Evolution of the Prudential Center: 1954-1989

This brings back memories of "Where's Boston?", the horrible concrete floor of the shopping arcade, the Copley Place footbridge that dumped you onto an empty deck, the Wiseguys at Vanessa's, and the Prince of Whales guy outside Star Market, along with those wonderfully pitiful escalator banks off of Huntington Avenue and Boylston Street.

In the original Thomas Crown Affair you can see a scene with Faye Dunaway, and the lead police detective on the "veranda" of the second story of the Pru. Very bizzare piece of design that you could access from the 2nd floor of the tower, or walk up a series of stairs that would be where the Body Shop is now. There was an open air plaza up over the roof of some of the shops.

The new Pru might be bad, but it is a lot better than what was there.
 
My main memory of the old Prudential shopping arcade is that it was raw and windy since it was open to the elements and adjoined both the Prudential Tower and several medium-rise residential buildings. Nobody wanted to be there in the rain or the wintertime.
 
Imagine a world with 6 avalon towers. *puke*
 
jass said:
Imagine a world with 6 avalon towers. *puke*
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Ya, architecturally they're blah 60's modernest crap if you want to be nice about it, but they are good space in a good location. The current refacing project that is being done should help some.

I currently live in the Boylston building of the Avalon towers and I'm fairly happy with it. I'm sure a lot of you would like to give me hell for that, enough people have, but hear me out first.

I am a grad student at BU. I also happen to have a physical disability. Even with forearm crutches my walking distance is limited to about 3 blocks, and even that is pushing it a little. I can't drive because of some other issues, so for practical day to day use I am limited to the 2 1/2 radius around my apartment, and the 2 1/2 block radius of each T stop. So for me having come from the suburbs of Tampa Florida where everything is at least a 15 minute car ride away, the mixed use of the Pru and surrounding buildings is as close to perfect as I'm going to get on a limited budget.

Could the place use a face lift, absolutely. But the square footage and floor plans available smack in the middle of daily necessities near to the T counts for a lot in my book. I can over look a lot of aesthetics for the convenience.
 
No doubt, location is everything. Also, welcome to the board. It's just a shame the towers don't interact more nicely with the streetscape.
 
Im sure theyre lovely inside, but just look at this:

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Not even the soviets would have allowed that!
 
Just curious - why did they end up not building this plan? Did the 101 Huntington office building get built instead of some of these apartment buildings?

The leftmost building is the Sheraton hotel.
 
101 Huntington, and then much later 111 Huntington. I would assume that someone realized a mix of apartments and office buildings would be more financially viable then the mall and apartments alone. The buildings to the far left of that plan were replaced by the convention center.
 
The original plan had the War Memorial Auditorium, which is the low-rise at far left along Boylston Street. That was later renamed Hynes Auditorium and much later redeveloped into the current Hynes Convention Center.
 
jass said:
Im sure theyre lovely inside, but just look at this:

img2195jk3.jpg



Not even the soviets would have allowed that!
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It's amusing that the artist re-rendered and "modernized" the neighborhood to be more contextual with the Prudential proposal. And apparently decided Gloucester street should be no more.
 
armpitsOFmight said:
The Pru's exterior is ugly and needs to be refurbished.
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We'd probably end up with a blank glass curtain wall, 52 stories of Alucobond (silver or grey) or some other misguided attempt to "fix" it. See also: The hilarious PoMo proposals from the '80s.
 
The Pru isn't really that ugly and it kind of grows on you over time. If the metal framing was cleaned and highly polished, the aqua colored spandrel panels were backlit at night (glowing glass coke bottle effect) , and the existing transparent glass was with replace with modern high clarity glass, the tower would look quite spiffy.
 
Slick ideas, Lurker.

Julius Shulman spoke of the optimism that the Modern movement aspired to project. Granted, that's a quality better seen in Southern California, the world he captured in crisp black & white. Consider The Pru against its cousins in NYC and Chicago. Does it not have some of the optimism that Shulman spoke of?

The Pru is a handsomely proportioned product of its time, and age has improved it. In an era of pinstriped and gray flannel towers, it's dressed in a classy glen plaid suit.
 
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I agree, a good scrubbing would go a long way. Not much more than that though.

I frankly don't want a facelift to muck up and sterilize the Pru to match the impersonal exterior of that steaming crapheap the Mandarin.
 
Lurker said:
The Pru isn't really that ugly and it kind of grows on you over time. If the metal framing was cleaned and highly polished, the aqua colored spandrel panels were backlit at night (glowing glass coke bottle effect) , and the existing transparent glass was with replace with modern high clarity glass, the tower would look quite spiffy.
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Yes, please.
 
I didn't realize 101 Huntington was built in the 1960's. It doesn't look like a building from that period - too PoMo for that. Was it ahead of it's time or was the facade/roof redone?
 
It was reclad in the 90s. Original facade was honey-colored brick.

101%20huntington2.jpg
 
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