Photo of the Day, Boston Style - Part Deux

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How hard would it be to convert at least the SBWaterfront portion of the Silver Line to light rail (ignoring cost)?
 
Ron Newman said:
Holyoke Center, like the Prudential, is a good example of a modern building that had to be extensively changed before it interacted well with its surroundings. The Au Bon Pain was the first step -- whatever was there before it attracted very little pedestrian traffic and deadened the entire plaza.
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High-end men's clothing store. Can't remember the name.
 
If they opened another cafe where the Cambridge Savings Bank is now they could fill the rest of the plaza with seating, too.

Admittedly, though, for most of the year the empty seats outside ABP are fairly worthless.
 
It always bothered me that they never attempted to expand the indoor dining area in front of and perhaps creating a new entrance for Holyoke with a small winter garden of sorts. I used to go to a barber on that side street there, the street name escapes me, but the barber shop was Laflemme or something of the sort. I often would stop into the abp for a coffee and one of those prepackaged sandwiches which were actually edible back then(2003-2005ish) on my way back to beacon hill where I was living at the time and regardless of the time of day there was never room to sit. By the way, is LaFlemme and City Sports still there? I used to party over there all the time as two of my best friends from home lived in Eliot and Kirkland and as I think about it I'm regretting not having spent the time I used to over there of late.
 
czsz said:
If they opened another cafe where the Cambridge Savings Bank is now they could fill the rest of the plaza with seating, too.
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I think you mean Cambridge Trust. However, doing that would eliminate a regular place for street musicians in good weather.
 
czsz said:
How hard would it be to convert at least the SBWaterfront portion of the Silver Line to light rail (ignoring cost)?
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Ignoring the cost we could put infinite resources into teleportation. Then the Silver Line would allow instant transport between any two points in the universe.
 
However, doing that would eliminate a regular place for street musicians in good weather.
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There's infinite empty sidewalk all over Harvard Square for them. This particular space is too large to be set aside for this, anyway. And I'm sure they wouldn't mind moving a few feet to gain a much larger captive audience.
 
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This is supposed to be built upon eventually, but I don't know if the Turnpike Authority has even tried to sell the air rights yet.

I do wonder why the ramp at the right of the photo (which would allow cars to enter the tunnel from North Street) was never opened to traffic.
 
Ron Newman said:
This is supposed to be built upon eventually, but I don't know if the Turnpike Authority has even tried to sell the air rights yet.

I do wonder why the ramp at the right of the photo (which would allow cars to enter the tunnel from North Street) was never opened to traffic.
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I believe it was only ever intended for emergency vehicle access. If you opened this for general traffic you'd get a good amount of traffic from I-93 exiting to take the tunnel (and the intent has been for that traffic to exit earlier onto the Williams Tunnel or for the downtown-originating traffic to avoid 93 altogether and cross the channel to enter the Williams). It would be more convenient for some people, but probably not enough to force a merge with the lanes coming from 93 south or Haymarket. Remember--North Street doesn't run all the way through from Faneuil Hall anymore like it did in the pre Big Dig days.
 
Topeka from a similar angle:

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Dallas from a similar angle:

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I'm not sure, comparing these two images to the one above, that you could really make any claims about Boston's comparative density.
 
right outside the frame of the Dallas and Topeka photos are vast parking lots and single family homes though. Point is, it takes careful photography to make those cities look nearly as dense as Boston.
 
Well, obviously. But the sad thing is that it doesn't really take very careful photography to get parking lots and highway ramps a la Dallas in a photo of Boston. We're more like those places than not.
 
I don't know of any US city, including NYC and Chicago and San Francisco, that is devoid of highway ramps. Boston at least tries to shoehorn them into narrow spaces such as the one in that photo.
 
None of those cities have been nearly as eviscerated by highways within their urban cores as Boston.
 
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