits:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ABX2-4RTrY
 
BussesAin'tTrains said:
It'd an opportunity if the City of Cambridge exhibited any interest in positive outcomes for Alewife, instead of treating it as a hinterland with no planning required.
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I grew up in North Cambridge in the 50's, 60's and 70's, and Cambridge as a whole has always been that way. I'm surprised the Kendall Square area turned out as well as it has. I'm not surprised that West Cambridge is a mess.

Cambridge has always looked at itself as a small town, not a major metro area. They've never had a grand vision for any part of town that ever came to any kind of fruition. I love Cambridge, but it is quirky and quant, like a small town where everyone knows each other and things putter along.
 
Some background... we might have been a little mean to these folks.

“The Gateway Inn is open 24/7, and the bowling alley is open seven days a week. The [Martignetti] family made a decision; they’re tired. They want to retire, they don’t want to run it anymore, and the next generation doesn’t want to run it anymore,” McKinnon, a Cambridge resident, said...

“The Martignettis have made a decision and we have try to work within that decision. Perhaps there is a way to create some community space that can offset or replace Lanes and Games, maybe not to the same extent, but maybe there is a way,” he said.
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http://cambridge.wickedlocal.com/news/20160825/retirement-prompts-lanes-and-games-apartment-project
 
RANT. My father worked for ADL (Arthur D. Little) for 25 years at Acorn Park. I spent my childhood in their labs. They went bankrupt because of, because of... my dad found a new job, but lost every cent he put into that company. Every time I drive down Route 2 to get on the train at Alewife, I look over at what that area has become and become extremely nostalgic (read fucking pissed off). Man, I remember the heli-pad they used to have there. My dad introduced me to the pilots.
I understand the site is very challenging because it is technically in three different municipalities ...but what? They fucked this entire area up. And I will say, it all has to do with my father's company going bankrupt. ADL WAS Acorn Park. Ever since then... what a gosh darn...
 
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I'm also nostalgic as hell about the Alewife area. I grew up a few blocks east of where the Alewife station is now, where my dad used to work as a cook in Donuts Please, and also at the Esso gas station, both located right at the site of the current station. I grew up playing in all the swamps and grasslands around the area.

It's all turned into a congested, chaotic suburban hellhole.
 
The suburban office park on Cambridge Park Drive was atrocious. The current round of development is a marginal improvement. As long as Alewife is the end of the Red Line, it's going to be some level of traffic hell.
 
Charlie_mta said:
I'm also nostalgic as hell about the Alewife area. I grew up a few blocks east of where the Alewife station is now, where my dad used to work as a cook in Donuts Please, and also at the Esso gas station, both located right at the site of the current station. I grew up playing in all the swamps and grasslands around the area.

It's all turned into a congested, chaotic suburban hellhole.
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Not all of it... there's still a bunch of nice trails, woods, etc. around there. Not that I'm defending the nature of the built-up parts.
 
Charlie_mta said:
I'm also nostalgic as hell about the Alewife area. I grew up a few blocks east of where the Alewife station is now, where my dad used to work as a cook in Donuts Please, and also at the Esso gas station, both located right at the site of the current station. I grew up playing in all the swamps and grasslands around the area.

It's all turned into a congested, chaotic suburban hellhole.
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1975
Hale_print_027.jpg



2016
https://goo.gl/maps/TsuFxuFcNVr
 
Charlie_mta said:
That 1975 photo is cool, F-Line. I remember usually seeing a single Buddliner car in the evenings headed up those tracks to Lexington. My dad worked at the Amoco station where Alewife station is now. I had mistakenly said Esso.

Aaaah, nostalgia. That's what happens when you get up there (I'm 66).
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The '75 photographer was standing on the sidewalk of the Route 2 overpass taking that shot. I tried to match Street View as close as humanly possible using the apartment blocks as reference. The small stream the train is crossing is the Little River now spanned by the bridge the Route 2 exit ramp goes over + the parallel wood footbridge the Minuteman goes over. Pond in the distance is one right next to the station exit ramp and brand new renovated footpath. If you squint at the '75 photo you can see behind the Budd a little curve in the tracks, the rail diamond for the Fitchburg Cutoff, and the signal stand protecting the diamond. The Fitchburg Cutoff rails can be seen running east-west across the whole picture, and that's exactly where the station exit ramp and new footbridge/path connection across the street now are.

What's most striking is how much the ecology has changed with the changes in post-construction drainage. It was a grassy marsh with barely any trees back then. Now it's covered with new-growth trees virtually everywhere. That's a jarring change in level of the water table, with the vegetation changes probably being a byproduct of all the flow problems Alewife Brook has had the last 30 years. Even post-remediation it'll never be the same as it used to be because all the new development is built around the water table as it is now, not as it was when everything was a marsh.
 
DZH22 said:
Lanes and Games would no-doubt be a huge loss, but nothing fills the void left behind by Good Times. That one still kills me. No place like it that I know of in Massachusetts.
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Good Times was such a loss... that was the coolest place, ever. It's sad that, in general, big indoor places where adults can go and DO stuff are rapidly dying off... people just want to spend money on drinking (hey, I like drinking) and eating (like it too)... but in terms of activities, what's happening to the bowling alleys, the pool halls, etc... roller rinks are all long gone... and arcades are gone, too. At Good Times, you could get cheap beer and do all of that... what happened to the idea of going out and doing an activity, playing a game, interacting with other people - instead of just playing on your phone?
 
FK4 said:
Good Times was such a loss... that was the coolest place, ever. It's sad that, in general, big indoor places where adults can go and DO stuff are rapidly dying off... people just want to spend money on drinking (hey, I like drinking) and eating (like it too)... but in terms of activities, what's happening to the bowling alleys, the pool halls, etc... roller rinks are all long gone... and arcades are gone, too. At Good Times, you could get cheap beer and do all of that... what happened to the idea of going out and doing an activity, playing a game, interacting with other people - instead of just playing on your phone?
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Agreed!

Ironically, those kinds of activities are plentiful in the suburbs, due to low rents.

In the city it seems like every activity starts and ends in a bar.
 
Honestly, if I were developer in DTX or even somewhere like Assembly, I'd be looking to create a subsidiary business to host places such as those mentioned above. It would make the building or neighborhood I'm creating more fun, much more attractive and enticing, and help any tenant businesses thrive with more traffic.
 
BostonUrbEx said:
Honestly, if I were developer in DTX or even somewhere like Assembly, I'd be looking to create a subsidiary business to host places such as those mentioned above. It would make the building or neighborhood I'm creating more fun, much more attractive and enticing, and help any tenant businesses thrive with more traffic.
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Wasn't there supposed to be a place in Lafayette City Center that did basically this? Nightclub/entertainment/games thing for adults?

This is what Kings does, too, but people think it's too expensive and isn't authentic. There must be a market, though, since Kings is proliferating across the region like a weed.
 
Equilibria said:
Wasn't there supposed to be a place in Lafayette City Center that did basically this? Nightclub/entertainment/games thing for adults?

This is what Kings does, too, but people think it's too expensive and isn't authentic. There must be a market, though, since Kings is proliferating across the region like a weed.
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Dave and Busters does well too, although they have a difficult time obtaining liquor licenses in Puritanical Mass. It's easier for a Kings as bowling and drinking has long been accepted whereas video games are looked upon as child's play by many local governments and licensing boards.
 
Equilibria said:
Wasn't there supposed to be a place in Lafayette City Center that did basically this? Nightclub/entertainment/games thing for adults?

This is what Kings does, too, but people think it's too expensive and isn't authentic. There must be a market, though, since Kings is proliferating across the region like a weed.
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The market is for corporate outings. I can't recall how many times I've done Kings after work on some manager's corporate card (Fun story: one former employer scheduled a bowling night out so they could fire my boss while we were all out of the building unaware.)


Problem is it's all served up as a multimedia extravaganza with all kinds of above-and-beyond premium distractions if you bust out that corporate card. There's no places left to just roll for the sake of rolling. That's the essence of L&G and Good Times: just play with other people who are there to just play. No filler. I used to love going to Kenmore Bowladrome to just fucking roll. Then it became Ryan Family Amusements with the laser shows and all the same short attention-span upscale distractions everyone in that market now has. It became like Jillian's with lanes.

Maybe it's a relative niche market these days, but there's gotta be overflow demand for just one fucking place in transit distance of the CBD where you can just roll. Ditto for one stinking Good Times-like joint.
 
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