Liberty Wharf | 220-270 Northern Ave | Seaport

Re: Liberty Wharf (Jimmy's Harborside)

Mumbles legacy. Blocks too big. Streets too wide. Suburban feel. All these years waiting - and for this? I hate being negative but this really doesn't feel like Boston. Not yet. Will it ever?
 
Re: Liberty Wharf (Jimmy's Harborside)

I don't understand the above complaint -- isn't this just replacing an older building on the same footprint?
 
Re: Liberty Wharf (Jimmy's Harborside)

Basing on pics, suburban Vancouver is just like that, random beige glassy highrises, parking lots, and wide roads, while downtown is similar but with fewer of the latter two. Currently Boston Seaport looks like its in between those two standards, so while not completely suburban, it has a few steps to go before we would call it urban.
 
Re: Liberty Wharf (Jimmy's Harborside)

Dunno, that seems like a gross oversimplification of a very impressive and very urban city.

I mean if we're talkin' palette, sure, the whole concrete + blue/green glass look is very Vancouver.
 
Re: Liberty Wharf (Jimmy's Harborside)

I never denied Vancouver is nice, I'm just making a visual observation that this looks similar to that, and wouldn't look out of place in suburban Vancouver.
 
Re: Liberty Wharf (Jimmy's Harborside)

all the haters need to calm down and give this some time. the area is coming along just fine. no its not the north end just yet (and never will be) but it will be nice.
 
Re: Liberty Wharf (Jimmy's Harborside)

If you think office parks are nice...
 
Re: Liberty Wharf (Jimmy's Harborside)

eaalkaline said:
all the haters need to calm down and give this some time. the area is coming along just fine. no its not the north end just yet (and never will be) but it will be nice.
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Joe_Schmoe said:
If you think office parks are nice...
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You guys are talking about the "city" where I used to live --and still do.

Ten years ago I would have described my Sunbelt Eden's downtown as an office park.

Then the area started coming along just fine; they inconveniently moved the symphony and opera downtown, where you had to pay for parking.

This would have been a drag, but gobs of bars also moved, (at first) inconveniently onto the main downtown drag; and pretty soon the local babes discovered main street's usefulness in displaying flesh. Now you can go downtown any weekend and get your eyeful of exposed skin.

Great if you like your office parks with half-naked bimbos (not professionals).

A model for Boston?

Too bad Symphony Hall has such good acoustics. How about a real seaport opera house, at least?
 
Re: Liberty Wharf (Jimmy's Harborside)

Is anyone confusing the Park Lane project for the Liberty Wharf project? I mean, if there is one project not to whine about in the Seaport, it's Liberty Wharf.
 
Re: Liberty Wharf (Jimmy's Harborside)

ablarc said:
nice things
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Is that...optimism?

The Seaport/SBW already has the ICA, flawed though it may be.There are already a few bars and restaurants in the area. And Kennedy is right, if it is anything like the renderings, Liberty Wharf (stupid name) might very well be the best thing in the area.

Is still say the streets are too wide, the building footprints are too large and there is too much useless open space to make it work, but I've been wrong before.
 
Re: Liberty Wharf (Jimmy's Harborside)

statler said:
I still say the streets are too wide, the building footprints are too large and there is too much useless open space to make it work...
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Just like where I live.

But you just gotta eyeball those bimbos...



Too bad summer in Boston doesn't last April through October.
 
Re: Liberty Wharf (Jimmy's Harborside)

I hate office parks. I don't think this will be one. Some parts, sure, but it will be much more financial district/convention district/corporate hospitality than office park. More life, more taxis, more upscale chain restaurants, more concrete, more pretty traffic lights and cross-walks. Not the same urban life you'd find in the North End, more similar to the urban life you'd find on Wacker Drive in Chicago.
 
Re: Liberty Wharf (Jimmy's Harborside)

Streets are wide in a lot of places -- Paris, NYC, even Boston (Boylston). We can live with that if the other elements are in place: good, walkable, pedestrian street fronts. Liberty Wharf looks like it is going to help in this regard and as ugly as the building across the street may be, the LTK restaurant is busy and the street life looks promising. There is opportunity for this stretch of road to evolve over time.
 
Re: Liberty Wharf (Jimmy's Harborside)

Mass. Ave. between Harvard and Porter squares is a good example of a very wide and very walkable street -- and a good model that should be copied in new development districts.
 
Re: Liberty Wharf (Jimmy's Harborside)

The problem isn't a wide street that cuts through a dense grid, like the avenues of Paris and New York or the main streets of central Boston.

It's that all the streets are wide. And the blocks are huge. And there's one building on each of them (and half the time there's none; just a superfluous park).

I hate office parks. I don't think this will be one. Some parts, sure, but it will be much more financial district/convention district/corporate hospitality than office park.
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"Convention District" and Boston should be an oxymoron when placed next to one another.

But yeah, we know that nominal buildout to the sidewalk and a few extra stories mean this office park will be more Kendall Square than Waltham.

This does not inspire confidence.
 
Re: Liberty Wharf (Jimmy's Harborside)

Ron Newman said:
I don't understand the above complaint -- isn't this just replacing an older building on the same footprint?
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You're right. Seeing the photos of the seaport district got me thinking. Don't mind Liberty Wharf really. I'm hopeful. I should have been clearer.
 
Re: Liberty Wharf (Jimmy's Harborside)

Ron Newman said:
Mass. Ave. between Harvard and Porter squares is a good example of a very wide and very walkable street -- and a good model that should be copied in new development districts.
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Isnt that going to be narrowed, or does the narrowing project end at porter?
 
Re: Liberty Wharf (Jimmy's Harborside)

I'm not aware of any project to modify Mass. Ave. in Cambridge, but maybe I've missed it.
 
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