Middlesex County Courthouse Redevelopment | 40 Thorndike St | East Cambridge

Getting its haircut (today, 10/11):

40T14.jpg
 
A real life version of David Macaulay’s Unbuilding. I doubt anyone in their right mind would want to reassemble the courthouse elsewhere in the world, though.
 
I'd really love to see pre-renovation photos of that weird mezzanine floor with the bright panels.
 
That’s the barrier between the courthouse below and the jail above.
 
From looking at the renders it shows 5 floors above the bump outs. The structure has 8 floors above them, so it appears theyre going to remove 3 floors. Not a huge difference, but its pretty weird to remove rentable space voluntarily. I wonder what the reasoning is.
 
From looking at the renders it shows 5 floors above the bump outs. The structure has 8 floors above them, so it appears theyre going to remove 3 floors. Not a huge difference, but its pretty weird to remove rentable space voluntarily. I wonder what the reasoning is.

I believe the uppermost floors were built as jail cells and therefore not good candidates for adaptive reuse
 
I guess I am deaf about all yalls complaints in regards to the height change of this building. Lest we forget, the top floors were A PRISON.
"And here is my bathroom, which used to hold people in solitary awaiting trial for murder" is really not that cool for a couple millions dollars. I'm not afraid of ghosts, but come on, just be done complaining.
 
Nobodys complaining. Just trying to find out how many floors are being removed by comparing to the render.
 
Holy crap, that section of roadway looks like something out of a third world country! Have no idea where this is but the public works dept. of the city/town where it's located should hang their head in shame! I mean, this has taken years in the making to get to this point! And if this is a state road, then shame on the DOT.
 
Holy crap, that section of roadway looks like something out of a third world country! Have no idea where this is but the public works dept. of the city/town where it's located should hang their head in shame! I mean, this has taken years in the making to get to this point! And if this is a state road, then shame on the DOT.

It is very much a state road - the negligence at MassDot district four is egregious. City of Somerville and advocates have been pushing for the highway to be overhauled into an at-grade parkway with transit, but the state has slow-walked it to the point where the structure is literally falling down.
 

Back
Top