Lyra (née The Huntington) | 252/258/264 Huntington Avenue | Fenway

HenryAlan said:
They are owned by a non-profit and are restricted housing for elderly and disabled tenants. I don't know specifics about rental terms, but those populations traditionally are low income. And I do know one of the executives at the company that manages the property, and I'm pretty sure he mentioned once that they were low income units. I care a lot more about the tenants than I do about any aesthetic concerns.
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It's perhaps not a bad thing that elderly, low-income folks get to live cheek by jowl with expensive people in the shiny new building next door.
 
That is pretty crazy that they spent the money to reclad them, and just made them look the exact same.
 
stick n move said:
That is pretty crazy that they spent the money to reclad them, and just made them look the exact same.
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Not to restate the obvious but it’s low income/senior housing. They were undoubtedly on a tight budget and I’m sure if they had spent a bunch of money on what amounts to cosmetics a far more vocal contingent would have crawled out of the woodwork to call them out.

Go to New York some time and take a look at some of the absolute schlock on the upper east side that people gleefully pay market price for and come back and tell us again how awful you find this to be.
 
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HenryAlan said:
...I care a lot more about the tenants than I do about any aesthetic concerns.
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That was kind of my entire point. I thought the commentary on aesthetics was incomplete without understanding what the building was used for, whether someone was trying to profit off of it, etc. Given that it's run by a non-profit to serve elderly and disabled kind of changes how one might thing about more-vs-less expensive facade materials, IMO. And to BronsonShore's point, since cities naturally have a ton of different housing needs, one would expect a healthy city to have a many structures like this sprinkled throughout.
 
stick n move said:
That is pretty crazy that they spent the money to reclad them, and just made them look the exact same.
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The design aesthetic of Symphony Towers is dictated by the Christian Science Center Master Plan. They are part of all the brutalist and brutalist-light elements of that plan (Church Park, Greenhouse Apartments, Colonnade Hotel; Tower, Sunday School Building and Publishing Building on the plaza).

They could not change the cladding effect without getting formal revisions in that plan. (And they were never meant to be like Symphony Hall or Horticultural Hall -- they are like the I M Pei Christian Science Center elements.)
 
bigpicture7 said:
That was kind of my entire point. I thought the commentary on aesthetics was incomplete without understanding what the building was used for, whether someone was trying to profit off of it, etc. Given that it's run by a non-profit to serve elderly and disabled kind of changes how one might thing about more-vs-less expensive facade materials, IMO. And to BronsonShore's point, since cities naturally have a ton of different housing needs, one would expect a healthy city to have a many structures like this sprinkled throughout.
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Understood -- I assumed that was where you were going, just wanted to confirm the tenant info and re-emphasize the point.
 
Always good to see a high rise go up. Although being in Fenway, it probably won't do much to increase the "apparent density" of Boston/Back Bay...

Anyone know if there are any plans for any new 500 footers in Boston???
 
Its not 500 ft but 2 charlesgate west will add another piece to the gap between back bay and fenway/longwood. Id have to imagine lyra will be visible from across the charles as well.

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As of 4/11/25.
 

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stick n move said:
Its not 500 ft but 2 charlesgate west will add another piece to the gap between back bay and fenway/longwood. Id have to imagine lyra will be visible from across the charles as well.

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stick n move said:
Its not 500 ft but 2 charlesgate west will add another piece to the gap between back bay and fenway/longwood. Id have to imagine lyra will be visible from across the charles as well.

View attachment 61698
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If 2 CGW ever actually happens, I'll eat my, er, iPhone? Scape can't even do daily trash disposal properly on the property (red violation tickets from ISD apear every day or so). How could they get it together to redevelop the site in the next 10 years, given the NIMBY's, Bowker rebuild coordination , and Berdo/transpo/code changes? Color me cautious.
 
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