Downtown Crossing/Financial District | Discussion

Folks, you talk about google like its one guy making the decisions on where the cars go or dont go.

Thats not the case. They just hire a local dude, give him a GPS, and tell him to drive. Sometimes they break the law, sometimes they dont. There are instances where you can plainly see the car ran a red light, or turned where they werent supposed to turn and so on.

The guy driving this particular car saw the do not enter sign and did not enter. Had he entered, nobody would have given a shit. On that commercial road, he probably didnt see the sign (its small and non-standard)
 
jass said:
On that commercial road, he probably didnt see the sign (its small and non-standard)
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Sicilian said:
But regular motorists can't use the South Boston Bypass road (commercial only)
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They can't??? Err- whoopsies. :) I think I did that one time.

And I believe I've been with my dad when he's done that twice, and his work is based out of the area so I would think he'd know. Unless it isn't really commercial only... are you positive?
 
By the way, anyone ever notice that the Google car drives on the sidewalk on Comm Ave at BU? WTF?! I noticed this a couple years back, I hope they didn't replace the imagery.
 
BostonUrbEx said:
They can't??? Err- whoopsies. :) I think I did that one time.

And I believe I've been with my dad when he's done that twice, and his work is based out of the area so I would think he'd know. Unless it isn't really commercial only... are you positive?
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The Bypass Road is restricted to commercial vehicles only. The purpose of the Bypass Road was to offload somewhere around 70k trucks per year from BMIP to the highway system and off Southie roads and Ft. Point bridges. If memory serves me correctly, the Bypass Road was a component of CAT/Tunnel planning.

Occasionally patrolled, often risked.

***** CHANGE OF TOPIC ******

Curious if Filene's Basement would have survived if it were still in DTX. Anyone have inside info or something more than opinion?

Wacky as it sounds, is it possible Menino's people saw the writing on the wall years ago?

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Sicilian said:
***** CHANGE OF TOPIC ******

Curious if Filene's Basement would have survived if it were still in DTX. Anyone have inside info or something more than opinion?

Wacky as it sounds, is it possible Menino's people saw the writing on the wall years ago?

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I brought up this issue a while back. No, it would not have survived in DTX. They couldn't afford the upgrades that were required by law. Even though the basement location was "eclectic," it violated every code in the book. Vornado was doing Filene's Basement a huge favor by giving them a brand-new space in the redeveloped One Franklin pretty much for free.
 
Boston Globe profile here.
http://www.boston.com/business/arti...basement_going_out_of_business/?p1=News_links

IMO, the end really began two decades ago when the Basement was split from Filene's, and the luxury stores like NM, Saks, Bloomingdales, Bergdorf, etc ceased sending their unsold merchandise to the Basement, and either had sales of their own, or opened their own outlets. The original Basement succeeded because the New York stores did not have a Boston location, by and large, so they could send merchandise to Boston to be sold at heavily discounted prices and keep their NYC customer base paying pretty much top dollar. To my recollection, the sending of merchandise from the luxury stores had slowed considerably even before the Basement was split off.

In the Globe article, Menino hints that the city has seen this coming for a while.
 
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^stellar and ^datadyne

Really interesting.

Considering how Menino's been trashed for the hole (even by me) I'm surprised his team hasn't repeated the fact that:

A) Filene's hole is not much worse than the former parking garage
and
B) Filene's demise was inevitable so we'd be looking at a vacant block regardless of the debacle w/Vornado.

Is the above true?

[I just remembered there was a plaza where the hole is, with a popular array of lunch carts including that cuban sandwich or similar.]
 
I don't remember a "former parking garage" at the Filene's Hole. This was the former low-rise part of Filene's. The outer edge of Filene's on both Washington and Franklin streets was lined with small food booths, including the one you remember.

If this attempt at development had never happened, Target could simply have moved into the space vacated by Filene's (and maybe the Basement as well).
 
Sicilian, back in the day when the Basement was THE Basement, the store would run big display ads in the Boston newspapers, IIRC, always on p. 2, and advertising the featured merchandise for that week; e.g., dresses from Saks, suits from Bloomingdales, etc. etc. Furs were often on sale, and not cheap fur either; minks and sables. THE Basement had better stuff than what Filene's was selling upstairs, and Filene's was thought of being more up-market than Jordan Marsh.

And it was mobbed. There were too few dressing rooms, so women would try stuff on in the aisles. I had an aunt who lived in mid-town NY, near Bergdorf, who would scout out merchandise in Bergdorf that was nearing its end-of-season life, and she would anticipate it being sent to THE Basement, and alert her sisters in Boston to look for certain items and buy them at 50% or 75% off what Bergdorf was selling them for.

That's what made THE Basement the Boston institution. When was the last time you saw fur coats being sold in The Basement?
 
Filene's Basement in the downtown would have survived....even through bankruptcy.
That store was still a money machine so Syms would have closed most of the Filenes Basements but probably would have maintain 1 or 2 and Downtown was always busy.

It's like Friendly's which just filed chap 11......They restructured to close 63 out of their 487 stores.

Menino saw this coming? Just like he saw the 10 Million dollar city loan to W-Hotel which got forced into bankrupcty. I bet he saw that coming also.
 
Maybe you're right, but this was the third bankruptcy for Filene's Basement in 13 years. Syms is not in great shape either, and is also liquidating.
 
Filenes Basement on Boylston Street is nothing compared to the concept that was Downtown. I actually felt like I was shopping at a high end store on Boylston Street. The prices were outrageous compared to the concept the orginal store offered.

Marshalls is probably the last of the Great discount retailers that still have some good quality products for the price.
 
Sicilian said:
^stellar and ^datadyne

Really interesting.

Considering how Menino's been trashed for the hole (even by me) I'm surprised his team hasn't repeated the fact that:

A) Filene's hole is not much worse than the former parking garage
and
B) Filene's demise was inevitable so we'd be looking at a vacant block regardless of the debacle w/Vornado.

Is the above true?

[I just remembered there was a plaza where the hole is, with a popular array of lunch carts including that cuban sandwich or similar.]
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The Filene's Memorial Hole was the site of the 70s concrete bunker addition. The parking garage you are referring to was on Hayward Pl and was demolished for LP Phase 2/Bloomingdales. Massive developments falling through is nothing new in DTX.
 
jass said:
The guy driving this particular car saw the do not enter sign and did not enter. Had he entered, nobody would have given a shit. On that commercial road, he probably didnt see the sign (its small and non-standard)
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I once drove through downtown crossing by accident. I used to routinely drive on the bypass road, though I can't see a reason to do so now that there is a tunnel directly parallel to it. At any rate, I think prohibited sections of DTX are a bit more daunting for purposefully driving than is the bypass road. Washington and Winter/Summer Sts. are packed with wandering pedestrians, whereas the bypass road is, well, a road.
 
I've never held back from being tough on Menino, especially in the ID/Seaport.

That said, I think the above comments -- particularly datadyne and Stellar's point about Filene's running into trouble buying unsold merch from Bloomingdales etc. and Ron's point about multiple bankruptcies -- demonstrate that it likely was a romantic notion to think DTX would have Filene's in years to come.

So even if, as Ron suggests, Target moved into the Filene's space, we'd likely be looking at pretty sorry state for DTX.

What I'm getting at is that the thrashing of Menino over Vornado is overplayed. Don't get me wrong -- the lack of vision and planning in DTX is staggering. I'm just saying that even with a top notch effort in the planning department, the Downtown Crossing area might still be in big trouble.

As for the Innovation District and Seaport, I'll continue to believe we've squandered decades of opportunities and notably two years have passed since the "Innovation District" was named during which we could have had seen a MAJOR overhaul in futuristic, contemporary planning, zoning and development for the vacant land. Instead, ID is little more than buzz, with dozens of tech companies hyperventilating about the availability of cheap Fort Point warehouse space. That goldmine will run out, as it did for the prior occupants of those spaces -- many of whom moved to Lowell and Lynn.
 
Am I the only one here who remembers Syms being in the black buliding at the SE corner of Summer and Chauncy, a block from Filene's? Storefront is now a CVS. I'm not sure how long Syms was there.
 
Yes, Ron, I remember. Yeah, Syms didn't seem to have been there very long. Maybe it was there from around 2002-2005? I seem to remember that retail space being empty for a long time before Syms, no?
 
This picture at Uno Due Go was taken on opening day.

I walked by yesterday, still the same peeling paint. Amazing contrast to the quality interior at the restaurant.

The owner of this building must not have gotten the memo about a great tenant on the 1st floor.

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Perhaps the landlord was expecting a larger vertical sign, which would cover up all that?
 
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