City Hall Discussion - Redevelopment - Preservation - Relocation

Re: Menino Proposes Selling City Hall

I think the issue with City Hall Plaza isn't so much its size or its dips and curves as it's the fact that not much goes on around it's periphery; the JFK building being the biggest offender. I'd be willing to bet that you could find similar sized plazas in Europe, and I think I've actually been a few in Rome. Personally, I think that there's a place in the city for a large gathering area that can withstand a crowd trampling, and the growing (although still limited) number of events proves, I think, the point. In terms of having things around the periphery, city hall itself is pretty close to a no go. The Government Center building (although ugly) has done pretty well with ground floor retail; it's main problem is that there's a four lane road between it and the plaza. The Sears Crescent building is probably the winner of the bunch. And then we come to the JFK building... I think moving isn't a hugely viable option, although the post office is moving so maybe that's a bright light. I think the Feds could be amendable to a building alongside if they had some control over what it became. That building could serve the duel purpose of providing ground floor retail and slightly condensing the area of the plaza.

As for moving City Hall? I think that's just dumb.
 
Re: Menino Proposes Selling City Hall

City Hall could easily accommodate a cafe; if you take down some of the brick walls, maybe even more. The JFK should be remodeled to have commercial space all along its ground level, just like the State Transportation building.
 
Re: Menino Proposes Selling City Hall

City Hall Plaza is too large to be just a plaza. It needs, like Ron said, a cafe or a restaurant, or a specialty shop of some sort. In size, I would compare it to the lively Plaza Mayor in Madrid, Spain:
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City Hall Plaza could help it's own cause by selling the strip of the plaza along Cambridge Street to a developer who could build a long, narrow (no larger or wider than Center Plaza) building that engages the street on one side and the plaza (with outdoor seating for the restaurants, and outdoor racks/shelves for the stores in the warmer months). If you look at the picture of Plaza Mayor from google earth, you can see that there are tables all over it. It's such a vast plaza, that without them, it would be empty and cold (like our City Hall Plaza)

If they wanted to go one further, the new structure could also engulf the Gov't Center T station as well. I don't know about anyone else, but the brick bump is an eyesore to me.

Isn't security too tough at the JFK for them to draw the public in by opening up the ground floor? I seem to remember the 3 times I've been there having to go through metal detectors and such.In anycase, I think they should build it out for retail and dining as well, combined development along Cambridge Street, you could have two engaging sides (3 if City Hall would do something with that ground floor).
 
Re: Menino Proposes Selling City Hall

Ron Newman said:
City Hall could easily accommodate a cafe; if you take down some of the brick walls, maybe even more. The JFK should be remodeled to have commercial space all along its ground level, just like the State Transportation building.
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This was part of the architect's original plan - a rathskeller I think.
 
Re: Menino Proposes Selling City Hall

I'm totally in favor of less security for all government buildings, whether federal, state, or local. The government should not promote fear of, or by, its citizens.

The piazza in Siena, supposedly an inspiration for our City Hall Plaza, is also vast. However, it is also entirely enclosed, giving it the feel of a huge outdoor room.
 
Re: Menino Proposes Selling City Hall

Casino. (Shelbyville has one.)
 
Re: Menino Proposes Selling City Hall

Part of me wishes they would just tear city hall down and start over. But I guess at least some of it should be kept, since it is such a fine example of brutalism and why it should never be done again. I think it would be interesting if they turned the roof into a giant planter. It kind of looks like an empty one now. Opening up the base of the building could make a great gateway to Faneuil hall, the path they have now feels strange. They could build above the building and transition it into something less brutal. What?s left of the old building could be a sort of city hall museum/information center/cafe, while the offices would be in new construction above. I definitely think they should put a roof garden up there, or at least a green roof. I think adding some vegetation to the building would give it this ancient ruin look, which would contrast with a more modern addition built above.

The plaza is too big and just doesn?t work; the surrounding buildings are just too ominous feeling. The reason some of the great plazas in Europe work is partly due to the fact that they?re surrounded by low-rise, classical and ornamental buildings that aren?t looming but create a sense of peace. And they usually aren?t as confusing, but are inviting instead. It really doesn?t seem that such a large plaza is really needed at city hall, and they should use some of the land for development. Right now it seems so?desolate. Using part of the open space for outdoor seating would be great I think. And adding more trees for shade.
 
Re: Menino Proposes Selling City Hall

Since we are throwing out ideas...

City Hall (the function) should be moved (but not to the waterfront -somewhere with real public transportation acess).
The Fed and whoever is in the Hurley building should move to SBW.
JFK should be razed along with the Congress St Garage.
City Hall (the building) and the Hurley Building should be renovated and reused.
City Hall for the Boston Design Museum.
The Hurley Building for a new and expanded BAC.
New buildings could be erected to house dorms and offices for Boson's hopefully now growing design community.
These buildings should contain ground floor retail as well as theaters and low income artist housing.
They would be erected in place of the JFK and Garage.
A new flatiron building would be built where that stupid Mobile station is. (I'll live in the penthouse suite)
New buildings would be built in and around the plaza, creating a cluster of narrow roadways and alleys.
Congress & Cambridge Sts should be narrowed.
The Center Plaza should be split, allowing a narrow view corridor between the Courthouse and Faneuil Hall.
A new urban neighborhood will be born.

And everyone will get their own unicorn to ride around on.
 
Re: Menino Proposes Selling City Hall

skintreesnail said:
such a fine example of brutalism and why it should never be done again
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I won't go quite that far. Isn't the nearby Borders bookstore (formerly a bank) also an example of Brutalism? Most people like it.

Another Brutalist building, the MIT student center, was widely hated at first. But a rework in the late 1980s made it much more pleasant and functional.

I still lean towards "tear it down" but am willing to hear out proposals for adaptive reuse.
 
Re: Menino Proposes Selling City Hall

Just an observation from today:

The exterior of the Govt. Center station in City Hall Plaza has long brick rises that often double as a seating areas. The bricks have very recently been repaired. Today, the weather was sunny about 40 degrees and a bit breezy - a typical nice late winter day, but cold. This area of City Hall Plaza was occupied by approx. 40 people hanging out and sitting around enjoying the view of pedestrians exiting or entering govt. center or crossing City Hall Plaza while en route to somewhere else such as Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts. Now fast forward a short time later and I was crossing the Rose Kennedy Greenway by the Wharf District Park and not one person was to be found idle and just enjoying the Greenway.

It's now official in my mind, at least, that Boston's most viled public space, City Hall Plaza, beats the Greenway as a functioning and working urban public space!! :)
 
Re: Menino Proposes Selling City Hall

Might it be that people were hanging out by the subway station because, well, it's a convenient meeting-spot? The Greenway might be slightly more populated, too, if it contained subway stations that spewed pedestrians day and night.

My choice would be to engineer a land swap between the city and the Fed: in exchange for the JFK building and that land, the city will give the Fed Menino's new City Hall plot in the Seaport.
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Bad idea for the same reason that moving City Hall is. Many Boston residents depend on services located in this building, and an insane number of people work in it as well. It needs to be somewhere more conveniently accessible than on the underground bus line that also carries everyone and their luggage to the airport.

I think the issue with City Hall Plaza isn't so much its size or its dips and curves as it's the fact that not much goes on around it's periphery
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Honestly, I think packing CHP in its current incarnation with cafe tables would hardly save the place; can you imagine anyone being excited about "dining alfresco in City Hall Plaza"?

The most successful squares in Europe are dotted with little things, like statues and fountains and even buildings like market halls and clocktowers. These break up the monotony of vast open spaces. CHP's abstract attempts at such things, as we have seen, have been doomed to failure. The fountain has never worked and the little market canopy barely shores up one side of it.

European squares also tend to have buildings which engage the square directly. Center Plaza is probably the most akin to such European buildings; its arcade shelters a lot of patio cafes. Unfortunately, it's severed from the plaza by several lanes of Cambridge St. traffic.

Finally, CHP is just too vast. The Plaza Mayor is probably about half the size of it; Warsaw's central square is maybe a fourth of the size, and Krakow's may be the same size but is filled with various buildings, some very large.

To get the intimate effects of such places, you would probably have to build an inner ring within the current plaza itself, with interesting enough architecture to draw people who want to gaze at it for hours while sun-basking, with arcades to shelter people from Boston's notorious weather, and fill what remains of the plaza with small-scale knicknacks that draw people toward its centre.
 
Re: Menino Proposes Selling City Hall

czsz said:
Might it be that people were hanging out by the subway station because, well, it's a convenient meeting-spot? The Greenway might be slightly more populated, too, if it contained subway stations that spewed pedestrians day and night.
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Your right, the Greenway does not have subway/transit stations in it, but there are a few immediately adjacent:

- S. Station/Dewey Sq.;
- Aquarium; and
- Haymarket

Haymarket always has people waiting around because its a bus/subway transfer station. Most are by themselves or with young children staring into space waiting for the next bus to Chelsea.

But many T stations do not have people hanging around outside of them in the manner I observed today. The scene consisted of small groups of people maybe 2-4 persons conversing with each other, sitting down, smoking cigarrettes, sipping coffee etc. watching quite a bit of foot traffic.
 
Re: Menino Proposes Selling City Hall

commuter guy said:
Just an observation from today:

The exterior of the Govt. Center station in City Hall Plaza has long brick rises that often double as a seating areas. The bricks have very recently been repaired. Today, the weather was sunny about 40 degrees and a bit breezy - a typical nice late winter day, but cold. This area of City Hall Plaza was occupied by approx. 40 people hanging out and sitting around enjoying the view of pedestrians exiting or entering govt. center or crossing City Hall Plaza while en route to somewhere else such as Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts. Now fast forward a short time later and I was crossing the Rose Kennedy Greenway by the Wharf District Park and not one person was to be found idle and just enjoying the Greenway.

It's now official in my mind, at least, that Boston's most viled public space, City Hall Plaza, beats the Greenway as a functioning and working urban public space!! :)
Click to expand...
That area always has people sitting around, but it's not because it's a great public space. It's because there's a shelter for homeless vets around the corner. You could suggest opening a homeless shelter on the Greenway, but that's another discussion entirely.
 
Re: Menino Proposes Selling City Hall

underground said:
That area always has people sitting around, but it's not because it's a great public space. It's because there's a shelter for homeless vets around the corner. You could suggest opening a homeless shelter on the Greenway, but that's another discussion entirely.
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LOL - Underground, you are correct, a good portion of the group I saw yesterday and today(maybe 50%) seemed to be from the shelter. But hey, at least someone was taking the time to enjoy the "open space" of the city. Today there was a contigent of rather attractive young women who appeared to be Euro backpackers sitting in the area, amidst the scruffy looking middle aged men.

On another note, many more people sit on 2 of the 3 sides of the exterior of the T station. Most sit facing the Cresent Block (Starbucks) or Cambridge Street, but very few sit facing the direction of the Plaza and the JFK building. Must be the relative intimacy of that small part of City Hall Plaza or maybe because its the side closest to the shelter. :)

There are a few shelters adjacent to the Greenway too. They are tucked in by the Government Center Garage that hovers over the Haymarket Sq. Bus Station. I've been told these are the only day shelters in Central Boston and that they are more liberal that other shelters in letting in intoxicated or otherwise impaired "guests." I haven't yet seen the homeless from this area gravitate to the Greenway. Perhaps because the Greenway, in its current form, is fit for neither Man (homeless or housed) or Beast!
 
Re: Menino Proposes Selling City Hall

Hot Eurochicks hanging with scruffy middle aged men? I'm getting right over there right now! Sounds like my lucky day...
 
Re: Menino Proposes Selling City Hall

"Guten Tag, schone fraulein! Was ist ihr tierkreiszeichen? Wurden sie mogen meine radierungen sehen?"
Works every time.
 
Re: Menino Proposes Selling City Hall

?Green? plan sought for city building in Dudley Square
By Paul Restuccia
Thursday, May 15, 2008

The facade of a Dudley Square landmark will likely be incorporated into the design of a new City Hall.

In what Boston is calling the first step in relocating City Hall out of Government Center, Mayor Thomas M. Menino was expected to announce last night a design competition for a building in Roxbury?s Dudley Square that would house 1,200 municipal workers.

?The mayor wants a state-of-the-art, iconic ?green? building that will be flexible and have ground-floor uses that add vitality to Dudley Square,? said Kairos Shen, director of planning for the Boston Redevelopment Authority.

Menino was hoping to pique interest in the project by announcing the design competition in front of an audience of architects during an awards speech on the eve of the American Institute of Architects annual convention, which starts today in the Hub.

Shen called the competition ?the first step in relocating workers out of the present City Hall,? which Menino wants to sell, and building a new municipal headquarters on a pier in South Boston?s Seaport District.

The city would like the design of the Dudley Square project to incorporate at least the facade of the long-vacant, 1899-built Ferdinand?s furniture store building, Shen said.

The design team for the project is expected to be chosen by early December.


354f3ab173_building.jpg

This is an artist?s conception of the new municipal building, which incorporates the facade of the 1899 Ferdinand?s furniture store.


Link
 
Re: Menino Proposes Selling City Hall

^^ Eek! Let's hope the winning design is NOT that.
 
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