Four Seasons Tower @ CSC | 1 Dalton Street | Back Bay

DZH22 said:
From Elm St Somerville, July 26
Click to expand...

Where on Elm? Obviously your zoom is excellent, but I'm not sure where you shot that from! I get a good view of the Hancock from the Cumby's down near the Somerville Ave intersection, and I can see the Pru clearly from Davis on Holland St. But I'm curious as to where you get that look.
 
Lrfox said:
Where on Elm? Obviously your zoom is excellent, but I'm not sure where you shot that from! I get a good view of the Hancock from the Cumby's down near the Somerville Ave intersection, and I can see the Pru clearly from Davis on Holland St. But I'm curious as to where you get that look.
Click to expand...

Here's the approximate area, right near that Somerville Ave intersection but not quite there. I think I was across the street from Apt Rental Experts, but about 50 yards closer to Davis.

https://www.google.com/maps/@42.386...4!1s0d7lNhiSBAQXmdYQwhbOrw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656
 
Awesome summary, Beton. Thanks!

The book, "The Power Broker" about Robert Moses is fantastic, albeit about 8,000 pages long.

Beton Brut said:
^^ Indeed. Short answer, no one with a voice lived in the Back Bay, South End, or Fenway at that time.

Long answer, Boston's population was at its zenith during the interwar/Depression era (IIRC, ~825K), with folks jammed into tenements in the West, North, and South Ends. East Boston's population was equivalent to today's numbers, even though my own neighborhood (Orient Heights) was practically a rural area. People had bigger families and the expectation of privacy as we know it today was essentially nonexistent.

The decade after WWII was an era of mobility and repositioning; the first wave of flight to the suburbs kicked off, Italians form the West and North Ends headed to the northern suburbs, many Irish families fled to the South Shore, Jewish merchants left Dorchester and Roxbury for Milton, Newton, and Chestnut Hill. Conversely, African Americans and Latino populations grew through migrations. In my own neighborhood, many families moved north to Saugus, Reading, and Lynnfield to escape the unabated expansion of Logan Airport.

By the time my folks got married in the late 50s, Boston was a hollowed out husk. The Navy was in the process of decamping from the Charlestown Navy Yard, and much of the regional manufacturing (shoes, clothing, paints and solvents) had migrated to southern states with far lower labor costs.

New York had Robert Moses, and Boston had Ed Logue. These were the "architects" of scorched earth urban renewal.

The Pru, followed by new towers for State Street, the Boston Company, and New England Merchants National Bank quickly filled out the sky, with the Hancock a final exclamation point on Boston's transition from a port and manufacturing city to a center for insurance and financial services. Our proximity to research universities with global impact fired more recent booms in computing and the life sciences.
Click to expand...
 
I wonder if the Sheetmetal Worker's strike is gonna slow this down.
 
Czervik.Construction said:
Awesome summary, Beton. Thanks!
Click to expand...
I was worried after posting that I'd gone "full Westie" with a bunch of pedantic rubbish, so glad you found it useful.
Czervik.Construction said:
The book, "The Power Broker" about Robert Moses is fantastic, albeit about 8,000 pages long.
Click to expand...
I still need to read it. I'm told that it's a valuable corollary to The Death and Life of Great American Cities.
 
^^LOL. Last time i checked New York is incredible,

and getting more and more and more by the day.

Us on the other hand.... when it comes time to blow up the State Service Center....

are gonna be up to our eyeballs in raving mad nimby's and historical preservationist loons.
 
Czervik.Construction said:
Hey, DZH22, what is going on at Robbins Farm?
Click to expand...

Ongoing work has been going on at this park. They added more benches, fixed up the basketball court, and paved a path to the court. The fences have slowly moved in so it looks like they're doing some maintenance to the baseball field, but most of the green space in the park has been opened back up to the public.


odurandina said:
when it comes time to blow up the State Service Center....

are gonna be up to our eyeballs in raving mad nimby's and historical preservationist loons.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure the feasibility but would it be possible to both somewhat preserve this as well as build at least 1 large tower on top of it? I really like the columns and staircases but the rest of this is a huge waste of space and the pedestrian treatment sucks.
 
There comes a point in most cities (emphasis on the word most), where a building no longer serves a useful purpose.

In some other cases, a hideous slab of cement which never served a useful purpose to begin...

and if anything, scared the crap out of a good many mentally ill children and adults.

i guess it was Rudolph's gran finale: dropping the mother of all turds on a City that he somehow feared didn't have enough brutalist mistakes already dropped on it.

i want to be clear. i don't absolutely hate Brutalism. There are many successful examples in the world; such as the FBI building Trump mentioned the other day, and the interesting examples Brut posts. i just believe very strongly–tiny Boston was never the right canvas for it. There are very few blocks in the City that well support any type of huge, fat structures, let alone hulking concrete monoliths. Its a damn shame this drunken weekend had to come at the same time they were knocking down half the City–a city with so many buildings spanning from the Colonial era to late 19th Century . A Godawful shame.
 
Last edited:
odurandina said:
^^LOL. Last time i checked New York is incredible,

and getting more and more and more by the day.

Us on the other hand.... when it comes time to blow up the State Service Center....

are gonna be up to our eyeballs in raving mad nimby's and historical preservationist loons.
Click to expand...

if i loved nyc and all that's going on there to the degree you frequently exhibit and simultaneously had the degree of frustration/hate/disappointment with boston as you nearly always express i might consider moving from the city i dislike to the one i adore.
 
i'm not trying to take every chance i get to knock Boston. Far from it.

i like that New York isn't afraid to try bold and interesting things. They have much better architecture.

They don't always get it right. They certainly do a crap-ton of stupid. But they do so many incredible projects. Boston produces so much intellectual capital for the world. But its genius isn't showing up in its latter-day architecture. The 300 lb elephant; i don't 'get' this animus to height on sites that can support it.

1000 Boylston

45 Worthington St

Bulfinch Crossing

111 Huntington

88 Boylston St

1 Bromfield St

A few Downtown and the Back Bay sites that could have gone very tall built out during the Menino Era (squandered)

half of the West End

North Point

Volpe Sq to Kendall Sq capable of supporting several exciting/iconic (re; gorgeous, thin & tall) projects.

We seem to have no problem pointing out our deficiencies on cladding materials, color choices, window configurations, cornices, mechanical screen shapes, absurdly unnecessary cantilevers, etc.

Yet, we can't seem to come to an accord for the planning, massing & the overall "urban aesthetic;" our obvious blatant deficiencies, or have a macro-oriented conversation (skyline) -- centered about our aversion to height, or our reluctance to mention another 'miss' brings endless ire.
 
Last edited:
^^^111 Huntington is already built (and is currently Boston's 10th tallest building) unless that was a typo. Maybe it COULD have gone taller, but the ship sailed 15+ years ago and it was the tallest thing we got in the early 2000's boom.
 
When they planned it, they should have never been beholden to planning such a conservative occupied height near ~450~480', but rather how to avoid its Barney Rubble shape.

It's something you build in Indianapolis.

People have mentioned they never noticed its fatness. How can you not?

For perspective superimpose it on the old WTC New York footprint.

Back Bay should be very wary of fat buildings. You want a lot of light to slip between and fan out through the brownstone neighborhood. 111 Huntington is fat for that site. It's quite fat period. i'm sure Menino had the nimby's up his ass. But, it should have gone taller and thinner, imo.
 
Last edited:
odurandina said:
DZ, those photos are great.



what makes what look tiny?
Click to expand...

The downtown buildings make stuff like the Back Bay Marriott, Crown Plaza look tiny. After the Back Bay big 4 of 200 clarendon, Pru, 1 Dalton, 111 Huntington, I think the Marriott/Crown Plaza are the next tallest buildings in that neighborhood. My guess would be they are around 450' or 135 meters.
 
they may never "officially" admit it -- for whatever weird, boston-crazy reasons -- but after having been to the site yesterday, i'm pretty convinced this will ultimately wind up being taller than the Pru.
 
Right now it all depends on the glass that covers the mechs. It appears to be 2 floors high and will be a little bit higher than the mech equipment.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top