Gov't Center Station Rebuild

Shepard said:
Really from all angles this appears to be massive! I wonder whether it will help "enclose" City Hall Plaza - or, perhaps more likely - just look like an oversized unanchored monument scattered among the mix...
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Remember that it's all clear glass. You'll be able to largely see through it.
 
Personally, I think it's already helping enclose the plaza. Unfortunately, it's on the side that least needs enclosing.

I dont like the way its blocking out the Sears building!
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Sure, but depending on where you stand, it also blocks out the JFK and Center Plaza buildings. Let's try to focus on the positives here!
 
Should have been a real building. Should have been a real building. Should have been a real building.


Kay, I'm done. I'm sure the pigeons are waiting for the first piece of glass with baited breath.
 
There is very little that is "right" about the Government Center Plaza (with the possible exception of the Sears Crescent), but there is something really wrong about this design.

Like others, I was walking across the plaza the other day (from Washington Street) and was shocked by how massive and simply strange the structure is. Kind of looks like the left over packing crate that the IKEA City Hall Kit came in.
 
Everything they do to GC Plaza short of building it out is lipstick on a pig.
 
I think this is just the T wanting to one up PATH's wtc station. Can't let those bastards in New York waste more money on an uglier station than us
 
On the contrary, this will prove that you don't have to waste billions of dollars to build something ugly.
 
It'll be worth it if the Green Line level actually gets some natural light for a change. That might be borderline pleasant. But much like the row of lighted spires on the Plaza along Cambridge St. curve it flat-out doesn't matter if it looks good, bad, or just weird. The whole Plaza is just a vortex of suck that makes everything within eyesight look ugly.

The T's ripe for criticism for its overuse of glass construction and utter befuddlement that building glass edifices means you have to clean said glass edifices a little more regularly than once every 25 years...but that's kind of beside the point. As long as they didn't overspend on it the aesthetics of this location don't particularly matter. The ugly that surrounds it was always going to be the defining characteristic. If the design were truly "pretty" isolation it would just be seen as weird and anachronistic...not actually pretty. That's City Hall Plaza's enduring power at bringing down everything around it to its own aesthetic level.
 
Speaking of natural light, the design has always reminded me of Gateway Center station in Pittsburgh (also "The T"):
1920px-Gateway_Station.jpg

I seem to recall that it's somewhat successful at bringing light to the lower level.
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
It'll be worth it if the Green Line level actually gets some natural light for a change. That might be borderline pleasant.
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See, this sentiment for daylighting subway platforms I've never understood. You're on an underground train. There is neither an expectation nor requirement that any sort of natural light make it down there. Hell, a lot of above ground train stations don't even have much in the way of natural light. They have windows, but they are typically high up and the stations themselves are so cavernous the light doesn't make it very far in anyway. But it doesn't matter, because they make up for it with very tall ceilings.

I visited the station right before they shut it down, after they removed the drop ceiling. THAT made it a million times more pleasant, even with construction debris lying around. The mistake there was to make the ceiling catastrophically low. All they needed to do was remove that ceiling to open the space up a bit better. Park could really use the same treatment by removing those stupid louvers on the ceiling. This whole thing is also a waste because you're blocking the opportunity to redevelop the site of the headhouse with an actual building instead of a glorified skylight.

It's already done, so whatever. I just think getting sunlight to platforms is an frivolous expense the public doesn't actually need. Has anyone ever stood on a train platform and said "man, this would be so much better if only there was some sunlight"? No, they want good (artificial) lighting, clear signage, wide platforms, and on time trains. Everything else is ego from either the designers or management wanting something "cool". See also: Courthouse Station.
 
It was said that they planned to have it so that the natural daylight would go all the way down to the Blue Line platform.

Don't know if that is still the case. :confused:
 
Jahvon09 said:
It was said that they planned to have it so that the natural daylight would go all the way down to the Blue Line platform.

Don't know if that is still the case. :confused:
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Definitely not. Blue's still got a floor on top of it. The most natural light you'd see down there is on upper half of the staircase.



You can, however, use light pipes to pump natural sunlight down from the surface into the lower levels. You can even combine them into a hybrid system with LED's where the LED's power up as the piped sunlight diminishes, and vice versa. Cool stuff...starting to get used a lot more widely in buildings.

There are train stations around the world that use that technology. Probably quite a few T stations where the headhouse area gets enough direct sun all day and the underground station is laid out in a way to make it applicable. Hell...it'd be outright cool to have some light pipes pumped down into the bowels of GC Blue level or the Porter Sq. bunker.
 
Jackson Square Staion on the Orange Line has natural light coming down to a portion of the station platform through a window at the end facing the regular stairs.

North Staion has, or once had natural light shining down on the Orange Line platforms, sort of through a light pipe setup. Don't know if it is still there or not. Alwife Staion has some natural light shining down on the Red Line platform.
 
Jahvon09 said:
Jackson Square Staion on the Orange Line has natural light coming down to a portion of the station platform through a window at the end facing the regular stairs.
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Even with that, it still feels so dark and dingy at Jackson. The windows desperately need to be washed, though I'm not sure if that's possible with the chain link fences they installed in front of them.
 
sm89 said:
Even with that, it still feels so dark and dingy at Jackson. The windows desperately need to be washed, though I'm not sure if that's possible with the chain link fences they installed in front of them.
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Yeah, that and the fact that they seem to have done very little or nothing to keep all of those pesky crapping pigeons from settling down in there and crapping all over the place!!! :mad:
 
F-Line to Dudley said:
The T's ripe for criticism for its overuse of glass construction and utter befuddlement that building glass edifices means you have to clean said glass edifices a little more regularly than once every 25 years...but that's kind of beside the point.
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This. I'd rather the T spend half as much on the architecture and put the savings towards maintenance/cleaning so that everything doesn't look abandoned and unkempt in 3 years.
 
One of the escalator trusses was lowered in today:

From the MBTA YT:
"This is video of the lower escalator truss being loaded into the station. This lower portion of the truss weighs over 9,000 lbs. with the upper portion weighing in at over 11,000 lbs. These two pieces will be connected and lifted into place to become the framework for Escalator #1 from the Green Line platform to the streetlevel."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00T0SrwF3fk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Af-1iPGvgKg
 
There is a small part of me that is going to miss the grungy old station. It has such an odd layout (from traditional stations) and the dirt and grime just gave it that "urban" feel to it. I felt the same the first time I walked under the old North Station elevated station. Don't get me wrong, this is a much needed improvement, but I can't help but feel a bit nostalgic.
 
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