Gov't Center Station Rebuild

Lisbon said:
I'm happy with the headhouse design.

Personally, I wouldn't have spent all of this time/money on a dedicated headhouse, when the Gov't Center T outlet really should be in the base of a building. We should have gotten a development stretching from Cambridge Street almost to City Hall, following the curve of the Sears Cresent, with T outlets on the base floor in addition to retail.

My worry is, do we keep the headhouse indefinitely, or are we OK with tearing it out and putting a building there at some point? I know it's going to be difficult to develop the site since it's over the T stop, but I'm sure it can be done.

Edit: Because it's relevant, here is my rough plan for City Hall Plaza, including the headhouse:

Red = demolish

Yellow = the new sight line between Fanueil Hall and the Pemberton Court House.

Green = new development. The current headhouse would be demolished and incorporated into the base floor of new development

Blue = upzone. Since I want to demolish part of 1-2-3 Center plaza, we can upzone the remaining portion and build as tall as we want here. The city would have to buy the building.
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Lisbon -- if the Fed's can give up Volpe in Kendall for a new building -- get rid of the City Hall and then see what can be built where it is located -- some of the plaza would be a nice vest-pocket+ sized park for things like Festival events
 
whighlander said:
Lisbon -- if the Fed's can give up Volpe in Kendall for a new building -- get rid of the City Hall and then see what can be built where it is located -- some of the plaza would be a nice vest-pocket+ sized park for things like Festival events
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I'm leaning towards supporting the demolition of City Hall itself, but I do see the merit in arguments for preserving it for historic reasons. I alternate between wanting to destroy it, and wanting to keep it.

On the other hand, having some of the space remain a park would be nice. I'd love to have the park go in the middle of the plaza, with buildings along side the park, and with buildings alongside Cambridge and Congress street to restore their street walls.
 
Arlington said:
Gotta go tall. There's a lot of empty plaza to fill, and it is certainly an important enough node that it's worthy of a little bit of place-making.
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I sort of agree but only in principle and dont like the way the axis of this structure is opposed to the crescent... I'd be all for filling half the plaza with new buildings but I'd like there to be a nod to Cornhill and Tremont. This will turn out alright, I'm sure, but to me it still clashes.
 
Lisbon said:
I'm leaning towards supporting the demolition of City Hall itself, but I do see the merit in arguments for preserving it for historic reasons. I alternate between wanting to destroy it, and wanting to keep it.

On the other hand, having some of the space remain a park would be nice. I'd love to have the park go in the middle of the plaza, with buildings along side the park, and with buildings alongside Cambridge and Congress street to restore their street walls.
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Totally - would free the whole space if we demo all of govt center and start over, but I usually like city hall itself - yet it blocks so much of what could be done if the entire govt center were redesigned. Ctr Plaza is horrific and it's so bloody sad that the magnificent old courthouse is totally walled off - I never even knew that building existed until I was grown up because it's so hidden.

I'd go for demolishing all of ctr plaza, rebuilding taller but smaller foot print buildings and allowing for a clear view of the courthouse from State St. Crucially, I'd rebuild Hanover to go all the way to Cambridge as well.
 
Former mayor Thomas M. Menino had expressed a desire to build another City Hall over at Fan Pier near the courthouse. That plan seems to have been killed.
 
RE: sight lines - The headhouse as it is now is very visible from Faneuil. A big black and white Ⓣ on it would pretty much eliminate tourist confusion of how to get from the T to the Faneuil area.

IMG_20150221_161310.jpg
 
Scipio said:
RE: sight lines - The headhouse as it is now is very visible from Faneuil. A big black and white Ⓣ on it would pretty much eliminate tourist confusion of how to get from the T to the Faneuil area.
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Knowing the MBTA they'll build that glass temple and forget to put the logo on top. I can't recall if the renders included one.

They could hang a "T" sign on that bare brick wall with an arrow pointing up the stairs for $100, but that is too easy.
 
fattony said:
Knowing the MBTA they'll build that glass temple and forget to put the logo on top. I can't recall if the renders included one.

They could hang a "T" sign on that bare brick wall with an arrow pointing up the stairs for $100, but that is too easy.
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Or better yet, paint a T mural on the brick wall like they did at Fenway station. Two birds, one stone: livens up that brick wall and points people to the T.
 
datadyne007 said:
Or better yet, paint a T mural on the brick wall like they did at Fenway station. Two birds, one stone: livens up that brick wall and points people to the T.
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Or do something better with the risers of the steps themselves. Monumental stairs were rarely good urban design.
the-stairs-have-eyes.jpg
(I think this is from Philly)
 
They should really rework that whole stair. Chop it in half and add escalators & an elevator tight to City Hall. Handicapped people and people with strollers who make their way onto CHP shouldn't have to navigate over to State St to get down to Faneuil Hall.
 
For another site line, here's a pic from the corner of Beacon/School Streets and Tremont. It was taken from the SW corner, where the Citizens bank branch is tucked under an arcade. I zoomed a bit, and I seemed to have not had the phone perpendicular (I blame the weather of course, that's what we do now, right?).

UACMnJz.jpg


I like the juxtaposition against City Hall. I also like how this structure looks in the previously posted views.

You can see this building from much earlier on Tremont as you walk Northeast towards the station. From at least Beantown Pub it's beginning to peak over the crest of Tremont at you. I think that on a sunny day the light hitting that glass will make it stand out against the surrounding buildings much more than it does in this image.
 
Workers on the GC project were reassigned to shovel during the fiasco:
http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/20...veling-duty/sTrI1m3DDetNS874YlqnZM/story.html

With construction slowed by repeated snowstorms, officials pulled contract workers out of the station to join the brigades of shovelers clearing the snow-covered tracks that crippled many lines.

“It was this type of cooperation that allowed us to re-open sections of the rapid transit rail system earlier than anticipated,” MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo said Monday.

...

Pesaturo said options for making up the lost work hours include adding additional crews at the site, and implementing night shift work.
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It still looks like a glass enclosed freight train car to me.
 
Wow, they're really chugging along on this...


Not bad given all of the storms and Gov. Faker's slashing of the T budget.
 
Outside of the T's generally ridiculous glass palace policy for head-houses, I actually like the way this works in Government Center.
 
I dont get the accusations of this being a palatial headhouse. First it is a major station, and part of the whole rebuild was to open it up and let in more natural light. It's tall, but it's a basic steel frame and glass. At its minimum, you take off the top two rows of glass and make the roof smaller. But the marginal design flare (if you could even call it that) is a couple dozen more glass panels and a longer steel pole.

I agree the T shouldn't be spending a huge amount on headhouses and design elements when there are other pressing issues (and it's not particularly strong at basic marketing as has been discussed). But i don't think this qualifies as overreach.
 
I agree the T shouldn't be spending a huge amount on headhouses and design elements when there are other pressing issues (and it's not particularly strong at basic marketing as has been discussed). But i don't think this qualifies as overreach.
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Perception drives reality more than reality drives perception. It's projects like these that make people think the T is wasting money (maybe they're not, i'm not really qualified to decide that). To the voter and the people who complain to politicians this looks like a massive waste of resources. They're going to argue, what's wrong with a stair case and a simpler roof? In some ways i'm sympathetic to that..., this thing appears to be a case of monument building even if it is not really.

Get ready, this kind of criticism is coming if the MBTA is going to get overhauled in the next few years as fallout from this winter.
 
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