Brookline Infill and Small Developments

Justbuildit said:
Thanks for the update, I knew it was under construction but hadn't seen news in a long time. Why would it take 50 years to reopen a closed footbridge over a centuries-old rail ROW?

As the Brookline Tab reported in 2006, the bridge’s “closure and the plans to restore it have caused an ongoing political battle between green space advocates who would like to see it reopened, and neighboring opponents who think it should remain closed for fears of increasing crime to the area.”

Never change, Brookline. We all know criminals are too stupid to, like, walk 6 minutes out to Longwood and cross over the tracks on that side.
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The first politician that openly mocks or laughs at people like these Brookliners wins my vote for life.
 
393b40 said:
The first politician that openly mocks or laughs at people like these Brookliners wins my vote for life.
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Honestly, they’re not wrong. If you’re a homeowner in Brookline with valuable property, having direct access for burglars and thieves to flee easily into the Muddy River is not an unreasonable concern. In my opinion, those owners’ concerns aren’t valid in terms of something that benefits the common good overall, and in this case that benefit >>> owners’ concerns. But there’s often an overly punitive and unrealistic negative attitude toward these things on archboston. People in that neighborhood pay astronomical taxes that includes an extraordinary degree of safety for a neighborhood so close to Boston. I grew up Brookline. I don’t live there anymore and none of my friends, in fact, nobody I even know from school, can’t afford to live there anymore. Whether or not the actual existence of Brookline as an entity itself is justified is another question. My politics are very pro-urbanist and think people overall would be healthier accepting a greater amount of crime as a necessary by product of more urbanism… and be smart about security. But I accept that not everyone thinks that way and the concerns of those who don’t aren’t on their face unreasonable. The tone on here often sounds like it’s mostly people who live in apartments and have zero concerns about crime. Property owners have an interest in maximizing security and going from not abutting to abutting a massive dark park isn’t crazy to fight against. I’m glad they lost as I wished that bridge was open all through my youth (among other things, it would’ve been one more easy way to run into the park when we got chased by cops smoking weed around the Monmouth St neighborhood haha). If you don’t like what those property owners have to say, though, they are just a product of the system. The system is the issue. Private property is the issue. Capitalism is the issue. Not them.
 
FK4 said:
Honestly, they’re not wrong. If you’re a homeowner in Brookline with valuable property, having direct access for burglars and thieves to flee easily into the Muddy River is not an unreasonable concern. In my opinion, those owners’ concerns aren’t valid in terms of something that benefits the common good overall, and in this case that benefit >>> owners’ concerns. But there’s often an overly punitive and unrealistic negative attitude toward these things on archboston. People in that neighborhood pay astronomical taxes that includes an extraordinary degree of safety for a neighborhood so close to Boston. I grew up Brookline. I don’t live there anymore and none of my friends, in fact, nobody I even know from school, can’t afford to live there anymore. Whether or not the actual existence of Brookline as an entity itself is justified is another question. My politics are very pro-urbanist and think people overall would be healthier accepting a greater amount of crime as a necessary by product of more urbanism… and be smart about security. But I accept that not everyone thinks that way and the concerns of those who don’t aren’t on their face unreasonable. The tone on here often sounds like it’s mostly people who live in apartments and have zero concerns about crime. Property owners have an interest in maximizing security and going from not abutting to abutting a massive dark park isn’t crazy to fight against. I’m glad they lost as I wished that bridge was open all through my youth (among other things, it would’ve been one more easy way to run into the park when we got chased by cops smoking weed around the Monmouth St neighborhood haha). If you don’t like what those property owners have to say, though, they are just a product of the system. The system is the issue. Private property is the issue. Capitalism is the issue. Not them.
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A Ring live home/security/camera/remote/voice intercom system costs under $40/month. Fred Lebow and the helpless jellyfish who oppose this project even today need to gain some personal competence.
 
I don't have a horse in the home owner vs. greater good / utility debate, but please let me impress on you all that Rings are scary. The volume and granularity of private data they collect is way worse than anything ByteDance or Google are capable of vacuuming up. Ring is part of Amazon, and your data is being mined and monetized.

"But Ring says it doesn't sell your personal data!"

Not directly. Instead, your data gets anonymized and bundled with other similar socio-demographic profiles and fed into Amazon's marketing system with enough data points to probabilistically model you without needing any "true" PII like your name or phone number. Just think of everything you've spoken about within 20 feet of a Ring camera.

Ring lets you save videos and log records for up to 180 days in the US before deleting - but that's just on the user-end. On the back-end, Ring saves videos and all that captured PII for as long as it wants. Ring's privacy policy and user agreement list 14 ways in which this server-side data can be used, including "consumer research" and this gem of a final use case: “We also may use the personal information we collect about you in other ways for which we provide specific notice at the time of collection and obtain your consent if required by applicable law.” If required - which it's not in the US for a bunch of stuff.

I'm all for getting yourself a home security system; I have one for my house in Tokyo. But it sure as shit isn't a Ring.

Just remember, any smart consumer product Amazon releases has only two business goals for the company: 1.) collect as much user data as possible, and 2.) lock users into the ecosystem so that their data can be further refined and monetized. Revenue from product sales is an afterthought as long as volume is moved. The user data each device provides is substantially more valuable in real dollar terms than revenue from the device's sale.
 
shawn said:
I don't have a horse in the home owner vs. greater good / utility debate, but please let me impress on you all that Rings are scary. The volume and granularity of private data they collect is way worse than anything ByteDance or Google are capable of vacuuming up. Ring is part of Amazon, and your data is being mined and monetized.

"But Ring says it doesn't sell your personal data!"

Not directly. Instead, your data gets anonymized and bundled with other similar socio-demographic profiles and fed into Amazon's marketing system with enough data points to probabilistically model you without needing any "true" PII like your name or phone number. Just think of everything you've spoken about within 20 feet of a Ring camera.

Ring lets you save videos and log records for up to 180 days in the US before deleting - but that's just on the user-end. On the back-end, Ring saves videos and all that captured PII for as long as it wants. Ring's privacy policy and user agreement list 14 ways in which this server-side data can be used, including "consumer research" and this gem of a final use case: “We also may use the personal information we collect about you in other ways for which we provide specific notice at the time of collection and obtain your consent if required by applicable law.” If required - which it's not in the US for a bunch of stuff.

I'm all for getting yourself a home security system; I have one for my house in Tokyo. But it sure as shit isn't a Ring.

Just remember, any smart consumer product Amazon releases has only two business goals for the company: 1.) collect as much user data as possible, and 2.) lock users into the ecosystem so that their data can be further refined and monetized. Revenue from product sales is an afterthought as long as volume is moved. The user data each device provides is substantially more valuable in real dollar terms than revenue from the device's sale.
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Whatever........ Ring, Simplisafe, Nest, Blink, Swann, or any of the multitudes of options all cost less than a couple of box seats for a Sox game.

The relevant issue is that Fred Lebow and these disingenuous Brookline pearl clutchers have no fukking personal security reason to oppose this public pedestrian benefit for the Fens. They just want to oppose it for OTHER reasons they are too ashamed to publicly announce.
 
I don't think there's any dog whistling here @shmessy. There are still folks in Brookline who lived there in the 1970s/80s, and there are still memories of a time when adjacent neighborhoods in Boston weren't as they are today. Long ago I had a neighbor who told me what it was like at that time to live next to the Riverway. Bodies were being pulled out of the Muddy River. People would pull their cars up onto the walkways and treat it like a personal driveway, and do things like oil changes and drain the oil right onto the ground. Crime was a problem, especially after dark. I don't think those issues exist today and I'm all for increasing pedestrian connections to public amenities, but I can understand the instinct to keep those barriers up even though I disagree with those in opposition.
 
Plen-T-Pak said:
I don't think there's any dog whistling here @shmessy. There are still folks in Brookline who lived there in the 1970s/80s, and there are still memories of a time when adjacent neighborhoods in Boston weren't as they are today. Long ago I had a neighbor who told me what it was like at that time to live next to the Riverway. Bodies were being pulled out of the Muddy River. People would pull their cars up onto the walkways and treat it like a personal driveway, and do things like oil changes and drain the oil right onto the ground. Crime was a problem, especially after dark. I don't think those issues exist today and I'm all for increasing pedestrian connections to public amenities, but I can understand the instinct to keep those barriers up even though I disagree with those in opposition.
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.....and as I outlined, personal security home tech is available, advanced and cheap.

God bless - these people have PTSD about things that have not been prevalent there for almost half a century. You and I both give objective reasons why Fred Lebow and the other (clearly misinformed 40-50 year behind the times) "opponents" should be told , gently but firmly, to have a warm glass of milk and a healthy nap.......and stop needlessly obstructing a good thing for society.
 
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MHIC Announces Its Eastern Bank Proprietary Fund IV Closed Five Investments Offering Over 270 Affordable Homes in MA
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“Sussman House Apartments, a development of 100 apartments near Coolidge Corner in Brookline, will be renovated so current tenants, primarily seniors and households requiring accessibility, can stay in this desirable town near Boston with affordable rent.”

https://bostonrealestatetimes.com/m...nts-offering-over-270-affordable-homes-in-ma/
 
That's insane what they are doing with the windows on the Driscoll School that open that way, as opposed to the German/European ones that open in and tilt at the top. Even the Frankfurt Marriott has tip-in windows on the 43rd floor. It just seems stupid to have that in a school, where kids will try to throw shit out the windows.
What is interesting is that I was watching Matt Risinger's channel on YouTube and he was installing the German windows and gave the name of the company importing them. Turns out that they're just up in Littleton, MA. https://www.eas-usa.com/
 
jarvismj said:
That's insane what they are doing with the windows on the Driscoll School that open that way, as opposed to the German/European ones that open in and tilt at the top. Even the Frankfurt Marriott has tip-in windows on the 43rd floor. It just seems stupid to have that in a school, where kids will try to throw shit out the windows.
What is interesting is that I was watching Matt Risinger's channel on YouTube and he was installing the German windows and gave the name of the company importing them. Turns out that they're just up in Littleton, MA. https://www.eas-usa.com/
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Runkle school also has them. There is a mesh inside so that will prevent people from throwing stuff out the window.
 
Balfour Brookline

U/C opening 2024
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“Located on a nearly four-acre site in Fisher Hill, a community first designed by the famed landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, that is steeped in history, Balfour’s senior living community at Brookline will combine the comfortable elegance and quality care that define “The Balfour Way.”

Balfour Brookline will feature independent and assisted living and memory care communities. You will enjoy all-inclusive services, including chef-prepared meals that meet an array of dietary needs, a robust catalogue of life-enriching programs and personalized concierge services. As with all Balfour communities, your safety, peace of mind and personal needs are of the utmost importance.

Once completed in 2024, Balfour Brookline will restore an important residential use to the historical Mitton House, a mansion that was once home to one of Boston’s most important merchants and later occupied by Cardinal Cushing College and Newbury College. The mansion is being lovingly restored, as designed by the world-famous Robert A.M. Stern Architects (RAMSA) firm….”

“Within 190,000 square feet of new construction and 20,000 square feet of restoration to the historic Mitton House, the project includes 81 Independent Living, 38 Assisted Living and 40 Memory Care units.

https://www.hyminvestments.com/balfour-at-brookline/

https://www.balfourcare.com/brookline
 
I have not been by the bridge yet but it looks like its open! Official opening late September.

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stick n move said:
Is it cast iron? Looks nice.
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Not cast iron but original steel truss that looks like it has been riveted together. It Steel members were restored by a Rhode Island company. Here are some construction photos from the Brookline site. bridge Rehab

Carlton Street Footbridge
The bridge was designed by Alexis French, Olmsted’s collaborator in the design of Riverway and Olmsted Parks and Brookline’s first Town Engineer. The single-span steel truss bridge provides access between Brookline’s historic Longwood/Cottage Farm neighborhoods and the Riverway Park section of the Emerald Necklace.
 
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