City Hall Discussion - Redevelopment - Preservation - Relocation

Re: Menino Proposes Selling City Hall

Retrofitting City Hall would be far, far greener then building a new building out where people need to drive to get to it.

I hate sustainability, it has become a fad that no one understands but throws around to make themselves look like they are in the right.
 
Re: Menino Proposes Selling City Hall

Would there be a way to keep the city hall building and bring back the old street grid where the plaza is now? Turn the building into some sort of cool, cutting edge mall and bring back as much of the old street grid as possible with shops, restaurants, bars, cafes, etc. Maybe I don't know what I'm talking about, but I think it would actually be kind of cool to look down a street and see the imposing city hall building at the end.
 
Re: Menino Proposes Selling City Hall

gig02152 said:
Would there be a way to keep the city hall building and bring back the old street grid where the plaza is now? Turn the building into some sort of cool, cutting edge mall and bring back as much of the old street grid as possible with shops, restaurants, bars, cafes, etc. Maybe I don't know what I'm talking about, but I think it would actually be kind of cool to look down a street and see the imposing city hall building at the end.
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i shudder a bit at the idea of making it a mall or literally retrace the old street pattern, but I think there is a grain of promise in each. Perhaps a 20th century art museum (or the supposed "Boston Museum") would be more appropriate for the building. As for the plaza, cutting it up and reinserting a smaller scale urbanity would be interesting, especially the thought of popping out of smaller street corridor and being presented with the scale of the city hall building.
 
Re: Menino Proposes Selling City Hall

Just another article regarding the meeting yesterday:

Dozens protest bid to move City Hall

By John C. Drake
Globe Staff / September 23, 2008

Dozens of Boston residents packed a hearing yesterday to urge Mayor Thomas M. Menino and the City Council to keep City Hall - in all its ungainly, unsightly, and inefficient glory - right where it is.

The outpouring combined nostalgia for the concrete behemoth and practical arguments about its location with cries of protest against Menino's plan to build a new city hall on the South Boston waterfront.

"Moving City Hall is a bad idea which has no basis in reality," said resident Bill Myer. "It would be like moving Fenway Park to Stoughton."

The hearing was convened by Councilor Michael Flaherty, who is chairing a special committee on the future of City Hall and is widely expected to challenge Menino for mayor next year.

Flaherty has criticized Menino for not seeking public input on his proposal to abandon the old City Hall at Government Center and replace it with a modern, efficient, improved center overlooking Boston Harbor. Yesterday's forum - the first opportunity for organized public comment on the mayor's plan - gave Flaherty a platform to highlight an issue that has generated widespread objections in South Boston and elsewhere.

While unionized trades workers came out in force to support the mayor's proposal, a succession of residents said that the proposed South Boston waterfront site was inaccessible, that City Hall already was in a perfect location, and that moving it would be a waste of money.

"Why inconvenience everyone by moving City Hall to an area that is not centrally located?" said Hyde Park resident Gloria Ganno. "It would be unfortunate if [Menino's] legacy would be that he is remembered as the mayor who moved a perfectly situated City Hall to an inconvenient site."

Flaherty criticized Boston Redevelopment Authority director John F. Palmieri and Menino's chief planner, Kairos Shen, for investigating the development potential of the South Boston site without first gauging public sentiment for moving City Hall.

"Moving this building and constructing a lavish new City Hall will not make our city government more efficient, and it will not hold our elected leaders more accountable," Flaherty said.

But Menino aides insist it is still too early to hold public hearings on the proposal. Shen said officials are gathering data on the feasibility of locating the seat of government at the site called Drydock 4 on the waterfront, so that they can have answers for the public.

The BRA just issued a request for proposals for an engineering firm to evaluate the development potential of the site, including whether the Marine Industrial Park location can accommodate a 476,000-square-foot building, a year-round performance center, and parking garage. That study will cost $800,000.

Menino first broached the idea of moving City Hall to the waterfront in a December 2006 speech. Since then, architects have said that the mayor's proposal would threaten a historically significant building - a premier example of the brutalist style of architecture - and some community leaders have asserted that the waterfront lacks Government Center's convenience and transportation network.

City officials countered yesterday that Menino never suggested tearing down the current City Hall. Instead, they said it could be sold and adapted for use by a private owner.

Shen described the proposal to move City Hall to the waterfront as part of a broader municipal services strategy that includes locating some city functions in Roxbury's redeveloped Ferdinand Building, redeveloping Government Center, and creating a civic and municipal presence as part of the emergence of the South Boston waterfront as a vibrant neighborhood.

John C. Drake can be reached at jdrake@globe.com.
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LINK
 
Re: Menino Proposes Selling City Hall

Everyone just needs to keep scaring Menino with warnings that his legacy will be tarnished and we will get through this trying time with our city hall safe and sound!

Plus if you over develop Southie, Dennis Lehane and William Moynihan will no longer have anything to write about...at least realistically...though that's probably a good thing.
 
Re: Menino Proposes Selling City Hall

I can't remain silent any longer: This dream of Menino's is definitely anti-urban. How many people per day on average would this plan deplete from Downtown's vitality?
 
Re: Menino Proposes Selling City Hall

It boggles my mind that hizzonah thinks he can build a new luxury city hall with waterfront views for himself and the ever increasing cast of cronies without any widespread public support. Given looming budget crunches, waste and corruption of epic proportions, and a public tiring of financial burdens imposed by state ineptitude, does Menino really think the citizens of Boston are going to roll over to pay for his penis envy of the new ICA?

Why not let KMW take a stab at overhauling City Hall and redeveloping the plaza to atone for their sins?
 
Re: Menino Proposes Selling City Hall

I've avoided posted about City Hall because I would have way to much to say, so I'll say just a few of my ideas. My first step is exactly what Lyrker posted, bring back KMW get their ideas on the building, not the plaza, they suck at that. Also look and see what they originally proposed and see if those ideas should be reconsidered. I think City Hall is Boston's greatest modern building, not the John Hancock it's a one trick pony.

I went to City Hall within days of the opening. Lights were burnt out, elevators weren't working and water fountains(drinking) were broken. Things haven't gotten any better since then. Has any one been upstairs to see the experimental green roof? It's a handful of garden flats. I went to an art exhibit there when the building first opened in city hall's art gallery, when was the last time this has been used as an art gallery.

One complaint I always hear is it's too dark so why doesn't the city try adding light bulbs, do a lighting study. It's too hard to find the entrance, try signage, banners, a marque, different pavement, fountains. Maybe it's time to remove the brick walls and replace them with glass.

Menino say's many of the day to day functions have been moved to other locations. Good, then reuse the space for public use, add an auditorium that the city can use for city business and then allow groups to use it at night. Make this the city center, add a visitors center, parking underneath for tour busses, bike storage and showers and lockers like Chicago. They just put Boston's Neighborhood Network News studio is in the middle of nowhere, Eglestone Square. This should have been at city hall.

Cover the courtyard add a restaurant on the roof, the view would be spectacular. The building was suppose to have a beer garden. Put the Boston History Museum here or move the National Park Service here.

City Hall was a shocking building when new and it's still shocking almost 50 years latter. Most building from that era look dated. Don't judge this building by the plaza or by it's state of neglect. There was nothing like it when it was built.
 
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Re: Menino Proposes Selling City Hall

Flaherty: Mayor's City Hall plans moving 'down the road'

By Gintautas Dumcius
Reporter Correspondent

On Monday evening, Councillor at-Large Michael Flaherty and the Boston Redevelopment Authority officials he was intent on grilling about Mayor Thomas Menino's plan to move City Hall to the South Boston waterfront were just about the only ones left in the City Council's chamber.

"This is the fifth floor?" quipped John Palmieri, head of the city's planning and development agency, after the hearing was over. "This feels like the basement."

The joke came after over three hours of testimony, mainly from Boston residents opposed to the plan. After BRA officials gave their opening statements and before they could take questions from the panel of city councillors, a parade of perturbed citizens lined up to have their say.

One woman from Back Bay said if the mayor doesn't like the appearance of the building's Brutalist architecture, he should hang potted plants outside of it. A Charlestown man said there was little support for the move and suggested it would be like moving Fenway Park, the home of the beloved Red Sox, to Milton.

Council President Maureen Feeney said the present location, on top of a public transportation hub with Government Center and both the State House and the JFK federal building nearby, is ideal. The building can be retrofitted, she stressed.

If the conversation is about moving City Hall, why not consider other locations along with the South Boston waterfront, she asked. "Why not Dorchester?" she said. "We could keep going."

Palmieri said the moving of City Hall was part of an overall redevelopment plan that included revitalizing Dudley Square. "We're just beginning to get a handle on the issues we're going to deal with," he said.

Other BRA officials said they had started discussions with other agencies, including the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, to address any concerns about citizens being able to get out to Drydock 4, where City Hall would be sited.

"The mayor has never stated that his desire is to see this building demolished," Palmieri said.

Flaherty pressed for more community input, "before you get too far down the road."

"The time is now," he said. "Not six months from now, not a year from now. The public should be engaged."

Palmieri responded that they were still attempting to assemble some "baseline information" first, instead of going out to the public and simply asking, "What do you think?"

Some viewed the hearing as a political affair for Flaherty, who is widely seen as attempting a run for mayor next year. Menino is expected to run for a fifth term.

"This isn't what's driving Councillor Flaherty," said Janice Loux, president of UNITE HERE Local 26, a union that supports the move and brought out dozens of its members for the hearing. "It's a political football."

Flaherty believes that the relocation push has already gone too far.

"It's a bad idea for the city of Boston," he said, noting that the BRA has already spent $2 million, spoken with other agencies and was a "lot farther along down the road than most people think" on the plans.

Future City Council hearings are planned on the potential of retro-fitting City Hall, along with a panel of independent architects and planners.
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"One woman from Back Bay said if the mayor doesn't like the appearance of the building's Brutalist architecture, he should hang potted plants outside of it."

Gotta love the progressive thinking here...
 
Re: Menino Proposes Selling City Hall

Of course! Potted plants!

All the time and energy we've put into discussing different idea's for City Hall, not one of us was smart enough to come up with potted plants.

Shame on us.
 
Re: Menino Proposes Selling City Hall

has anyone gone by City Hall today? they are planting all these baby trees throughout the plaza and have set up some tents....what occasion is this for?

I also saw some masonry work being done...a small plot of bricks were being uprooted for something.....

there was a large banner hanging from city hall but of course it wasn't entirely unfurled and was not readable except for Boston 'something' Day
 
Re: Menino Proposes Selling City Hall

Hanging potted plants from various places on the facade, while sounding a bit facetious to me, isn't all that far-fetched. Early renderings showed trailing vines and other green accoutrements strategically hanging off the facade. The over-all effect made the building that much more striking in an organic sort of way.
 
Re: Menino Proposes Selling City Hall

The chances of this happening are about the same as Sam Yoon winning the mayorship, next year.
 
Re: Menino Proposes Selling City Hall

Greenfest is postponed to Sunday (and reduced to one day) due to rain.
 
Re: Menino Proposes Selling City Hall

This is obviously a bit off topic but I figured it would be interesting to throw it out there. While combing through a few websites looking for a suitable historical print of the 44th Street clubhouse of the NYYC, I came across this, an old proposal for City Hall.

IMG_4725.jpg


Has anybody ever seen this and if so, what's the story, was it proposed as a replacement for the current Old City Hall, if so, when exactly? Was it a serious proposal or just some architect's pipedream?
 
Re: Menino Proposes Selling City Hall

This is fascinating. In all my studies of Boston architecture, I have never come across even a written description of this proposal. My gut tells me that it was an individual architect's proposal, perhaps in conjunction with the State House. Note that the dome of the State House is not yet gilded and the Bulfinch section has been painted grey (to imitate stone) or yellow (to blend in with the addition). That should date this rendering somewhat.
 
Re: Menino Proposes Selling City Hall

Considering the monolithic Italian Renaissance style of this proposal, it has to have come about in the wake of the Public Library. But what confuses me is that the Brigham addition (completed 1895) is there and yet the dome, supposedly gilded in the 1870s, is still grey? Either way, nearly all signs point to this coming from the 1890s.

Excellent find!
 
Re: Menino Proposes Selling City Hall

I should have looked a bit more carefully, the date on the header appears to be 1892. The original website where I found this says Edmund Wheelwright is the architect of record.

Here's the link, the search engine turns up some really interesting proposals for Boston, many it appears, did not get built either.

http://www.booktown.com/stcroixprints/plan.php?id=303
 
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