John King of SF Chronicle Write Love Letter to Boston's Streets

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Place: Boston streets a tangled, wonderful web
John King

(04-29) 04:00 PDT Boston -- First-time visitors here can't help but notice two things: the abundance of Red Sox paraphernalia, and the architectural treasures of red brick and stone. But what captivates me on this visit is the honeycombed urbanity of it all.

Boston and neighboring Cambridge are sliced by alleys, footpaths and arcades, each one revealing a facet of life not seen in a "Cheers" rerun or the panoramas that accompany televised sporting events. Some are aesthetic treats, others are atmospheric shortcuts. And the way they enrich the landscape offers hints of what cities like San Francisco can strive for - even though Boston has a long head start.

For those of you who haven't been to the self-proclaimed Hub of the Universe, the downtown street pattern is a sort of gnarled fist that tour guides claim was mapped by ambling cows. Not true. Nor was it planned.

The streets took shape holistically, responding to the needs of an outpost's young life in the decades after the city was founded in 1630. Across the Charles River, Harvard University's relaxed mosaic of low buildings among small lawns and broad trees has been evolving since 1636.

This palpable sense of the past is one of the region's strongest draws, understandably so. You can stroll past the 200-year-old brick homes of Beacon Hill on your way to the Public Garden's Swan Boats. Or grab a cup of coffee behind the rough granite walls of 50 Broad St., a warehouse from 1853 that's my favorite building in town (and home to the Boston Society of Architects, a perfect fit if ever there was one).

Meanwhile, the tourist-friendly Freedom Trail offers a primer in urban design as well as colonial lore. Pause at the site of the Boston Massacre, peek into Paul Revere's house - but also leave time to duck down the tangled alleys of the Blackstone Block, an intact remnant of 1700s streetscape. Follow Milk Street beyond the Old South Meeting House into the heart of the masonry-clad Financial District, which rose after the fire of 1872.

Why go from Point A to Point B when you can ramble instead?

In the process, look at how many choices you have: Each intersection veers and curves around buildings that hug the street, or it widens to allow a small triangular "square." That square is likely the starting point for another road or two, each one with a hint of life on the near horizon, an ever-more intricate web.

Not all of Boston is like this - the stately march of the Back Bay offers pleasures all its own - but the gray and red layers of the old city draw me back time after time. This isn't some time capsule, though: The Old State House has four 40-story towers within musket range of its 295-year-old walls. And no matter how many tangents you pursue, you're bound to cross paths with recognizable features. Turn a corner and there's the green oasis of Post Office Square, or the campanile spike of the Custom House Tower.

Harvard Yard and the surrounding landscapes don't offer the same dense thicket - things are more spacious, with wooden buildings and narrow footpaths mixed among the brick. Yet the undercurrent is the same. This isn't a terrain of solids and voids so much as overlapping crannies and nooks, connected in ways that maps can't define but experience knows.

For instance? My visit this month involved a conference at which some events were at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, smack next to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's house on Brattle Street, and others were at Harvard's Graduate School of Design at Gund Hall. The organizers provided a computer-generated map showing how to get from one to the other, a roundabout route involving two large roads.

Too easy. A better route was to follow whims and walk due east into the campus, right by H.H. Richardson's robust Austin Hall from 1881, until you reached the corner shared by the stark concrete Design School and the ebullient brick Victoriana of 1874's Memorial Hall, an impossible-to-miss orientation point. On the way, I encountered abstract sculptures, post-modern laboratories, Bauhaus-flavored dorms and the aforementioned landmarks - an interactive crash course in academic (land) planning through the years.

Compare all this to downtown San Francisco's grid, especially the long blocks south of Market Street. The views are better than Boston's, clear vistas of water or sky or hills. Still, our terrain isn't some hemmed-in meander. You need to know where you are going.

Even when planners do their best to fold in variety, the results are mixed. Give San Francisco credit for mapping pedestrian shortcuts into the long blocks of the new Mission Bay district, an effort to break down the scale. But they're straight and sterile, convenient rather than compelling. A grid added to the grid.

"The layout of paths will seem right and comfortable only when it is compatible with the process of walking," Christopher Alexander writes in his 1977 classic "A Pattern Language." "And the process of walking is far more subtle than people might imagine."

Sounds simple. The challenge is finding that comfort level. But as Boston and Cambridge show, the payoff is immense.

Place appears on Tuesdays. E-mail John King at jking@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page E - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle
 
Nice to be reminded of this once in a while. That has always been my favorite thing as well, that Boston isn't a boring grid and that the unit isn't the street, its the square and the streets just serve to link the squares. Whenever I hear someone complain about Boston's "stupid" street patterns, I cringe, as it is perhaps the most unique and distinguishing characteristic of Boston.
 
Strange piece...I feel like it presupposes some intimate local knowledge. How would a San Franciscan know that the "march of the Back Bay" involved a tight grid? Even I can't place this 1853 warehouse he gushes about.

And I think he misses the point of good urban design, which isn't oriented around picturesque meanders. I take virtually the same walk he does across Cambridge nearly every day, and the lack of a straight-line or at least obvious route can be kinda frustrating when you're running 5 minutes late.
 
It's on Broad St. Best pic I could find in a quick search:

ArchitectsBuilding.gif
 
Speaking of the Architect's Building, I walked by today and they have redone the lobby.

It's nice, but nothing special. I would have expected more from something that calls itself The Architect's Building.

I'm not sure exactly what, but something.
 
Yeah, but who wants to pay an architect to do something like that...
 
Had a nice e-mail back from Mr. King. I suggested that he read this site.
 
^^Oh good, maybe he'll start at the Columbus Center thread.

Next week:

Author retracts every nice he has said about Boston. Advises San Franciscans to stay the hell away.
"Bunch of loonies, they are", reports King
 

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