City Hall Plaza Revamp | Government Center

chrisbrat said:
Gotta agree with Stick -- Lots of overthinking and attempting to be 800 things at once (ahem... Copley Plaza...). If you're not going to enclose it with low-rise buildings to make it an actual "plaza" a la Plaza Mayor, St. Mark's Square, Piazza del Campo, etc., then why not just make it a smaller version of Boston Common -- all grass (with the exception of walking paths), with a buncha trees and a water feature or some shit?
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A lot of grass and trees means its more of a park than a plaza. If you want an actual plaza here, you need programming, and for programming, you typically need typical hardscape to make it work. You can add plenty of trees and still have active spaces perhaps, but it could limit you a little.

The plaza as it is, is not optimized to have a proper mix of spaces that integrate well with each other. Enclosing it on the edges and redeveloping the JFK low-rise and thoughtfully incorporating the new development with a properly scaled plaza and promenade would be the best option, in my opinion, but seeing as we're sinking the equivalent cost of a new elementary/middle school into this, ($70m), it's going to be a while before the city wants to do anything considerable for the very long term prospects of Government Center.
 
Anyone have any new photos of this project?

Did we ever get additional info as to the mysterious tunnels under the plaza?
 
meddlepal said:
All gone.

Unrelated... seeing how little stuff is on top of City Hall... I wonder what could be done with the roof. A rooftop park up there would be interesting.
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I kind of love your idea. The views would be great in every direction, plus the best view of City Hall is from within (or in this case, atop) it.
 
HelloBostonHi said:
Yeah I mentioned that on Twitter, I'm not happy about it because that was absolutely not in the plans.
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Sorry, but what the hell?? How? Why? Who?
Have you heard anything back? This seems like a huge deal. That tree promenade there was the nicest thing in the plaza...

Did they park their equipment too close and damage the roots? Poison them with some chemical by mistake? Or did they just get in the way too much so were considered dispensable...
 
Bananarama said:
Sorry, but what the hell?? How? Why? Who?
Have you heard anything back? This seems like a huge deal. That tree promenade there was the nicest thing in the plaza...

Did they park their equipment too close and damage the roots? Poison them with some chemical by mistake? Or did they just get in the way too much so were considered dispensable...
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I wouldn't get the pitch forks out just yet. There's a solid chance they decided to lump in the GSA terrace with the overall renovation after the initial designs & we'll see some new landscaping go back there.
 
I'm 90% sure this is a tunnel rehab and utility repair project that's just been disguised as a park project. Most of the construction we've seen over the past year has been straight utilities, only recently has it started to look like a plaza taking shape
 
HelloBostonHi said:
I'm 90% sure this is a tunnel rehab and utility repair project that's just been disguised as a park project. Most of the construction we've seen over the past year has been straight utilities, only recently has it started to look like a plaza taking shape
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Well to be fair, it would be kind of a special sort of stupid to redo the plaza surface without first making sure the tunnels and utilities underneath are in top shape. I mean we see it all the time, a road resurfacing project followed by digging up the utilities for planned repairs and replacement, but it is still really stupid.
 
Wow! This is one hell of a makeover! Can't wait to see the finished product.
 
bobthebuilder said:
I wouldn't get the pitch forks out just yet. There's a solid chance they decided to lump in the GSA terrace with the overall renovation after the initial designs & we'll see some new landscaping go back there.
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But that is owned by the feds, not the city.
 
Well they ripped up the terrace so I suppose they're re-landscaping. All those nice mature trees gone...
 
jl326 said:
Maybe it's just me, but it doesn't look all that different from about a year ago?? Honestly thought they would be further along on this.
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The did a ton of work on the underground infrastructure, T tunnels and utilities. Does not show for much, but pretty important to avoid digging it all up again right after completion.
 
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