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Crazy from an engineering/mitigation standpoint, kinda crazy from an ops standpoint, not at all crazy from a strategic standpoint. Prior to the Ashmont Ext., BERy cycled through a number of plans for the ROW through Dorchester; there was a buried Boston St-Columbia-Under Mt...

I'm there with you. It's certainly a space to watch, but I'll hold off until there're plans - I don't think the pressure is as acute as the Dainty Dot site, but not an impossibility that someone pulls a fast one. Whats the deal with the abutting 1 1/2 story old garage/showroom, is that part of...

Re: Flower Exchange Redevelopment Barring transit concerns, any open space is a perfect spot for development. 5-10k workers in theory on a parcel with poor pedestrian connections to everywhere except the back streets in the South End, intermediate-at-best bus service, and direct access from...

RE: that Mass Ave building that looks like the spaceship from Independence day I think the stretch of Huntington between Copley and the Mass Ave intersection is one of the best examples for trying to understand and assess urban renewal and/or redevelopment in general. The West End, Scollay...

"Massachusetts Ave" was applied to the whole stretch in 1895 after the opening of the Harvard Bridge (in 1891), but the component parts are much older. North of the Charles: North of Harvard Square to Billerica was laid out by 1640 and known by various names throughout it's existence: the...

The generally accepted alignment swings out to the intact 4-tracked ROW of the Eastern Route; the BRB&L alternative still exists on paper and as an historical footnote, but in all likelihood is DOA. The Eastern Route alternative doesn't require ED (or very little), re-uses intact Eastern width...

That's exactly why I think it fails, you can't ignore the hulking tower. I appreciate the intention, best case scenario would be to retain the block as it was, but POMO + motley of Mansard/Second Empire is always going to be a tough ask. Too many things going on. I think they did a good with the...

Yep, although there are some large pieces here and there like NE Telephone (65 Cambridge St), the Western Union (230 Congress), McCormack Building (5 Post Off. Sq) the Paramount Theatre, the Batterymarch Building: United Shoe: the demolished Hotel Manger (now the site of the O'Neil Federal...

A few personal opinions about this debate: 1. Let's make sure we're asking the right questions when talking about preservation. "Preservation" is not - or shouldn't be - an end in and of itself. I see little point in preservation solely for aesthetic reasons, there's needs to be a functional...

You're right - it is a Bulfinch, fwiw. It's also one of the oldest buildings standing downtown, built ca. 1805 - there are a few other similar Broad St Assoc. warehouses further up the street and there's one on the corner of Broad x Custom House that abuts a newer build in a similar manner...

Here are the links: Online text of Shurcliff' (he was still "Shurtleff" in 1911 apparently) addendum to the 1909 Report reproduced as an article in a 1911 edition Landscape Architecture A Boston City Planning Board Report from 1914 developing themes from the 1909 Report titled "Larger...

Whigh - I have actually come across an online text version of the Shurcliff Report or a variation thereof. I need to dig around my bookmarks, but it was a slightly condensed version of his metropolitan travel thesis for some urban planning academic journal (I can't remember the name) a few years...

Mods, can we change the title to the "North Terminal Garage" since a) that's the structure's name and b) there are other garages in the North End, so for the sake of being specific. If the structure is to be developed (and that's highly unlikely), why change anything other than the function...

The first bridge (the "Great Bridge") across the Charles River was constructed in 1662 at the present site of the Anderson Bridge, where it connected northern and northwestern towns to the Highway to Roxbury - present day Harvard St - which ran through the site of modern-day Dudley Sq and...

WaPo linked an (really fucking) interesting project by City Observatory, mapping street-level storefronts in urban areas. Here's the City Observatory article, but here's the link to maps of various metros in the US and finally here's a link to a map of the Boston metropolitan district. Mods...

Pretty much; end of the day, that no such office buildings were built wasn't really the point in and of itself, it was just to underline that the early twentieth-century inspired a new phase of architecture, but one that never really came to fruition due to economic contraction - something the...

"When the Travelers Building opened in 1959, it was extolled as the symbol of city being revitalized. A sixteen-story structure faced with white and blue brick, it stood in bright contrast to the grimy old buildings nearby. The Travelers was the first downtown office building in thirty years, a...

I don't think I took a stance on whether Traveler's Building should/should not have been torn down. But sure, I don't like the international style, nor much of what was built in the era that birthed the Traveler's. I think the Essex building deserves to be preserved, I don't think the Traveler's...

I wouldn't be opposed to retaining the facade, but significantly altering the structure for a towered extension - Russia Wharf was a fine project, one that I hope becomes more and more of a precedent. The general rule I follow when the issue of tear-down vs. maintenance, is that any proposal...

2-story Granite base, Stone ornament, cast-iron bays, brick pilasters, detailed corbeling, classical arrangement..., it's not a building that was built with cheap material to cut corners or with rigid simplicity. There hasn't been much alternation of the original facade or structure, which is...