City Hall Plaza Revamp | Government Center

dhawkins said:
Bonus shots, the inside still looks the same, dark. All four escalators in the public area are all closed off for repair, sad. But there is a new security desk at the North entrance /Hanover side which allows this entry to be open.
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Scavenger hunt, next time you're there, swing by the Birth/Death/Marriage License area and try to find the part of the ceiling where the concrete has crumbled away to reveal rebar.
 
MjolnirMan said:
I mean, I'm always happy to do this dance. I live downtown, and was last at City Hall Plaza 4 days ago on Saturday as part of giving a little afternoon walking tour of the city to a visiting guest before an early dinner. There were fewer than 3 people in the plaza at the time (not counting us), perhaps because it was a little chilly out for a spring day and the $1 billion newly revamped and activated plaza has no ability to provide any shade or shelter from the elements (sun, rain, or wind from any direction), nor any reason to be there on a weekend.
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As long as you are willing to admit that your dealing in anecdotes, there's no need to dance further. My point is that your experience is uniquely your own, and does not reflect the overall reality.
 
Google Street View of Piazza del Campo, Siena (population: 53,772):
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Google Street View of City Hall Plaza, Boston (population: 654,776):
1686145627792.png


1686145688556.png
 
Everything was going fine until you wrote that bit about no shade. Let me cast some shade on comment: there’s plenty of shade all over the plaza
 
My point is that you’re simply not making true statements, so I’m trying to help rectify .
 
I think our problem here is that we're communicating via the typewriter in Fringe, and you guys occupy the parallel universe to mine where City Hall Plaza is a beloved, welcoming, comfortable space for human beings. I live in the other one.
 
dhawkins said:
View attachment 38782
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They should put a bunch of picnic tables in this space!

HenryAlan said:
As long as you are willing to admit that your dealing in anecdotes, there's no need to dance further. My point is that your experience is uniquely your own, and does not reflect the overall reality.
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Why wouldn't you put stock in the anecdotes of a person who lives within walking distance of the plaza and spends time in it weekly? Not to mention we have plenty of photos like the one I quoted above that show how empty the plaza is at a random time on a random day.

What more do you need before you start accepting what people are saying/showing as "the overall reality"?
 
Blackbird said:
They should put a bunch of picnic tables in this space!
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I think this is a fantastic idea. Further, gutting the first floor of the JFK building that faces the plaza to install restaurant spaces with patios and awnings (or, hell, even just drag in popup trailers for a pilot program like they've done for the Seaport Common) would help make the Plaza an actual "place", versus a "liminal space". Bordering the Plaza with things to do or reasons to be there could help populate the area, and ideally drive additional changes to make it more comfortable to do so.
 
I'm kind of loving this snarky argument... Ive walked thru a few times recently and was very underwhelmed with the renovations but now after this I think I'm going to have to go back and take a closer look. The trees growing much larger would seem to really help as we've seen over the years on RKG and the seaport
 
Bananarama said:
This is missing literally all of the trees they planted. There's 100 new ones in the plaza redo, and all the existing ones near GC T stop and Congress St. They provide nice shade.
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I mean this sincerely, not sarcastically: can you locate candid photographic evidence of the newly-planted trees providing - not just SHADOWS on the brick - but comforting SHADE for actual humans performing an activity on the plaza for a duration of time? Such as, providing a more comfortable environment to a group reading a book, or eating a meal on a sunny day?

EDIT: To put a fine point on it, the presence of trees does not by itself make a pleasantly-shaded environment. These trees along Stuart St. in the Back Bay are something like 20 feet tall, with bare trunks until around halfway up, and then branches and leaves that fan out and provide extremely comfortable summer shade for walking pedestrians. Directly comparing to these more recent street trees in Chinatown, they're pretty, but not really optimized in placement or design for providing shade to the usable area of the sidewalk. Per dhawkins' photos, it looks like some of the plantings may meet my standards while others wouldn't. Decorative trees that are 10 feet tall with branches starting 3 feet up are not able to be walked under, and are not shaped or planted in places to provide intentional summer shade to tables or benches.
 
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Blackbird said:
Why wouldn't you put stock in the anecdotes of a person who lives within walking distance of the plaza and spends time in it weekly? Not to mention we have plenty of photos like the one I quoted above that show how empty the plaza is at a random time on a random day.

What more do you need before you start accepting what people are saying/showing as "the overall reality"?
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Because it doesn't fit the reality of what I see when I'm there. As I stated in my first comment about this, people can have their own, differing opinions, just understand that each of those is presented as a personal perception. We see what we want to see, but that is not data.
 
MjolnirMan said:
I mean this sincerely, not sarcastically: can you locate candid photographic evidence of the newly-planted trees providing - not just SHADOWS on the brick - but comforting SHADE for actual humans performing an activity on the plaza for a duration of time? Such as, providing a more comfortable environment to a group reading a book, or eating a meal on a sunny day?

EDIT: To put a fine point on it, the presence of trees does not by itself make a pleasantly-shaded environment. These trees along Stuart St. in the Back Bay are something like 20 feet tall, with bare trunks until around halfway up, and then branches and leaves that fan out and provide extremely comfortable summer shade for walking pedestrians. Directly comparing to these more recent street trees in Chinatown, they're pretty, but not really optimized in placement or design for providing shade to the usable area of the sidewalk. Per dhawkins' photos, it looks like some of the plantings may meet my standards while others wouldn't. Decorative trees that are 10 feet tall with branches starting 3 feet up are not able to be walked under, and are not shaped or planted in places to provide intentional summer shade to tables or benches.
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Bunch of trees right next to benches along the GSA per that photo montage earlier - on a rainy day.
No I don't have photos. It's barely shade-seeking weather and the trees just finished filling out. And the weather has been generally shit the past few weeks.
I'd gladly go read a book over there.
 
damn. Wish I’d known about this ongoing debate today - I’d have taken a pic - as I just walked through the plaza about an hour ago - not too hot, but nor is it rainy or cold and even on a workday nearing lunch hour there were MAYBE eight people in the entire plaza, including myself and the three (two kids and a mom/sitter) in the playground area.
 
chrisbrat said:
damn. Wish I’d known about this ongoing debate today - I’d have taken a pic - as I just walked through the plaza about an hour ago - not too hot, but nor is it rainy or cold and even on a workday nearing lunch hour there were MAYBE eight people in the entire plaza, including myself and the three (two kids and a mom/sitter) in the playground area.
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Why Nobody Is In the Plaza Excuse List:
  • It hasn't gone through a billion dollar renovation
  • The billion dollar renovation just opened and nobody knows about it yet
  • It's too cold a day today
  • It was too rainy a day today
  • It's too hot a day today
  • It's too early/late in the day for peak activity
  • It's a weekend and City Hall is closed
  • It's a weekday so kids are in school and not in the playground
  • City Hall employees were too busy for lunch today
  • The Plaza is closed for event setup/breakdown
  • Millions of people actually are using it, I saw them, I swear
  • However, you seeing nobody use it on your multiple trips there over the last few weeks for different reasons are just your personal unreliable anecdotes
  • All of Boston is carefully heeding the air quality alert from the Canadian wildfires
 
MjolnirMan said:
Why Nobody Is In the Plaza Excuse List:
  • It hasn't gone through a billion dollar renovation
  • The billion dollar renovation just opened and nobody knows about it yet
  • It's too cold a day today
  • It was too rainy a day today
  • It's too hot a day today
  • It's too early/late in the day for peak activity
  • It's a weekend and City Hall is closed
  • It's a weekday so kids are in school and not in the playground
  • City Hall employees were too busy for lunch today
  • The Plaza is closed for event setup/breakdown
  • Millions of people actually are using it, I saw them, I swear
  • However, you seeing nobody use it on your multiple trips there over the last few weeks for different reasons are just your personal unreliable anecdotes
  • All of Boston is carefully heeding the air quality alert from the Canadian wildfires
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I'm not debating the plaza.
I'm calling our your disingenuous shading graphic.
 
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