Hall of Shame Nominations

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Ok,

Hotel Commonwealth - Check

I'll second One Post Office Square

Kenmore Bus Stop -Sorry kennedy, you are the only person I've ever seen stick up for that awkward lump of glass.

Not doing one story buildings or triple-deckers, too broad. If there is one or two in particular you want to single out feel free.

Why am I not surprised this is the most popular award category? :(
 
Wow, if we're gonna criticize towers, we could do worse than One Post Office Sqaure (which I like). The afformentioned One Beacon, as well as One Federal and the old State Street Bank building are the 3 worst 500'+ (or close to that?) towers in the city...
 
On further contemplation, I can?t escape the conclusion that these collectively are the worst architecture in Boston because of the sheer extent and depravity of their offense:

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Thugs that rape the Columbus Avenue streetscape. Cruel, menacing and proud of their crime:

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Despoiling with the demeanor of public housing what could have been the South End?s main street, the aborted possibility of an elegant boulevard:

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Spewing parking lots in their loutish wake, converting alleys into parking access driveways:

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These are my candidates for the Hall of Shame, because no fairly recent project in Boston comes close to doing so much harm. And to arguably the city?s fairest district!
 
Are these BHA properties? Are they the result of previous fires?
 
Not Manhattan but surely the Bronx.
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I guess I'm not too shocked and amazed ablarc agrees with this, given his championing of streetcar suburb-inspired New Urbanism, but why is one form of development okay in Manhattan but not elsewhere? Surely it's not "light and air," otherwise Manhattanites would have to be said to need to benefit from this too - and one could point to other urban interventions - like tower-in-the-park housing projects, that only provided it at a high price to the urban fabric.

What are triple deckers but minuscule applications of the tower-in-the-park principle, hiding behind conservative clapboard facades?

Not doing one story buildings or triple-deckers, too broad. If there is one or two in particular you want to single out feel free.
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The one-story commercial buildings resulted from zoning decisions...can't we nominate those?

converting alleys into parking access driveways
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You'll find that many of the "tasteful" residents of the neighboring mid-19th century townhouses do this as well.
 
czsz said:
I guess I'm not too shocked and amazed ablarc agrees with this...
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Sorry Cz, I wasn't agreeing with that comment about three deckers, but rather the comment about Post Office Square that has since disappeared. So I deleted my agreement too.

Imo, three deckers in the Bronx would suck.

On the general subject of three-deckers, I agree they don't do much for urbanity.
 
czsz said:
I guess I'm not too shocked and amazed ablarc agrees with this, given his championing of streetcar suburb-inspired New Urbanism, but why is one form of development okay in Manhattan but not elsewhere? Surely it's not "light and air," otherwise Manhattanites would have to be said to need to benefit from this too - and one could point to other urban interventions - like tower-in-the-park housing projects, that only provided it at a high price to the urban fabric.

What are triple deckers but minuscule applications of the tower-in-the-park principle, hiding behind conservative clapboard facades?
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It's because density varies in different locations, and while people like a certain density in one location, they don't like it in another location. So of course substituting three-deckers for tenaments in Manhattan would not be appropriate, but in the Bronx, where they are lower density, it can be appropriate in places (the Bronx has a high number of single-family houses, three-deckers would be an appropriate substitution that increases density but isn't too overbearing). Three-deckers aren't anything like towers in the park, having 5 feet of grass in front doesn't lower urbanity significantly and it's much easier to have heavily trafficked sidewalks in three-decker neighborhoods vs. sidewalks in towers in the park.
 
statler said:
What name shall we give this group?
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That drab housing project along Columbus Ave is Methunion Manor. Its not BHA property, but it is subsidized low income. Many of the the windows are covered in heavy wire mesh. There is some street level retail in one of the buildings, but the buildings are extremely dreary overall. Here is the link to the property management company for the complex:

http://www.maloneyproperties.com/properties/methunion_manor_fr.htm

and just for the record, that website prominently features a yuppie Hingham like family running through a suburban lawn. My wife (at the time my girlfriend) lived right next to this complex. I have walked by that complex hundreds of times both in the day and at night and I can assure you that not once did I see anyone who remotely looked like that picture enter or leave the Methunion Manor complex. ;-)
 
Something just occurred to me.

Kenmore Bus Stop should be in the Worst New Development category. I'm going to remove it from here to avoid confusion.
 
czsz said:
What are triple deckers but minuscule applications of the tower-in-the-park principle, hiding behind conservative clapboard facades?
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An interesting question. To understand the typology, you need to consider history. Three deckers were often spec-built as low-cost housing for the working poor who became upwardly mobile in the first half of the last century. For the merchant class of 75-100 years ago, the multi-unit dwelling was the way forward.

Consider my own family as a case: my great grandfather settled in East Cambridge and became the superintendent of the Mt. Auburn Cemetery. He never owned a home. My grandfather worked as a courier in his teens and twenties, until he opened his barber shop on Harve Street in East Boston. After a few years in a tenement with a growing family, he moved to the Heights and bought a spec-built 2 family on Bennington Street -- after 73 years, it's still in the family. There was more room, and on the first floor, a monthly income from a tenant.

Three deckers offer two incomes to an owner occupant. Condoing them, or using them for Section 8 residents (with an absentee landlord only interested in a monthly check that won't bounce), topples this concept.

Are they pretty. If taken care of, they can be. Does the typology need a "refresh?" Something not too literal may be a good thing. John Lautner's Stevens Residence (dead center, on the beach) comes to mind.
 
Try getting into "The Colony," ablarc. The security is like Ben Gurion International Airport.

And try browsing the site. It's mindblowing.
 
I understand why three deckers were popular among the working poor who moved to them from crowded tenements - I'm not sure that ought to make us appreciate them any more. After all, the well-tended middle-class versions of the tower in the park were popular for the same reason. And, as we all know, suburban housing tracks even more so. Yes, they represent a history of the working classes being assimilated into the American Dream, but the negative consequences of that dream's ultimate realization is precisely why I think we should cast a suspicious eye on such housing's enabling of a very suburb-directed form of upward mobility.

For the record, the housing type isn't very unique to Boston - it can be found in various iterations across the Great Lakes region and Upper Midwest (they tend to have hipped, rather than flat roofs there, and are referred to with other terms - one being "two-flat").
 
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