Archives for old proposals

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Matt

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hey guys -- been a bit since i've posted. I've stumbled across this site. From what I've gathered, this year old BRA documents have been scanned online.

Enter random projects in the search (prudential center, south station, etc)...some cool old stuff come up.

example #1 -- the Park Plaza project from the 70s....

http://www.archive.org/details/parkplazabostonf00bost

First place I wanted to post! Have fun
 
Search for "boston fan pier master plan". Get to the pages in the 200s...that should keep you guys busy all morning...
 
Oh snap! Thanks for this. I've always wanted to see plans for Park Plaza.
 
And Matt is right. The Fan Pier Master Plan is infuriating for those of us who aren't familiar with the original version.
 
I won't post them because you can just search but they have a huge archive of BRA stuff. Final saw the original play for Lafayette Place (yay downtown malls!).
 
Yup -- I think I have found my new addiction. Still can't stop staring at the Park Plaza original plan.

It may be the one I posted...but the best quote i found was "there needs to be a line of skycrapers connecting downtown, towers going in at South Station (when they were going to demolish it and put in a new complex) and the prudential center"

So you can view it online, in kindle or download PDFs (not as great quality). I'll play around and try to get some images up.

again -- addicted.
 
The title of this thread seemed appropriate, so...

A 1920s or 30s proposal for the Central Artery:

210120r.jpg
 
So....are the cars supposed to just drive off the edge?
 
I love how pedestrian scaled old highway plans were. I've seen a bunch from NYC where they thought they could just reuse old elevated train tracks for highways.
 
The sketch above was actually based on the old Miller elevated highway on the West Side of Manhattan, which was built in the 20s and was one of the first urban freeways in the world. The Miller was actually six lanes wide, but ridiculously narrow; in old photos, it looks like the High Line railroad. It was mostly torn down in the early 70s because it had become extremely dangerous (it helped that part actually caved in).

From the looks of it, that Central Artery design is also six lanes wide, although they're extremely narrow, with the exception of the lanes going around the on and off ramps, which are actually designed in a fairly ingenious space-saving way. It goes to show that much of the city that was sacrificed for the 1950s Artery was taken down for the safety/efficiency/convenience of the entering and exiting freeway traffic, since by then on and offramps were mostly designed to come off the right hand lane.
 
We sure dodged a bullet on this one.... The Boston Gas Company Building:

bostonc1970gascobldg.jpg
 
Boylston and Charles... where the Four Seasons ended up. Imagine that brutalist thing hulking over the parks.
 
vanshnookenraggen said:
I love how pedestrian scaled old highway plans were. I've seen a bunch from NYC where they thought they could just reuse old elevated train tracks for highways.
Click to expand...

They actually did that for the Gowanus Expressway (I-278) in Brooklyn. From the NYCRoads.comn website:

"Originally constructed atop the old Third Avenue El in the late 1930's, the expressway was widened from four to six lanes between 1958 and 1964."

img9.gif
 
Completely seperate proposal, though the rendering came from the Park Plaza MP.
 
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