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^^ Good stuff, a fertile outgrowth of PiL's Flowers of Romance LP. They were an exciting opener for DM on the Violator tour. Certainly beats the hell out of most of today's flaccid laptop-generated music; someone actually had to program a drum machine, splice tape, and perform live...

A few years ago, the circumstances on my own sociopolitical activism (that I wrote quite a lot about on aB) gifted me with a new awareness: incompetent political leadership is a form of oppression. I robs the individual of the ability to advocate for positive change. Over the past couple of...

Following on Suffolk's gentle imperative, I'm interested to fully understand the abrasively dismissive tone you direct toward the role of activists in the constant improvement and evolution of our built environment. I'm genuinely curious about its origins. Did a pesky neighbor object to a...

+1 There's a wealth of good housing stock in Lynn, and it's as close to downtown employment centers (in terms of linear distance) as some affluent western suburbs. The issues are of transportation access, and an extended cycle of less than ideal governance and the attendant disengagement of...

Recalling the extended and thoughtful conversation some were having about the public realm aspects of this project, I thought this piece might be of interest.

The more I look at this, the more I feel like (David Bowie's) Warhol in this scene from Julian Schnabel's Basquiat. "I can't even see what's good anymore..." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHkGu6e0R4I&lc=UgjaBkCi99t4angCoAEC If you haven't seen this film, you're missing out.

More hopeful news.

DAVE, I agree that Echelon is a very pretty development - KPF does good work. I wonder if the folks who'll live there will be as pretty as those depicted in its advertising.

Those of us who live in the neighborhood and are actively engaged with HYM and the BPDA are advocating for a higher percentage of affordable units than the City-mandated 13%. This effort is in recognition of the scale and historic opportunity to develop the site, and as a method to mitigate the...

^ Thank you for the link. It's truly stunning that only the vault above the crossing came down. The flèche was lead-clad oak, weighing (according to Wikipedia) a staggering 750 tons. It was a 19th Century recreation of the original, designed and engineered by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc in the 1840s...

For some of us, this is a bit like the Kennedy Assassination... https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-47941794 https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news/notre-dame-fire/index.html

cca -- I'd be interested in your thoughts on build-quality here. To my eyes, it looks about as durable as a cracker-box, but you'd know better than I would. Tom, I thought a lot about this last night and this morning. There are so many forces one could consider in crafting a thoughtful...

^ To clarify, the circular argument I was referring to was the "You're a NIMBY!" vs. "You're a corporate shill!" nonsense. Public good and private profit are not incompatible concepts. The way we speak about these concepts is the steering force. Of the many useful things I learned in my...

Well one thing you don't need to be confused about -- there'll be a lot of firewood on Revere Beach if we ever have a severe hurricane. In short, plans change...? Inferred from attending many BPDA meetings with HYM on the Suffolk Downs: Revere has a negligible amount of industry, and current...

I've also grown weary with this circular discussion. Can we at least agree that the City's ask that "public space" to be baked into a private development without clearly defining parameters and goals is the singularity around which all the conflict orbits? If Millennium is to be (rightfully)...

Finally got around to looking at this and it is indeed god-awful workmanship. "A doctor can bury his mistakes but an architect can only advise his clients to plant vines." ~ Frank Lloyd Wright

^ No doubt! And to those who incessantly rail against a perceived development-refusenik-stasi culture in Boston, would you show up a watercolor class with a paint roller and a spray gun?

^ Now you're making me nostalgic for my shitty summer job with Massport, circa 1988... Yamasaki was a genius. He understood how to imbue a forthrightly modern building with the gravitas and wonder of Gothic churches. But there were problems with this otherwise handsome terminal, both related to...

New Haven/Yale has a stunning collection of Modern masterpieces. Eero Saarinen, Gordon Bunshaft, Marcel Breuer, Louis Kahn, along with Paul Rudolph. I need a weekend there with my ladyfriend; she'd love to see this.

Well, you know I'm a big "truth to materials" guy, but actually, there's not to much to disagree with here. Maybe I'm softening with age... This particular garage was for the most part, a wholly utilitarian response that required some interesting engineering to allow for its gargantuan scale...