Charlestown Bridge Walkway

[DowntownDave]

I though that this would be tied to the redevelopment of the Beverly Street warehouse, but it appears that a pedestrian underpass is well underway on both sides of the river:

 

[KentXie]

O good. Another shortcut that I can use when I walk home from Haymarket because the bus 93 doesnt show up for a hr.

 

[Ron Newman]

This is an essential link between riverfront parks, and I'm very much looking forward to it. When it opens, you will be able to walk from behind the Stereti (sp?) skating rink all the way to the Garden, or across the Charles River Dam, without crossing a through street. It will connect to Portal Park which is currently under construction.

 

[KentXie]

Do you know whats the height of the pedestrian bridge? I wonder how the boats are going to get thru because the other bridge passes the locks.

 

[Ron Newman]

This is not a bridge across the Charles River. This is a pedestrian underpass along the riverbank, under the Charlestown Bridge.

 

[KentXie]

I know that but don't boats pass through the Charlestown Bridge too? This bridge starts from the tennis court to the Marriot hotel across the river right?

 

[Ron Newman]

This project will not affect navigation in any way.

The Charlestown Bridge used to open, but hasn't in many years.

 

[DowntownDave]

Just so we're all clear -- there are two walkways that allow people to go under the bridge, not across the river:
Amazingly, the Boston side walkway is being constructed atop the decrepit wharf:

It looks as if there was always provision for such a walkway on the Charlestown side.

This shot reminds me of the old Beacon Hill reservoir:

I somehow never noticed the name of the building to be preserved on the Boston side:

The city evidently wants to make sure it is possible to cut down the mightiest tree in the forest:

 

[AC]

....a year and a half later and they've just added the wood last week.

 

[Ron Newman]

I've wondered what has taken this project so long. Except for that gap, the rest of it has been finished for many months now.

 

[ablarc]

World class waterfront.

 

[BarbaricManchurian]

One of the few gritty sides of urban Boston, however, it is rapidly gentrifying with Lovejoy Wharf and the North End yuppies going toward there. So we'll actually have a place where people live instead of abandoned warehouses and Mitt Romney's slime campaign headquarters. Massachusetts government taking forever, like always.

 

[Ron Newman]

Is government the obstacle to redoing that building? I thought it was the more usual cause -- financing.

 

[BarbaricManchurian]

I meant the walkway was taking forever, and that's because of government. The street frontage of that building is already renovated and looks nice, but it doesn't seem like they care about the waterfront until the government cleans it up and steps it up a notch.

 

[Ron Newman]

That building doesn't really have street frontage -- it's hidden behind another similar-sized building on Causeway St that was fixed up and now contains condos.

 

[AC]

This building is Lovejoy Wharf -

http://www.architecturalteam.com/whatsnew/pdf/lovejoywharf.pdf

The developer is supposedly going to fix this up, not sure when though

The role model would be Lovejoy Wharf, whose developer, Ajax Management Partners LLC of Lexington, is spending nearly $10 million on a wide pedestrian veranda along the Charles River that will connect to Central Artery-built basin pieces. Massachusetts General Hospital and other North Station developers could also be asked to pitch in money, to a general basin fund, when ordered by the city of Boston to pay construction mitigation fees.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/11/25/missing_links/

 

[whighlander]

Did anyone else notice the name on the building and recognize its significance

I must have passed by the building hundreds of times and never saw "Submarine Signal Building" before

Back near the turn of the 20th Century -- the Submarine Signal name was an early important local high technology company -- that today is a division of Raytheon and is based in Rhode Island.

Westy

 

[stellarfun]

That building doesn't really have street frontage -- it's hidden behind another similar-sized building on Causeway St that was fixed up and now contains condos.

Last I heard, the condo owners of the Causeway St. building were up in arms over the Lovejoy Wharf project: charges of view obstruction, lesser privacy, dim,inished market value etc.

 

[ablarc]

Last I heard, the condo owners of the Causeway St. building were up in arms over the Lovejoy Wharf project: charges of view obstruction, lesser privacy, diminished market value etc.

And shadows. Don't forget shadows. Get some wicked shadows coming from the north.




And did I mention traffic ?

 

[AC]

They call their little group "Down in Front".