GrandMarc Residence Hall (YMCA) @ Northeastern U | 291 St. Botolph Street | Fenway

Re: YMCA/ Northeastern Dorm (formerly GrandMarc at St. Botolph)

KentXie said:
Excuse me? Maybe you have been living in your mom's basement for a majority of your life but if I remember, the down economy impacted basically every private university's endowment and ability to spend. Unfortunately Northeastern doesn't have the endowment size of Harvard and unfortunately for Northeastern, they had to listen to the whiny complaints of you community residents who doesn't understand basic economics.

No, NU's argument is something like this:

"We are obligated (or more like forced) to expand to increase the % of students staying in our dorms even during a down economy because the local residents are being out-competed by college students."

You know what would have been a smart investment? If Northeastern University bought all the residential housing surrounding the university and flipped it into dorms. They tried that once and was rebuked by the city. Not to mention activists would never allowed this to happen.


You know what your community activist group's argument sound like?

"We are too poor to pay a membership fee high enough or recruit enough members that the Y can fund renovation on their own so we're going to make an excuse by saying we want to save the Y because it's incredibly historical and all the programs that are currently being run are being halted (even though in reality, we could care less, we're just using it as an excuse and yes we know those programs will continue after the renovation and will be running just as well)."

Go away troll. You lost. Deal with it.

And if you're going to complain so much of it, why don't you boycott the Y for the rest of your life and go find some other gym. With all these complaints, maybe NEU shouldn't keep its promise and flood 700 students into the community so that you guys can enjoy higher rent. I mean, by fighting this project, you guys are only shooting yourself in the foot.
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Indeed, most of the folks of savethebostony.com that I know are no longer members of the Y. The youth truly hurt by what will be a diminshed facility have very few options. Article 80 will be a footnote in any development scheme yet we will not have the advantages of a freer, albeit not completely free market.

Yes, the majority of adult members have been absorbed into other gyms. The incompetence of the national Y leaders and the ca$h grab by the plaintiffs made this a done deal that will be duplicated elsewhere.

"Lost"? Yes, this is a 1 party city that values educational institutions above virtually everything. NU had the opportunity to build more than the 720 beds of this tower.

The building of this tower will have an effect for 2 or 3 years until the next expansion. NU's already begun to "take care of" Carter Playground.
 
Re: YMCA/ Northeastern Dorm (formerly GrandMarc at St. Botolph)

Well I guess this means I have to go out today and take some picture of the site.
 
Re: YMCA/ Northeastern Dorm (formerly GrandMarc at St. Botolph)

timsox6 said:
I just started at Northeastern. Is the plan for this still to be a dorm building for multiple universities, or has that plan been scrapped?
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A deal was struck between the Y, the developer, the city, and NU that the dorm will be leased exclusively by Northeastern for at least the next 15 years. And NU leadership has said they will try to buy the dorm tower within that time for greater control over the site (obviously they'd rather own the dorm than have it as another leased property).
 
Re: YMCA/ Northeastern Dorm (formerly GrandMarc at St. Botolph)

I just saw that NU was up to #49 in the US News and World Report rankings. I guess all that building has been paying off.
 
Re: YMCA/ Northeastern Dorm (formerly GrandMarc at St. Botolph)

From Renaissance Garage this evening: steel has gone well beyond the YMCA.



And some context:
 
Re: YMCA/ Northeastern Dorm (formerly GrandMarc at St. Botolph)

Starting to become fairly visible from Huntington.
From today's walk



 
Re: YMCA/ Northeastern Dorm (formerly GrandMarc at St. Botolph)

Nice, I was waiting for that to happen! I tried to see it a few times, walked down Huntington, and didn't know where to go from there. How do you actually see this building from top to bottom? It seemed like the whole place was blocked off.
 
Re: YMCA/ Northeastern Dorm (formerly GrandMarc at St. Botolph)

If you visit after construction has finished for the day, you can walk down St. Botolph and go right up to it. If you go while they're still working they'll make you walk through the covered area.
 
Re: YMCA/ Northeastern Dorm (formerly GrandMarc at St. Botolph)

Thanks I'll have to check out St. Botolph next time I go walking down there. Huntington is one of my "imaginary boundaries" so it will be good to break that and go a street further, see what's what... Although, on second thought, I have walked down Columbus a few times. (I too like to climb the Northeastern garages every so often) Guess I just missed that little sucker in the middle of them!
 
Re: YMCA/ Northeastern Dorm (formerly GrandMarc at St. Botolph)

Huntington is one of my "imaginary boundaries"
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Wha? You're missing a lot!
 
Re: YMCA/ Northeastern Dorm (formerly GrandMarc at St. Botolph)

St. Botolph near the CSC is particularly beautiful.
 
Re: YMCA/ Northeastern Dorm (formerly GrandMarc at St. Botolph)

Boston is a bit too small to consider Huntington a boundary.

DZH22 said:
Huntington is one of my "imaginary boundaries" so it will be good to break that and go a street further, see what's what...
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Re: YMCA/ Northeastern Dorm (formerly GrandMarc at St. Botolph)

Well to be fair I have walked large swaths of the South End past Huntington during the day (including St Botolph), but most of the time if I'm walking at night I don't go beyond Huntington, particularly west of Mass Ave.

I have at least driven around Roxbury, Mattapan, etc a few times when I was feeling especially brave (or being especially lost). But if you include all of Cambridge, Somerville, Brookline, etc as "Boston", which I do, then it is not too small at all. I have been walking around for years and years, actively seek out streets I haven't been down before, and still haven't seen all of it. Every road also tends to have 4 different experiences, depending on the way you are walking and the side you are on. It's also fun to pop in and out of side streets and do random zigzags, as Boston really lends itself to that. In terms of being a walker's paradise, the area is actually pretty HUGE, even with my general avoidance of the more dangerous areas! (Roxbury, Mattapan, Dorchester)

Although in terms of having imaginary "boundaries", I'm sure they exist in all of your lives as well. It's the kind of thing that needs to be actively thought about, then thought about some more, then consistently acted on. How many intersections do you pass through every day where you have never gone all 3-4+ ways available? How many major streets do you either stick to, or never cross to the neighborhoods on the other side? How many highway exits do you drive by everyday without giving a second thought as to what lies down them? How many side streets do you walk past everyday, without knowing what lies around the bend? Beautiful houses, parks, recreation facilities, unexpected stunning views? We all have these boundaries in our lives. I try to break mine as often as possible, and it looks like St Botolph west of Mass Ave is my next target. Next time you're walking, do yourself a favor and when you notice a street you have never walked down before, give it a shot.
 
Re: YMCA/ Northeastern Dorm (formerly GrandMarc at St. Botolph)

Roxbury, Dorchester and Mattapan aren't that scary...
 
Re: YMCA/ Northeastern Dorm (formerly GrandMarc at St. Botolph)

I have done that before. You just keep up your vigilance like you should walking alone at night anywhere.
 
Re: YMCA/ Northeastern Dorm (formerly GrandMarc at St. Botolph)

BussesAin'tTrains said:
Roxbury, Dorchester and Mattapan aren't that scary...
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I work in those areas pretty often, and I'd definitely avoid being there late at night on foot.

In terms of scariness, I'd rate Mattapan the worst, and Dorchester the best (though, in all fairness, Dorchester's so huge that its hard to consider it one area).
 
Re: YMCA/ Northeastern Dorm (formerly GrandMarc at St. Botolph)

Up to floor 13 now. Very visible coming up behind the YMCA.
 
Re: YMCA/ Northeastern Dorm (formerly GrandMarc at St. Botolph)

I'll grab some tomorrow. Living 30 seconds from this project has its perks.
 
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