Boston gets vote for worst waterfront development!

Sorry; don't care for Rowes Wharf. Like much of Boston, it doesn't take a clear stand. You're sitting at what is supposed to be this posh waterfront dinning experience, and the next thing you know a fog horn is going off for a booze cruise. I like romantic restaurants, and I like booze cruises; but they don't go together.
Here in Boston, we?re big on mutual funds and insurance; a mindset that manifests itself throughout the city in our timid ?mixed-use? approach to everything. It?s this fear of failure that leads us to suburban mediocrity. We have this waterfront area that goes from Cape Cod to Hampton beach, but no one single part of it that says "Here is our best shot," no focal point. Where is our Central Park? We have no answer; instead we talk about the "sum of our parts."
We have plenty of opportunities to be a "World Class City", but we?re gonna have to start doing world class things.
 
I don't see why those things don't go together. If you're sitting at a waterfront restaurant you should expect to hear the sounds of ships!
 
Yeah, I don't really get that either. It's like complaining about the barking sea lions on the San Fran waterfront.
I do, however, agree with the overall post. Boston needs more "World Class" destinations on the waterfront. I just think Rowes Wharf is the only thing that actually fits the bill so far.
 
Maybe a new City Hall on the waterfront is just the thing.

Think of Ken Livingstone's palace on the Thames.
 
I guess when you say it like that, the complaint sounds pretty foolish, but I'm sticking to my guns. This whole "you should have expected it" argument never stops people from complaining, and it shouldn't.
Fact is, there are plenty of better places the cruises could leave from, and this is no petty complaint about a little noise, or a sea-lion. I'm talking about a deafening fire department type horn that keeps going off; and it's right on top of you. I'm not talking about sounds in the distance, I'm talking about the type of sudden noise where everybody does this little head duck out of knee-jerk reaction followed by a "what the fuck?" It's something that stops a conversation, it's something that everybody was surprised by. I've been to plenty of restaurants on the water, and plenty of fancy hotels, just none that doubled as a cruise terminal. Of course the sunset over Logan made it all worth while.
I still love the arch.
 
It all seemed so promising for a while. The walk to the sea, the soon-to-be transformation of Long Wharf, Christopher Columbus Park, the Aquarium, Rowe's Wharf, Fan Pier, Fort Point, the Seaport, Fish Pier...

It seemed so potentially bustling.

What happened??

Vivian Li?
 
A cold and dreary extended winter happened. I bet if you go to Long Wharf or Columbus Park right now, you'll see tons of people.
 
Ron Newman said:
A cold and dreary extended winter happened. I bet if you go to Long Wharf or Columbus Park right now, you'll see tons of people.
Click to expand...
It's not all the weather. I bet a lot of those tons of people are wishing there were more interesting things to do. That's certainly the thought that enters my mind when I go down there. How many times can you be thrilled by the Aquarium?

A certain plodding dullness...
 
There's things to do, they're just a short walk away and that's why no one stays. the problem is there arn't the cafes there that there should be or anything to keep normal people there.

I think last time i was in the area, i ate at the patio of Joe's American... not bad, but they need more of it. i don't care if it's another chain, but everytime i'm there... it's like, "HEY! this is nice... let's go somewhere else". what can you do really? walk down to the end of the wharf, check out Columbus park, then what? you walk over to the North End which is right there or over to Quincy Market if you're just exploring.

The problem is that they have the stuff to get you there, just nothing to KEEP you there. I don't want to stay the night at Rowe's Wharf if i live in the area, I'll go home... I don't want to go to the Aquarium again, i've been there 100 times. If i wanna eat (and don't feel like Joe's) I'll go over to the North End or Quincy market... both areas have a full array of price ranges, indoor/outdoor eating, and selection... but it's not AT the waterfront. that's the problem.
 
Even Rowes Wharf is not such an achievement. Beyond the one waterfront restaurant (which I can't afford to eat at), there's little else going on. The overwhelming monotony of brick walls, brick walkways, and blank windows is not attractive. I enjoy passing through Rowes more than any other part of the waterfront, but only that.
 
Boston's failed waterfront is especially galling when seen in the context of the magnificent job New York has done in recent years --and continues to do-- of reclaiming its waterfront for recreational use.

Battery Park City, Brooklyn Bridge Park, the West Village waterfront and even South Street Seaport are a sendup of Boston's miserable (non-) performance.
 
To be fair, the physical development of New York makes this easier. When everything along the Hudson west of the highway/12th Ave./West St. can be designated parkland and reclaimed from warehouses and the like, there doesn't need to be nearly as much wrangling over construction. Where there is significant vertical development, it's been done in a context where there are few neighbors to complain and where context is conducive to virtually anything - see Battery Park City abutting the Financial District and the new towers sprouting in light industrial Long Island City. Where there are neighbors, such as in Williamsburg, there really isn't the sort of tenacious political constituency that prevents intelligent development as it often does in Boston.

Not that all of New York's waterfront development should be Boston's ideal, even if it is marginally superior. BPC is hardly a model I'd like to see Boston emulate - it's just like the SPW's towers in the park, with slightly better architecture and scale. South Street Seaport was done by the same firm as Faneuil Hall Marketplace - it just happens to be on the water. Its enclosed mall is hardly something I'd like to see gobbling Boston water views. Boston could use something like the Maier towers on the West Village waterfront - that much is agreed.
 
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