Bulfinch Crossing | Congress Street Garage | West End

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They say that area is cursed to this day! :oops:

(Yes, it's a bit south-west but just go with it.)
 
bigpicture7 said:
I am also tired of the 'everyone is moving south' trope about Boston industry. No one is denying big changes, but Boston is a complex ecosystem that requires a broad and creative perspective. We are genuinely lucky to be such a multi-disciplinary city. For years, firms involved in design, hardware, robotics, materials science (not to mention all of the life sciences stuff) were priced out of good locations despite wanting to be more central and near the universities. Now we are seeing several examples of people who work on these 'tangibles' grabbing (or stating an intention to grab) what was previously prime information-worker office space, such as the Hyundai/Boston Dynamics robotics institute's grab of space in the heart of Kendall and Lego's intentions to locate a substantial team within Boston Proper. And God forbid some of the people who work on such tangibles might actually be able to live near their work. Again, I don't doubt a reprogramming of space, but am genuinely curious and excited about what might materialize - the point is that we have interesting potential here, not some binary, politically-tainted, dead-set prognostication "all the office-based companies are relocating to Florida and Texas, all of their MA-based workers are full remote and therefore fleeing to Oklahoma where they can live in a McMansion for $200k, and as a result Boston has decided to completely shut down and fully repurpose itself as a refuge camp and recovery center"). Sign me up as someone fascinated about what can become of some of our great underutilized spaces in this city of potential (many of which were underutilized pre-pandemic, regardless of whatever leases they were commanding). And back to the original point: uncertain futures sometimes mean financing is impossible, so the BPDA could have taken the time to figure out how to make this space into a temporary park with future development potential (I would have even supported public funds if an interim state like that was deemed the best choice); but what we have was a rushed decision, however one looks at it, and whatever Boston's future may become.
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I know this isn't the ideal thread for it, but I just want to make a quick connection that exemplifies exactly what I am talking about in my sentence "For years, firms involved in design..." in the above post regarding transformative movement of what types of activities are utilizing the urban core. Many thanks to @stick n move for posting this in the Downtown/North End thread:

stick n move said:
Sasaki unveils new 64,000 s/f Boston headquarters at 110 Chauncy
April 21, 2023 - Construction Design & Engineering
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“Boston, MA Global design firm Sasaki has unveiled its new 64,000 s/f headquarters in downtown at the historic 110 Chauncy building...

https://nerej.com/sasaki-unveils-new-64-000-s-f-boston-headquarters-at-110-chauncy
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I recall knowing that this Sasaki move was in the works for a while, but nice to see it unveiled. 64ksft is nothing to scoff at!

I really hope the post-Covid city can transform itself positively and include great uses of space. There are plenty of job functions that don't need to be in downtown offices, but there are also a ton of vibrant uses for our city's spaces that weren't optimally represented previously. Design workspaces is just one of them.
 
I want to see them take down those massive beams sticking out above Haymarket Square.
 
What’s the point of the multi-week closures if they cannot remove more than one piece at a time?
 
I don’t think they can prep much ahead of the crane. They have cored the beams where they attach the crane, but they don’t appear to cut anything loose until it’s attached to the crane. With that approach, they can only scale by adding more cranes.
 
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Maybe it's just because I haven't been by the garage in the last few weeks, but I was surprised this morning to see how much they've peeled back over the station area. Hard to tell from my photo, but the middle bay still has at least two floors that haven't been demo'd, while the southern bay is down to only one floor and change hanging over the station area.

Gives you a little hope that maybe we're getting closer to the home stretch of Haymarket station shutdowns.
 
Aprehensive_Words said:
Maybe it's just because I haven't been by the garage in the last few weeks, but I was surprised this morning to see how much they've peeled back over the station area. Hard to tell from my photo, but the middle bay still has at least two floors that haven't been demo'd, while the southern bay is down to only one floor and change hanging over the station area.

Gives you a little hope that maybe we're getting closer to the home stretch of Haymarket station shutdowns.
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Amen, the Green line past govt center being completely shut is unacceptable, just hope it facilitates this thing being done over the tunnels very shortly
 
Suffolk 83 said:
Amen, the Green line past govt center being completely shut is unacceptable, just hope it facilitates this thing being done over the tunnels very shortly
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I had a rookie moment last week - was heading to CX from Maverick Thursday evening and without thinking tried to transfer from Blue to Green at Gov't Center where I got the bad news that GL service wasn't running between Gov't Center and N. Station. I knew this, but forgot. Anyway, a whole host of people asked the staff at the station who told them there were no shuttles and they they should just walk. I realize the walk isn't terrible (I do it frequently enough anyway), but it seems really unacceptable that the best answer they had was "just walk." How hard would it be to run a couple of buses on a loop? Or to tell people that they can go to State and take the Orange Line (or preempt that by making the announcement on the Blue Line before the train arrives at State).

In any case, it's just one of the many things that's so frustrating about the T right now. It's going to be even worse in a few weeks when they're encouraging the whole world to take the Blue Line due to the Sumner closure/Tobin work. But hey, at least the fare gates at N. Station were open/free.
 
I guess they can move faster when they don’t need to worry about the Green Line tunnel.
 
I wasn't sure about leaving that little bit of the old garage exposed, but I think it's going to look nice!
 
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