Lyrik Back Bay | 1001 Boylston Street (Parcel 12) | Back Bay

Pike square

Simple, yet descriptive. I like it. “Turnpike Square” has a better ring to it, though, imho.

Reminiscent of “Haymarket Square” or “Post Office Square”. Very Boston. 😁
 
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Pike square
The annual Start Trek convention would meet there in homage to the legendary Captain Pike:

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I think Turnpike Square is a brilliant name. Of course, many folks will contract it to "Pike Square," in the spirit the Massachusetts Turnpike is known by everybody as the Mass. Pike.

I've been a frequent visitor to the area since the 1980s (I worked back when at 101 Huntington). Boylston west of Hereford was a barren wasteland then and hasn't improved much since. The development of these parcels could make this a vibrant square.
 
Alternatively, you could honor both the main corporate tenant of the square and (one of) the city’s best rapper(s) by calling it Guru Square! 😄

Edit: Is it controversial to call Guru “Boston’s best rapper”? I was writing the post, then chickened out halfway through..
 
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Music square would be fantastic and it could lead to it being fleshed out and embraced by the community with constant busking
 
Alternatively, you could honor both the main corporate tenant of the square and (one of) the city’s best rapper(s) by calling it Guru Square! 😄

Edit: Is it controversial to call Guru “Boston’s best rapper”? I was writing the post, then chickened out halfway through..

He is definitely Boston's most famous rapper (if someone replies with Donny Wahlberg, I'm gonna have an aneurysm). Guru's lyrics were creative and thoughtful, but the phrasing/cadence was rather clumsy sometimes (I always thought it was DJ Premier's production that made Gang Starr's work appealing). I can't think of anyone better, though.

I like Music Square. Encompasses the full breadth of Boston's contribution to music.
 
He is definitely Boston's most famous rapper (if someone replies with Donny Wahlberg, I'm gonna have an aneurysm). Guru's lyrics were creative and thoughtful, but the phrasing/cadence was rather clumsy sometimes (I always thought it was DJ Premier's production that made Gang Starr's work appealing). I can't think of anyone better, though.

I like Music Square. Encompasses the full breadth of Boston's contribution to music.

EDO G most likely- he's more associated with Boston as Guru moved to NYC to pursue his music career early on and never really repped Boston
 
While I'm over the moon to see this project go up, Parcel 13 will really need to materialize for this location to feel like a proper square imo. The noise and ambiance from the Pike is too damn strong from both sides here. Has there been any movement on that?

I too see the huge potential for a new premier location. My pipe dream would be to see Mass Ave get a street car line running down it from Central to Symphony at least. Clear up the bus stop clog that occurs there now. Honestly would love a full on replacement of the 1 Bus with a new transit line because it's such a major artery in the area. And the bigger dream of a true urban ring to fix the N-S divide seems too impossible.

Doesn't anybody build elevated rail anymore? Seems like the only solution besides subway for Mass Ave, B, C, E lines. Why Paris and New York and not Boston?
 
Doesn't anybody build elevated rail anymore? Seems like the only solution besides subway for Mass Ave, B, C, E lines. Why Paris and New York and not Boston?
I think most urban planners consider elevated rail to be a solution of last resort. It is really unpleasant to live/work close to. It also does not create very pleasant urban streetscapes (at least in most people's eyes). Surface and underground solutions are generally preferred.
 
Doesn't anybody build elevated rail anymore? Seems like the only solution besides subway for Mass Ave, B, C, E lines. Why Paris and New York and not Boston?
Great for pictures, terrible for the daily experience. We've been taking them down for 50 years - it would be unlikely to flip scripts now.

To the project, that onramp is going to have some tough visibility once the building goes up for a quick merge. How are they adjusting it?
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To the project, that onramp is going to have some tough visibility once the building goes up for a quick merge. How are they adjusting it?
I don’t have the plan handy, but I remember designs showing the entrance of the ramp being moved west down Newbury St.
 
I don’t have the plan handy, but I remember designs showing the entrance of the ramp being moved west down Newbury St.

Yes. The ramp is being moved west past the vent stack.
 
I think most urban planners consider elevated rail to be a solution of last resort. It is really unpleasant to live/work close to. It also does not create very pleasant urban streetscapes (at least in most people's eyes). Surface and underground solutions are generally preferred.

How anyone thinks streetcars sitting in traffic jams for at least half a day every day is better than elevated rail is beyond me.
 
That was my favorite from the last thread to rename Hynes station/the area.

And, yes, Edo.G would get my vote for most prolific rapper (at least locally most well known). Maybe through Akrobatik in there, too.

Pretty interesting, it was the first thing that came to mind and Ive never seen it referenced before, I honestly thought people would think it was a shit name/post. Some things must just be meant to be somehow where multiple people independently come up with the same thing. Organic is best right?

Hell who knows if a thread is named “turnpike square” that gives precedence for google maps when looking for names of areas. I actually read an article about this, where people in SF were mad that google had labelled an area of the city “fiskhorn” as “fishkorn”, something that the locals had never heard before, and before you know it restaurants/businesses started popping up in the area with the new name and now it just is.

Someone did some digging to find where it was first referenced and it ended up being something random with a small typo and now that literally has become the name of the neighborhood. So people search google for the name of the neighborhood to name their restaurant, then google references businesses in the area with the name, and it becomes a self fullfilling prophecy loop where nobody knows who created this misname first that in enough time goes back far enough to obscure its origin.

So anyways if people just start referring to the area here as this, and it is referenced enough places in type/print, it will eventually just become this in time when google picks it up, especially if picked up by the locals... unless of course google accidentally typos it out of existence lol, then its up to the gods.
 
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If they can pull this off, it will likely give investors and developers alike the confidence to proceed with similar projects (i.e. Parcel 13 + 15).
 

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