Downtown Crossing/Financial District | Discussion

I think the markets are in more trouble than you can imagine. I would not want to be building anytype of skyscrapers at this point. The downtown deal will end up costing more than it was worth.

Filenes not sure how this will turn out. The numbers are probably not making sense at this point to BUILD. How much do you think the Condos will sell for?
 
^ a good reason to vote against Question 2.

Joking, joking, my friends.

The Filene's deal is signed from what we know, the money is lent, secured and currently being spent on the skyscraper.

A recession generally lasts 6-12 months... who knows if we're in one and for how long we've been in one. This building will open in 3-4 years. Who knows where we'll be then. The terror in the markets will be good for Filene's because it's stalling possible competition from getting built at South Station, Gov't Center Garage, TransNational Place, etc.

It's simple supply and demand. When it opens, demand may be high, but there will be no supply delivered during this year
 
The problem with leaving signage totally up to the business owners is that many of them cheap out and put up inexpensive signs that look like crap and age horribly. The most common worst offender is the internally lit lightbox sign. It fades very quickly turning the white plastic yellow and looks horrible.

Boston Main Streets funds signage improvements for business but has some stipulations on signage size, materials, etc, but leave a lot of flexibility in the overall design. IMO this is a good thing. It's helped to spruce up Allston and other neighborhoods, as business owners get some grant money and end up with a nicer sign than they necessarily would have created without the guidance.

Of course as with anything, regulations can go too far, but left to their own devices business owners can make some pretty bone-headed moves, saving money in the short term, but to the detriment of the neighborhood and even their own business in many cases. The key is finding that middle ground.
 
A large problem is that people with the real big signs have their rights grandfathered - but can't change the sign.

Example:

I want to erect a five-story high, neon, glowing orange, animated jumbotron at the entrance of historic Back Bay. I am not allowed to do so.

Flipside: I am the Citgo sign and you cannot remove me. I am "historic"
 
Fifty years ago there were gigantic animated electrical signs all over the area. The Charles River reflected a profusion of colored lights from the Cambridge side. There was an enormous animated Anheuser-Busch sign in City Square, a Handschumacher Frankfurt sign near Faneuil Hall that simulated fireworks, a Cities Service Fuel sign(or was it White Fuel?) in Kenmore Square that replicated a gushing oil derrick, and others. They were all identifiable "landmarks" that added a great deal of pizzazz to the area's nightlife. I don't think it's so much a matter of whether we should have such things, but rather where they should be. I understand there are three areas in the city (South Boston Waterfront, Theatre District, and Kenmore Square) where such signage is actually now encouraged.
 
The Cities Service sign (a clover) was replaced by the CITGO sign when that company changed its name and logo.

From the late 1970s, I remember the White Fuel sign with the animated oil derrick. It was on top of the Buckminster Hotel.

There also used to be lighted signs along the Cambridge bank of the Charles River between the Longfellow Bridge and Lechmere. One of them was for 'Electronics Corporation of America' which I guess had a factory there. And don't forget the Coca-Cola sign on the Allston riverbank, about where Genzyme is today.

There was a CAINS Mayonnaise sign near the railroad tracks on Vassar or Albany Street in Cambridge, which you could see from across the river in Boston because there were no buildings yet in the way. One or more MIT buildings probably occupy that site today.

The SHELL sign on Memorial Drive in Cambridge is a lonely survivor from this era.
 
There was a dandy Coca Cola sign along Storrow Drive in Allston. When the bottling plant was taken down, the sign was supposed to be preserved and reinstalled. It languished in a corner of the Beacon Park rail yard for a couple of years. Then one day, people noticed it was gone! Shock! Horror! A great New England mystery!

Actually, the yard master got tired of looking at this pile of lightbulbs and ordered a crew to smash the sign to bits and haul it away.
 
Boston Main Streets funds signage improvements for business but has some stipulations on signage size, materials, etc, but leave a lot of flexibility in the overall design. IMO this is a good thing. It's helped to spruce up Allston and other neighborhoods, as business owners get some grant money and end up with a nicer sign than they necessarily would have created without the guidance.
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Everything Boston Main Streets touches seems to wind up looking like a uniformed Maine outlet mall.
 
Two of my personal favorite neon signs, both recently taken down: Dunkin Donuts on Market st in Brighton, and Fontaine's on Rt 1. West Roxbury.

In both cases the replacements are decidedly inferior. Understandably, the waving chicken had to go, as the restaurant closed down...Still, no question of its landmark status in that area.
 
tobyjug said:
Actually, the yard master got tired of looking at this pile of lightbulbs and ordered a crew to smash the sign to bits and haul it away.
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Swell. Was he carted away for vandalism?

blade_bltz said:
...and Fontaine's on Rt 1. West Roxbury. Understandably, the waving chicken had to go, as the restaurant closed down...
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Classic! This sign made an appearance in a good friend's undergraduate thesis. If you're a Sox fan, you may know his blog.
 
Every time I inadvertently re-strengthen my faith in this physically beautiful city, I am convinced to rid it once again. So ignorant are some comments made on this site, I rarely contribute to a forum that I?ve been following since the days of Boston Skyscraper Guy. hiFor me, at times, this has merely become a place of news updates without the desire to contribute. Although opinion is free, as is speech, this is a shared world and should be a city of shared space. It would be so unkind if I were to have some of the same views of the young kids that congregate on the beautiful plaza of the Boston Public Library, smoking and skating about while nearly colliding with unsuspecting pedestrians. I don?t assume they?ve come from torn homes, or that they?re trouble. I realize that I live in a city metro with millions of people from all walks of life and that this is the very element that makes this place beautiful and worth living in. Taking the same situation downtown with a different race of youth and the kids are thugs, trouble, and from single parented broken homes??? I?m saddened by this attitude which is honestly and unfortunately way too familiar to me growing up in Boston. If Boston can learn one thing, and from any other city, have a look at the public integration of New York City where space is shared and people aren?t afraid of their own shadows.... Give me a break Boston, ugh!

Let?s face it, this city is beautiful, but quite a bore unless eating and going to the theatre all day and night after people watching and walkin around all damn day is your thing.
Let us take on this simple math problem, lol?

Boston minus Kids that hang in front of Berklee
minus ?Thugs? from broken homes hanging downtown
minus Hipsters hanging at the top of Newbury
minus Hazardous Skateboarding
minus All neighborhoods West of Mass Ave, etc...

= A flavorless Yuppville lacking public social skills and appeal to anyone other than other boring individuals that believe the city should be washed of anything non-Jamaica Pond like and White-American.

Boston, Boston how I love you so, but in order for you to grow, there are way too many screwed minds within your city limits that have to go?

Give me a minute to go back into my protective bubble.
 
It kinda reminds me of the graffiti thread - anyone who prefers to see clean, safe streets is an elitist intellectual snob. Many cities would go a long way to have anything like Boston's "sterile" environment.
 
Everyone wants clean, safe streets.

Where we differ is what we think those street should look like. A few people here don't think haven't teenagers hanging around make the street unclean or unsafe. Some people do.
 
I don't remember seeing any "ignorant" posts on this site.

Kids riding skateboards "hazardously" are something that should not be allowed.

Kids congregating in DTX should be allowed, but they don't just congregate, they jump, shout, and push each other around. On occasion, one will whip out a gun and shoot someone (please see the police reports for more information).

Kids congregating at the Cambridgeside Galleria do the same thing (and, with the same results, according to media reports).

When I was growing up, kids wandered the malls looking for fun and trouble.

There are some very good reasons that "loitering" isn't allowed.

For anyone to say, "You live in a city, you should have to put up with this stuff," is being hopelessly naive. Also, most likely, he or she doesn't live in one.

Why should someone in the city have to put up with crap that he/she doesn't have to, in the suburbs?

Teenagers are loud; it's the same everywhere. It annoyed me when I was one!
 
Haha well if you want the 'endless safety of the suburbs' then go to them. Boston violent crime is relatively low. There is a predilection for these kinds of conditions in an urban area.

Also you mean to tell me that if a bunch of random non 'thug' looking kids were congregating around the area almost on a daily basis, you would say the same thing? Something tells me you wouldn't nor would a lot of people. It would probably be a non-issue.

All of these factors you mention; skateboarders, ethnically diverse groups of young adults and high school students are a fundamental subject when it comes to making good cities. As I have said previously; homogeny, stagnation aren't what makes a good city especially in our so called downtown area. Sure, this violent crime you speak of should be thwarted but it is hardly an issue EVER and for someone to suggest that this group of young adults hanging out with their friends, etc. be broken up is a naive statement. Anyone has the right to do something in a place they live UNLESS they are killing each other or putting other people in serious danger - which isn't the case. If it is, the BPD SHOULD take care of it and they usually do.
 
Beton Brut said:
Swell. Was he carted away for vandalism?
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No. It is an "unsolved mystery" that our journalists write about every 5 years or so.

As to DTX, I was out on Winter St. when the shooting occurred. Took some "shots" of my own, too. It wasn't very dramatic. Just a couple of kids with a beef.

35 plus years ago things got settled with fists, or perhaps with some boot leather. Those were the days...

Anyway, between 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, have a dozen beat cops actually walking around in pairs (rather than leaning on their Harleys or hiding in their little glass hut) on the turf between School St. and West St. and things will settle down real quick. The dangerous kids will screw, and the good kids will continue to have fun.
 
There are some very good reasons that "loitering" isn't allowed.
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What? Loitering is one of the things that cities are for. I often like to loiter in Davis Square, just eating a sandwich or drinking coffee and watching people.
 
I guess Im back again, lol

Thank you for the comments everyone?

My relief does not only stem from the fact that there are obviously others that can identify some of the issues that I mentioned, but that there is a pattern of evidence for that mentioned.

In no way did I imply that violence should be tolerated. Jimbo, hello sir, I am sorry that you have failed to notice the blatant unfair labeling in past comments on this site. I?m not on the attack, just out for a little fair play. There are so many venues where congregation becomes ?disruptive? that we cannot handle DTX and its ?issues? any differently from a parade or any other gathering or organized event where the same takes place. When I attend our sports parades, I understand that all happenings are just pieces of the ?Soundtrack of the City?. Maybe I?m too lenient, but I?ve learned from young that sharing space with people, having 5 siblings myself, lends to an environment where shit happens, simply put. Do I agree with it? Not exactly, but I don?t agree with the perceived 100% intolerant attitudes of those that CHOOSE to dwell in an urban space.

Here are a few points one must familiarize themselves with when living in ANY city:

? The suburbs are a boring ass soundtrack and you should be tolerant of many of the things that take place in this city when there are an additional 13,000 others living within a square mile radius of your home instead of 763?
? The very infrastructure of your city has been designed to accommodate the changes of a space inhabiting 20X more people than an area of a similar size in a suburban area
? Cats are ramped in the streets as are rats, thugs, crooked cops, loud teenagers, hookers, sirens, drugs, and fist fights involving an old man on an electric scooter and a young teenaged boy riding the same train home from school.
? Some folks have bad B.O which you may encounter often when you ride packed trains during rush hour
? Homeless people will ask you for money as will junkies
? Etc? must I go on?

When you fail to realize these things, you fail to realize the freedom that you have when you don?t MOVE OUT!

Hopefully, I have not been jaded by the large buildings lining Seaver Street; foolishly believing that I grew up in a city...

Go Sox, maybe next year?
 
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