Downtown Crossing/Financial District | Discussion

Commuting Boston Student said:
Here's a better idea: let's never do this.

News flash, what you consider to be inviting is not necessarily what everyone considers to be inviting, and there's a huge middle ground between what we've got now and a never-ending party scene.

Cities attract and take in most types of people, and there's more than one type of urban lifestyle than 'rowdy all-hours partygoer.'

We can have a bustling, vibrant 24-hour city that everyone can enjoy, but that means opening up new venues for everyone - not ripping down a beautiful building so that you can have what you think is "inviting" and everyone who doesn't agree with your tastes can just fuck right off because they're the wrong type of person.

I'd be happy to see more nightclubs open in Boston, even though I fucking despise the club scene and will never set foot in a club, ever. And I'm right there with you on a larger variety of bar venues, but a larger variety includes just as many upscale establishments as downscale ones.

Here's the thing - we're not New Haven, and aspiring to be more like New Haven is setting our standards pretty fucking low.
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I've been to cities all over the world. This is about as center-city as it gets in Boston so why not give that crowd a small space to have fun. Boston is pretty stuffy compared to most other cities I've been to so while this might not be the exact right spot (Filene's is actually restarting and such), City Hall Plaza and the Greenway are both great places to put some more non-traditional programming. New Haven is pretty crappy except for its entertainment, which at least seems more bustling than Boston's. So take a successful urban lesson from another city and apply it to Boston, what's wrong with that? I could have easily said Austin or somewhere different too. You just seem to want to put down New Haven when it actually does some important things very right.
 
What would people prefer in a downtown? Quiet respectful upscale bars, fancy restaurants, bank branches, bookstores, cell phone stores, suburban piece and quiet? For a downtown of a major city you NEED vibrancy aka being a bit noisy and chaotic.
 
BarbaricManchurian said:
What would people prefer in a downtown? Quiet respectful upscale bars, fancy restaurants, bank branches, bookstores, cell phone stores, suburban piece and quiet? For a downtown of a major city you NEED vibrancy aka being a bit noisy and chaotic.
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I'd prefer, as in all things, balance and moderation - the extremes on either end are equally bad.

You can't take any part of the urban fabric on its own, because a city is more than just the sum of its parts. And, a major part of any city is the city's identity itself. The thrust of my argument is not "New Haven sucks," it's "Boston is not New Haven, and we shouldn't try to be New Haven." Just the same for New York, or any other major city you can name - we are not those places. We can learn valuable lessons from those places, yes, but trying to emulate those places for the sake of emulating them is missing the point entirely.

That's why trying to be more like New Haven is setting our standards pretty fucking low. We can do so much better than turning the city into a cheap reproduction of a different city because 'it's working for them,' or because they've done some important things right - because they've also done some important things wrong, and I don't think everything in either column is necessarily inextricable.
 
CBS, I think you're blowing things a little out of proportion here. Barbaric Manchurian isn't saying, "Boston must emulate other cities, thereby depriving itself of its core characteristics." At all. In fact, I'm not even really sure what that would mean, unless perhaps someone were arguing for a Chipotle or some other lame, generic chain restaurant on every corner.

All he's saying is that New Haven has fun nighttime options and Boston does not. That's a fair point, and the solution proposed - to have a few more clubs in Boston - seems equally fair. I don't know how saying, "let's have a few more nightclubs" is tantamount to saying, "let's make Boston New Haven Junior, only bigger." At all.
 
The biggest issue with DTX is, imo, that it has not been the core shopping destination in the city for almost a generation now. You have Newbury St, Copley Place, the Pru, South Bay, Quincy Market, Assembly Square, Lechmere, Watertown, and then the suburban malls all along 128. None of these existed in the hayday of Downtown Crossing, which off course simply used to be "downtown".

It is instead some frankenstein being kept alive on life support when it should have been allowed to die a graceful death, and then be reborn by whatever forces drive the market. The plethora of nickel and dime stores, cell phone resellers, and vacant storefronts are a testiment to this. The evolution into something new should certantly be overseen, and perhaps guided - no one wants another combat zone - but as our city grows the market is driving that area to be more then what is is, be it office space, residential, or clubs. Perhaps if this evolution was allowed to happen on its own you would have had a club or two on par with NYC in the old Filenes space, instead of a hole in the ground.

City centers shift over time, especially as they grow. Just the definition of "downtown", which used to be pretty much scollay square and what is now DTX, has now for all intents and purposes expanded to include the back bay, south end, and the entire pennensula.

The other issue with artifically keeping DTX alive is that I feel is is taking resources away from other areas that don't have existing forces wishing to remake it into something diferent, but just as good. Imagine if all the resouces we've poured into putting "greeters", etc into DTX was instead put into reactivating Dudley Square, the former heart and soul of Roxbury. Or into creating new districts around the Orange Line stops. Or East Boston.

Typed on my phone, apologies for my spelling...
 
itchy said:
CBS, I think you're blowing things a little out of proportion here. Barbaric Manchurian isn't saying, "Boston must emulate other cities, thereby depriving itself of its core characteristics." At all. In fact, I'm not even really sure what that would mean, unless perhaps someone were arguing for a Chipotle or some other lame, generic chain restaurant on every corner.

All he's saying is that New Haven has fun nighttime options and Boston does not. That's a fair point, and the solution proposed - to have a few more clubs in Boston - seems equally fair. I don't know how saying, "let's have a few more nightclubs" is tantamount to saying, "let's make Boston New Haven Junior, only bigger." At all.
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I think there's a very large difference between opening up a few new clubs or other such nighttime/24-hour establishments, and creating a 'party scene.'

My concern is that, in a rush to provide new casual/club entertainment options, you forsake every other aspect of city living - and that road ends at suggestions like the one he made where had Filene's not gotten off the ground again, it should have been torn down for outdoor space - never mind that City Hall Plaza is right there, never mind that for all some people rag on the Greenway for, it's there and nothing useful is ever getting built there, nope, has to be the Filene's space. That, and the idea that you need to 'bring on the urban youths' (because there's no way they'll ever come on their own, they need to be specially catered to, right?), is what led to me jumping down his throat to begin with.

For the record, I'm fairly certain that Boston has a much wider range of daytime activities than New Haven, and I attribute its lack of nighttime options more to the fact that Boston's not even close to being a 24-hour city. It's really hard to have a nightlife when your mass transit goes to sleep at midnight and your last call is 2 am.
 
New Haven? Think Grove Hal/Frankllin Field with an Ivy League campus dumped in the middle. If you want a college town entertainment scene, move to a college town. Seriously. In case you didn't know, people live in the Downtown Crossing district now. The population of the former downtown commercial district has increased dramatically since Jordans'/Filenes' crashed decades ago. Those people, paying luxury rents/condo prices, would shoot down a club district before you could say the word 'lawyer.'

Boston has exactly the number of club venues it can support. The reason it has this number of clubs is that the others closed. Get it? If more could be supported, more would be open. Earlier in this thread someone mentioned a jazz club. Good God! Jazz musicians don't play for free. The audience for a thriving jazz scene died years ago. I was around to see the end of it - decades ago. This sort of wish list thinking is certainly harmless, but it's about as useful as discussing what movie stars/supermodels you'd like to have sex with. In either case, it ain't happening.
 
JonFrum said:
Boston has exactly the number of club venues it can support.
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Not sure on that - anything involving alcohol in Boston is not functioning according to normal market rules given the artificially imposed limits on liquor licenses.
 
Commuting Boston Student said:
I think there's a very large difference between opening up a few new clubs or other such nighttime/24-hour establishments, and creating a 'party scene.'

My concern is that, in a rush to provide new casual/club entertainment options, you forsake every other aspect of city living - and that road ends at suggestions like the one he made where had Filene's not gotten off the ground again, it should have been torn down for outdoor space - never mind that City Hall Plaza is right there, never mind that for all some people rag on the Greenway for, it's there and nothing useful is ever getting built there, nope, has to be the Filene's space. That, and the idea that you need to 'bring on the urban youths' (because there's no way they'll ever come on their own, they need to be specially catered to, right?), is what led to me jumping down his throat to begin with.

For the record, I'm fairly certain that Boston has a much wider range of daytime activities than New Haven, and I attribute its lack of nighttime options more to the fact that Boston's not even close to being a 24-hour city. It's really hard to have a nightlife when your mass transit goes to sleep at midnight and your last call is 2 am.
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1. I never proposed tearing down Filene's. I'm talking about re-purposing the hole.

2. Yes, bring on the urban youths. Boston is far too stuffy for its own good and needs an injection of loudness, scrufiness, and vitality. You're the one who denies that there's any problem at all.

3. New Haven is pretty awesome to be completely honest. Come down and actually explore. We have crazy hipster/bohemian communes that I don't think would be remotely possible in Boston. Also a good variety of fancy restaurants and nice clubs. And it's all reasonably cheap. Boston is definitely more of a city but people are too stuffy for their own good if they can't even see how clubs can benefit a targeted urban area that has few.
 
Notice a trend?

Mayor White announces a new plan for Downtown Crossing

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Mayor Flynn announces new plan for Downtown Crossing

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Mayor Menino announces new plan for Downtown Crossing

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Up next: A photo of (Acting) Mayor Steve Murphy in Downtown Crossing.
 
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Some images from my research on Downtown Crossing.

Here's the street route proposed for School Street near the $.05 savings bank / Borders / Walgreens building.

BRA For release May 19, 1967

"The historic Old South Meeting House and the Old Corner Book Store will be set off by a new park as part of Boston's Central Business District urban renewal project.

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BRA For release May 19, 1967

"The plan for Boston's downtown commercial area includes a system of shopping malls such as shown in this rendering of Temple Place, replacing the congested narrow streets."

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BRA For release May 19, 1967

"This artist's rendering illustrates Boston's department store area at Summer and Winter streets as envisioned by the Central Business District urban renewal planners. Washington Street, the main shopping street, and a number of other streets in the retail district, are to be converted into pleasantly landscaped malls. Delivery trucks and other service vehicles will be accommodated by tunnel systems."

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BRA For release May 19, 1967

"A highlight of the plan for Downtown Boston is the shopping mall on Washington Street, running through the retail district. This view looking north into Washington Street, beyond the major department stores - Jordan Marsh and Filene's - to the Old South Meeting House at the end of the shopping mall."

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BRA For release May 19, 1967

"Boston's plan for the Central Business District including the expansion of the retail core, with sites for a major department store and numerous small shops. A second-level arcaded walkway, passing beside new retail stores and a major office tower, will connect the South Station transportation terminal with the heart of the retail district. This artist's rendering looks down the Summer Street second-level walkway from the Jordan March, Filene's, Kennedy's are to the South Station."

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Thanks for these ^. I recall those sweetly naive times when every radical idea seemed possible, pedestrian only malls were the rage and money was not a worry to big thinkers. A middle-class family in the suburbs could live comfortably on a $10,000 yearly salary and the concept of a second family car (and color TV's) was just beginning to emerge. Also DTX had a critical mass of large department stores to anchor these projects and suburban malls were yet to become dominant in retail.
 
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This was also when the Feds were pouring a lot of money into cities. The money dried up as the Vietnam was drained more and more money.
 
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