Boston Parks/Green Spaces

[paperless paul]

North Point and Paul Revere

I wish they could make the locks a little more interesting for visitors and maybe a little easier to travel through. But I gather security theatre and priorities for a non-public facing department makes that unlikely. Even better would be one of the proposed bridges.

Someone was having a birthday party here. It would be great if there was more of this in our parks.

North Point Park is great - lots of different spaces, designs, reasonably well laid out. Although the path system is a bit awkward. I hope this park becomes better used in the future.

Good views from this park.

Maybe except for this. Really a sort of Waltham Business Park

And then east of the EF building, it's literally the end of the road. Not sure if tho is where they ran out of Big Dig money. Or they just were waiting for North Point to finish. But hopefully North Point developers will do this right and sort it out since they are benefitting so much from North Point Park.

EDIT: Had double picture in there.

 

[paperless paul]

Shifting across the river.

Fens - Emerald Necklace

This area could be great. Obviously, Olmstead design etc. It clearly needs some attention, tlc, and security. That path behind the Victory Gardens is seriously scketchy even on Sunday at noon.

We've got a weed problem here. This is a hybrid. This is a cross between Bluegrass, Kentucky Bluegrass, Featherbed Bent and Northern California Sinsimilla. The pond would be good for you.

Not sure how I feel about the Victory Gardens, some people have done a really amazing job there, and maybe compared to some of the less used parts of the park, and given the lack of money to invest by the MDC it's better to have them than not. But should there be a private use in the park?

It's definitely day lilly season.

Fenway lights in the back.

Around the Korean Memorial and Agassiz Rd is the most underwhelming part of the park. These areas could be much improved and a real boon to the surrounding community and visitors. Unfortunately both security and landscaping make this unattractive for everyone except geese.

The Rose Garden is ok though.

And Clemente Field and the courts seem to get a lot of activity.

Hopefully the Muddy River Restoration project becomes a showpiece for what can be done and some private fundraising or future increases in MDC budget can go to restoring these sections and the ones towards Brookline.

 

[paperless paul]

Christian Science Center


This fountain is seriously well used in the summer. And largely by local kids which I think is great.

There's something about this plaza, the modern brutalist design, like the Barbican. Something that makes you hold back at first from liking it. But after some time passes, and you see it in all seasons, you really start to enjoy it. Although it's more difficult in the winter. Hopefully the revitalization will only improve it.

The bosque is amazing. It gives me a faint echo of Jardin de Luxembourg or Jardin du Palais Royal, perhaps a nice addition here would be chairs and tables for some chess or boule.

View from the west end.

This will be the perfect spot 4 years from now to get a shot of all the towers. A shift and wider angle would give you CSC, Copley Place, maybe 888, and Back Bay.

Someone else was out taking pictures the right way. Perhaps it was one of you.

Finally, the Mass Ave side. I always feel like this area needs something more. But perhaps it is good for just lying in the grass.

 

[Downburst]

The CSC is my favorite place in the entire city. You're right that it grows on you over time- and I like your suggestions for improvements (tables and chairs under the trees in particular). The Mass Ave park side could be activated a bit more but a lot of people do use it just to sit and relax.

When the pool is refilled in April, it's like seeing an old friend.

Thank you for your photos and commentary.

 

[Matthew]

I saw two softball games going on at Cassidy yesterday.

 

[BarbaricManchurian]

Thanks for the thread. Boston is looking better than ever! A crown jewel of America.

 

[vanshnookenraggen]

The Fens is without a doubt my favorite park in the city. What I love is that it has all the grandeur of the Public Garden but it's in a neighborhood away from the tourists. I lived across the street when I was at WIT and I loved it anytime of year.

The Christian Science Center mall is, IMO, one of the most successful modernist plazas built. It is relaxing to walk along and has enough different sections that you can enjoy it in different ways; the fountain is interactive, the reflecting pool guides you from one end to the other in a relaxing way (with an amazing view), the tree line along Huntington Ave is the prefect buffer from the city, the way the plaza curves around the Mother Church to open into a grass field (which is very popular with sun bathers), and how the entire open space is framed with active buildings and landmarks. It's proof that modernism isn't bad, but rather poor design is bad.

 

[Scipio]

Here’s a great article about the Emerald Necklace embarrassing us in front of Helsinki’s chief environmental planner: http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-09-...onnect-broken-pieces-bostons-emerald-necklace

Brookline’s Route 9 Crossing project and the Army Corps of Engineers Muddy River Daylighting project will help string the emeralds back on the necklace, but there are still lots of problems. Charlesgate really is disgusting, last time I walked by there was a cartoonish 55 gallon drum o’waste up on the riverbank along with all the other trash. Smaller facilities along the park like the Duck House highlighted in the article are fallow and unused. And of course there are the wayfinding and signage problems you see in most linear parks anywhere. It’s hard to get this last one right, the best I have seen recently was in Minneapolis with their Grand Rounds Bikeway.

Said Helsinki planner has a somewhat foofy GSD video project where she raises these issues by dressing up in a fluorescent green burqa and gets Bostonians to help her across gaps in the Emerald Necklace
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SX5YN4ESjis

 

[dirtywater]

The garden at the Old North Church is getting a redo. From citybizlist:

Copley Wolff Design Group, Inc. (CWDG), a Boston-based landscape architecture and planning firm, is leading the landscape design on the garden restoration of a historical Boston landmark, the Old North Church.

Copley Wolff created the design plans that supplemented a larger grant proposal submitted by the Beacon Hill Garden Club on behalf of this project. The Garden Club of America has awarded the Beacon Hill Garden Club, who oversees the Church’s garden, with the Founders Fund Award, a prestigious grant in the amount of $30,000.

The Old North Church is Boston’s oldest standing church and most visited historic site, attracting approximately a half million visitors each year. The Beacon Hill Garden Club will use funding from this grant to begin implementation of Copley Wolff’s landscape design concepts to enlarge the garden’s entrance, introduce trees and planting varieties of historical significance within raised plant beds and incorporate more seating. The project will also include the construction and installation of a large glass and water feature, on which Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem, Paul Revere’s Ride, will be engraved.

 

[odurandina]

i can't find a general thread about improving the pubic realm. But, i have something i wanna run by the aB braintrust; Generally, i'm not supportive about carpeting roofs & terraces... But, when you walk by this long, absurd thing....

https://www.google.com/maps/place/S...fbc9d23b63f620!8m2!3d42.3515322!4d-71.0668452

The observer is revulsed by the unwelcoming, long, squat wall and unseemly wall materials. The void above the roof line inspires further regret. If you look down on it from the W/ you see space where you might do 'something.' Maybe a fun, after hours retreat with some degree of separation that allows operators to keep it 'savory'.... or possibly just add shrubberies, hanging/botanical gardens, or large tree boxes. How crazy it would be for 'nubes' exploring Stuart St for the first time and look up at oaks, maples, magnolia's & evergreens filling the void of a challenged building.