Cambridge Infill and Small Developments

kz1000ps said:
Excuse me while I nitpick, but I fixed that for ya. Blame the '80s for bad fashion and even worse music, but not Kendall's horrid layout; the Marriott et al. merely filled in the blanks set 20 years prior.
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Do you have any photos of Kendall before Cambridge Center was built? I haven't seen any.
 
Yessir!

1955:

aerial1955kendall.jpg


1969:

aerial1969mitkendall.jpg


Closeup showing the Volpe and One Broadway under construction:

aerial1969cnstrkendall.jpg


A couple from 1975:

aerial19750823kendallbb.jpg


Them are some nice soccer fields out thar

aerial1975crop.jpg


And one from 1984:

aerial1984mit3.jpg
 
Is it me, or are we seeing more "pictures while driving" since that texting ban? Are we desperate to multitask or something? :p
 
It's dangerous AND I have no idea what I'm looking at. Learn how to take a picture please.
 
vanshnookenraggen said:
It's dangerous AND I have no idea what I'm looking at. Learn how to take a picture please.
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If he's doing it while driving...it IS dangerous

And what your looking at is a new parking garage on Route 2 near the Alewife T Stop...Where the abandoned "Faces" night club remains. And will remain for all eternity thanks to a court ruling.
 
Awesome. Dunno, but if you keep turning the image around there might be a car on the other side, in the breakdown lane? Did those two pedestrians jump the fence to get on the side they're on now?
 
Not sure if there's a separate thread for this, but here's an article on MIT's Kendall makeover plans. Money quotes:

The preliminary plan currently calls for adding: 100,000 square feet of new retail space, most along Main Street; 940,000 square feet of lab and office space, some in buildings that will rise above the retail space; and 60,000 square feet of new housing.

Preliminary plans presented at Tuesday?s meeting include a destination ? perhaps a movie theater or museum ? back away from the street in what is now a surface parking lot across Main Street from the MBTA stop.

In sketches shown at the meeting, the building has a large screen on the outside so that people can gather to watch movies or other events.
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Sound like a promising no-brainer? Just wait, the stakeholders have yet to chime in...

Those people who liked the plans have said that they would make the area look like Times Square. Those who don?t like the plans have commented that they would make the area look like Times Square.
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Some people have said that the plans needed green spaces. Others have asked for urban plazas. There are those who want more parking, minimal parking, or no parking at all.
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Board member Tom Anninger praised the idea of developing the area, but he called the concept of attracting outdoor cafes a ?euro fantasy? that rarely works in the United States.
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http://ht.ly/3xtzJ

Also, rendering of this proposed new "Times Square"...

g2e22e2000000000000a746d609ba2b2d14e31244034e10978922152d8c.jpg
 
Unless I'm missing something here, that rendering doesn't look much different from what is already Kendall Square.
 
I think they cut and pasted some facades from the westernmost block of Newbury St. Oh, and added people doing things other than rushing to the T in order to get somewhere more interesting.
 
WOO-HOO!!!!!!
http://www.boston.com/yourtown/news...d_tear_do.html?comments=all&plckCurrentPage=1


By Brock Parker, Town Correspondent

They?ve covered the dirty sign for the long-vacant ?Faces? discotheque, and now the developers proposing to build apartments at the Route 2 site in Cambridge say they hope to tear down the run-down club this spring.

?That building has been an eyesore for 20 years,? said Rich McKinnon. ?We?ll have a big bulldozing party. I?m not kidding you. We will.?

McKinnon is president of the McKinnon Co., which is working with Criterion Development Partners on a proposal to build a four-story, 227-unit apartment building on the site of the old club near the Alewife MBTA stop.

The Cambridge Planning Board held its first hearing on the proposal Tuesday, and if the city signs off on the plan, McKinnon said he?s hoping the vacant night club will be torn down this spring. Construction could then begin on the apartment building in June.

The club has been vacant since 1990, and Criterion Development Partners and the McKinnon Co. had proposed a similar redevelopment plan for an apartment building in 2008. But that proposal derailed during permitting process, McKinnon said.

The property is still owned by the Martignetti family, which owns the neighboring Games & Lanes bowling alley and the Cambridge Gateway Inn, McKinnon said. But Criterion Development Partners and the McKinnon Company have a purchase and sale agreement to take over ownership of the property once the permits are obtained for the development proposal, McKinnon said.

The apartment building would be called the Residences at Alewife, and would not be built within a wetlands buffer to the Alewife Reservation, McKinnon said.

The project will go before the planning board as early as next month for a vote, McKinnon said. In the interim, neighbors asked the development team to do something about the ?ugly? Faces sign, and McKinnon said a white cover has been placed over it.

?They don?t have to look at the sign anymore,? he said.

--brock.globe@gmail.com
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Four stories, 227 apartments? 57 apartments on each floor? That's going to be quite a landscraper.
 
4 stories next to a giant transit hub? Really? With 20+ story buildings down the street? And no NIMBYS nearby?

Come the fuck on.
 
So now we'll be losing All Asia? Boy these last few years haven't been kind to live music venues...either shit gets wiped away clean or it gets swallowed up into the scummy Live Nation monopoly.
 
kz1000ps said:
So now we'll be losing All Asia? Boy these last few years haven't been kind to live music venues...either shit gets wiped away clean or it gets swallowed up into the scummy Live Nation monopoly.
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There's no shortage of available retail space on Mass Ave and I wouln't be surprised to se MIT pressured into helping with relocation.

From the town/gown report:
There is a new building in the early stages of planning that is the programmatic priority of the School of Science and School of Engineering. This building is the Materials Research Facility of the Future (MRFF). A site for the new building has not been selected yet because MIT is engaged in the preliminary analysis of the programmatic and technical requirements for this advanced research facility.

Also in a preliminary stage are plans for a building that would house the growing set of energy and environmental research activities, along with portions of the Earth, Atmosphere and Planetary Sciences (EAPS) and Civil Engineering departments. The constituent parts of the program are still in development and no specific site has been selected although there is interest in replacing the parking lots, bank kiosk and modular buildings along Massachusetts Avenue between Albany Street and Vassar Street.
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Looks like they're adding a floor or new roof top to the Ford Building?
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what is the building on the left that has also added a new and slanted roof?
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also the old A.D.Lilttle buildings are comeing down on rt 2
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