Globe Article on Waterfront

[whighlander]

What parts of the Boston waterfront are "crammed with tourists"? Long Warf/Commercial Warf and maybe the Children's Museum and Charlestown Navy Yard are the only touristy areas of the waterfront that I can think of...

Also funny how the the division of the Greenway with excess cross streets was actually a city initiative to reconnect the streets with the harbor...

Itch, Busses -- you both need to do some more careful reading

Actually a lot of the waterfront is crammed with people -- your problem is that while you read the words 47 miles -- you thought SPID -- missing the huge existing sucess story of the waterfront in Boston proper

Try walking the Harborwalk from Battery Wharf to Rowes Wharf any sunny spring or summer day -- April might be a bit early. Crowds start out thin and grow as you approach Christopher Collumbus Park and Long Wharf - they stay quite large to Rowes Wharf and a bit beyond to the Intercontinental Hotel Garden -- the last time I did the walk the Atlantic Wharf was still incomplete

Cross the Channel and from the Wortd Trade Center to the Fish Pier there are plenty of people as there quite a few restaurants and bars as well as tourist boats -- it continues to be busy a bit beyond on both ends (ICA on north and Bof A pavillion and even Harpoon on the South)

On the Fort Point Channel so far the people are mostly at the Barking Crab and Childrens Museum though with the redone Tea Party Museum reopening in June I'll bet that it gets busy around there this summer too.

There is some fluff in the piece -- but despite my general objections to government programs -- the BRA did really make a difference with respect to the waterfront -- from abandoned piers to multi M$ condos in one generation

 

[whighlander]

Let's take this piece by piece.


A long-term process that began long ago. When did the Navy Yard close? When did the USS Constitution open? There's been development there, sure, but it hasn't really seemed to have much of an impact in terms of making this a real neighborhood. I first visited this area in 1996ish and the last time I was there it didn't seem dramatically more busy.



I'm not sure why we're celebrating this? The North End is one of Boston's cultural treasures, and gentrification is turning it into Beacon Hill / Back Bay with narrower, twistier streets.



This is not only very slow moving, it's one block removed from the waterfront and has arguably taken focus / effort / money /recreational use away from it.



The Fort Point Channel area has clearly changed a lot architecturally, but I'd argue that, with the exception of the implementation of Harbor Walk, it actually has less of a variety of lively uses than it once did. The area suffered setbacks when the Tea Party museum burned and had to be rebuilt, when James Hook burned, and when the Computer Museum got swallowed by the Science Museum. The terrace out behind the Intercontinental has yet to take off as a popular public place, and it's too soon to tell for Atlantic Wharf.

I don't know how you can acknowledge that the Seaport doesn't deserve this level of praise and then go on to sing the virtues of the ICA and Jimmy's Harborside. An improvement? Yes, but this area is still wildly in flux and saying it's "arrived" is a bit of a stretch.

The Boston Harbor Islands are way too removed from the urban waterfront to really count for anything here.



Okay, maybe I should revise this comment. This all seems like old news to me, and it is by at least 3-5 years, particularly in the case of the Seaport, and maybe "decades ago" was a huge stretch. I do think though that this article could have been published in 2007 without many changes (though it would still be inaccurate with respect to many of the changes' impact) and wonder why it's coming out now.



Weren't you just commenting on Boston's current urban conditions while living in Berlin?

CZ -- by taking it appart -- you fail to see the totality and while taking it appart you missed a number of significant developments which have been occuring all along -- many are best seen by occasionally taking a boat out in the inner harbor

The whole area by Battery Wharf is a prime example -- took a while it was still a deralict wharf in the 2000 time frame when most of the others where replete with Multim M$ condos and yaghts tied to the back door -- but now its one of the most pleasant if still quite parts of the Harbor Walk

This summer the Tall Ships will be back in force to celebrate Boston's other early war -- ht War of 1812 and the USS Constitution

A good opportunity to take a walk from the Navy Yard to Black Falcon to see the ships tied up and also to appreciate the environment

I'm holding a walking tour -- details still to be developed and disseminated -- warning it might be considered somewhat opinionated athough sprinkled with facts and interesting anecdotes, litterary and historic tidbit, etc

 

[KentXie]

It's one of my jogging routes, and it's packed every time I go through there on the weekend. With people going to the museum, the Constitution, the water fountain (sorry, can't remember the name), Tavern on the Water, Courageous Sailing Center, etc., etc, I think it more than qualifies as a success.

I didn't say it wasn't a sucess but you bring up something that should be pointed out. The sucess of the Navy Yard has little to do with the Harborwalk. I play basketball/tennis every summer there and occasions, there is a good sizable crowd (but not packed, a term which I only reserved for describing places like Faneuil Hall or Newbury St.) but a sizable crowd nonetheless. This is a recent thing either as there is always a crowd every year. Most of the crowd is restricted to the USS Constitution and Museum. Past that, for example the Vietnam War Memorial, it's completely empty. Of course that's because there's not much else to see from there.

 

[Shepard]

Over the past few years, it seems, the Long Wharf - Charlestown ferry has become a tourist draw in its own right, which has helped the Navy Yard crowds also.

 

[underground]

(but not packed, a term which I only reserved for describing places like Faneuil Hall or Newbury St.) but a sizable crowd nonetheless.

Arguing the difference between "packed" and "sizable crowd" seems like just about the definition of nitpicking. Of course now someone will argue is more splitting hairs than nitpicking.

Commentators are also leaving out/missing that, although a lot of the housing in the Navy Yard was constructed a while ago, most of the units were vacant for a LONG time. A sizable chunk are still vacant, but there's been a major uptick in residency the last few years. Shipyard Place (I think that's the name at least) especially comes to mind. To argue either that there's nothing going on there or that there's lots going on but it's been that way for 10+s years (I love that we're getting both by the way), is just off base and will probably be even more so once the new Spaulding opens up.

 

[George_Apley]

Itch, Busses -- you both need to do some more careful reading

Actually a lot of the waterfront is crammed with people -- your problem is that while you read the words 47 miles -- you thought SPID -- missing the huge existing sucess story of the waterfront in Boston proper

Try walking the Harborwalk from Battery Wharf to Rowes Wharf any sunny spring or summer day -- April might be a bit early. Crowds start out thin and grow as you approach Christopher Collumbus Park and Long Wharf - they stay quite large to Rowes Wharf and a bit beyond to the Intercontinental Hotel Garden -- the last time I did the walk the Atlantic Wharf was still incomplete

Cross the Channel and from the Wortd Trade Center to the Fish Pier there are plenty of people as there quite a few restaurants and bars as well as tourist boats -- it continues to be busy a bit beyond on both ends (ICA on north and Bof A pavillion and even Harpoon on the South)

On the Fort Point Channel so far the people are mostly at the Barking Crab and Childrens Museum though with the redone Tea Party Museum reopening in June I'll bet that it gets busy around there this summer too.

There is some fluff in the piece -- but despite my general objections to government programs -- the BRA did really make a difference with respect to the waterfront -- from abandoned piers to multi M$ condos in one generation

I didn't mention SPID once did I? A specifically DID mention Commercial Wharf/Long Wharf as having crowds, as well as Children's Museum/Fort Point and Navy Yard. I took issue with the word "crammed" and I still say that the area between Faneuil and the Aquarium are the only areas of the waterfront that are crammed. In the summer, all of Boston within Mass Ave and north of Tremont St south is crammed. Maybe my youth clouds my perspective given that I don't know what the waterfront was like 20+ years ago. My frame of reference as far as my experiences in Boston are concerned is the last 15 years or so. I have no doubt that it's MUCH better than it was, but I don't think that the overall waterfront has overtaken other prominent, touristy parts of Boston, that's all.

EDIT:

If it's nitpicky to call out the writer for using "crammed" in a way that I don't like, then by all means call me a nitpicker

 

[whighlander]

I didn't mention SPID once did I? A specifically DID mention Commercial Wharf/Long Wharf as having crowds, as well as Children's Museum/Fort Point and Navy Yard. I took issue with the word "crammed" and I still say that the area between Faneuil and the Aquarium are the only areas of the waterfront that are crammed. In the summer, all of Boston within Mass Ave and north of Tremont St south is crammed. Maybe my youth clouds my perspective given that I don't know what the waterfront was like 20+ years ago. My frame of reference as far as my experiences in Boston are concerned is the last 15 years or so. I have no doubt that it's MUCH better than it was, but I don't think that the overall waterfront has overtaken other prominent, touristy parts of Boston, that's all.

EDIT:

If it's nitpicky to call out the writer for using "crammed" in a way that I don't like, then by all means call me a nitpicker

Busses -- by all mean pick your nits -- just cover your "nitty regions" when you pick in public

More seriously -- The intensity of development and everyday usage of the waterfront varies from place to place -- from very very busy -- least I say crammed -- around the Aquarium and the Tourist Boats and the USS Constitution; to calm, sedate, contemplative, and quiet around Burrows Wharf.

Most of the places where active development is underway such as the waterfront along the Fort Point Channel or the harborwalk throough most of the SPID have yet to evolve a definitive character. For some places such as the Harpoon Brewery and around the World Trade Complex the character depends on eventsl.

Boston's waterfront is and has been an evolving part of a real-world, "warts and all" dynamic city -- not just a Disney "American Revolution Land." Boston must be seen in the context of time -- you don't need to have lived through it all to be able to comment inteligently -- but you need to have read about the history, and or looked at the images of the past to fully understand the why of the present, and appreciate the future potenial for further change.

Boston is the most engineered city in the US and one of the most engineered cities in the world. The easiest way to grasp all of this is to just remember that in Boston, unlike most cities -- most of the land which you are standing or walking upon used to be someplace else -- and that this is not just what the last glacier did. River-banks, forest glades, sea coasts, harbor's edge -- all were created by digging, filling and sculpting in the past couple of hundred years. Despite various restrictions, this process is continuing.