Modernist Abominations

yeah, I work in that travesty known as the navy yard, and will for the next 18 months minimum. I swear I would sacrafice my virtue for someone to put some effort into that area.

I would possibly sacrafice more than that for a starbucks...

ckb said:
Agreed.

The whole Charlestown/Navy Yard area is a travesty.

But this is the pinnacle of the worst.
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That entire row of Tremont from East Berkeley up to just below the Theatre District is an utter travesty.
 
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This building is one of my hates as well. Just where Brookline Village needs to be saved from falling into the pit formed by the train tracks, where something needs to hold the corner and put up a strong presence, that utterly useless plaza sits. I thought of starting a thread dedicated to just useless modern plazas and this would be the poster child.
 
I wonder how feasible it would be to make Rte. 9 into an urban boulevard like its northern cousins Beacon and Commonwealth. There have been some new buildings that appear to be giving it more of that flavor...
 
...that utterly useless plaza...

To be fair, the plaza does get a fair amount of seasonal use, mainly by students of the Art Institute of New England. Today, it's absolutely soul-robbingly bleak...
 
Converting Rte 9 into anything less express than it already is is simply not feasible. It is way too important an inbound/outbound highway for those who live inside 128. Rerouting that traffic to other roads like the Pike would mean cutting through Newton or Brookline just to access the already over-crowded Pike -- it just just woudn't work.
 
There are most likely ways to calm traffic on Route 9 and make it more pedestrian and bicycle friendly without drastically reducing automobile throughput. There are already traffic lights on the road, so I think measures to get the maximum speed down could be quite successful.
 
They should at least remove the ugly median. The metal barrier reinforces the idea that it's a highway and not a street, and discourages jaywalking, which would slow traffic down.
 
aquaman said:
That entire row of Tremont from East Berkeley up to just below the Theatre District is an utter travesty.
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Yep. Worst stretch for urban design in the whole city. Like a catalog of what not to do.

You should read the glowing reviews of this crap in the AIA Boston architecture guide of the time.
 
czsz said:
They should at least remove the ugly median. The metal barrier reinforces the idea that it's a highway and not a street, and discourages jaywalking, which would slow traffic down.
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Jaywalking on Rt 9? You can't be serious.
 
I thought it was worth noting that the South End school is returning the parking lot to its original use. It's reverting back to being a soccer field/playground. The neighbors fought to keep it as a parking lot.

Another abomination in the South End is the fire station on Tremont. It's out of scale relative to the surrounding buildings.
 
Here's another nightmare modern plaza:

porter.jpg


I've never seen anyone sit one one of these incredibly inviting concrete slabs. Imagine how much better Porter Sq would be with a triangular building holding this intersection like the Curious George building in Harvard Sq. You could still have the T entrance on the 1st floor.
 
^ The "community" would tell you "open space" is always better than a building.



(Come to think of it, a parking lot is open space.)
 
Yes, a real hooro show- this was done directly after the site (and I think program) was used as 1st tier Rotch Competition entry about 1983, which obviously made no impression on BRA.
 
No discussion of bad urban design in Boston (or anywhere for that matter) is complete without mentioning the govt ctr garage that decapitates the Bulfinch Triangle from the rest of the city. Although being in the corkscrew parking ramp on a rainy day is quite an amazing thing.... like the Generalife gardens or something, such wonderful water play.

The Hurley building itself I don't find nearly as appalling as I do the disdain shown for the public by whoever is in charge there. That that plaza is a parking lot, supposedly for employees (who have been working much more on weekends and evenings since the Celtics improved) and allowed to crumble is just sad. And I don't think its a post-9/11 security default excuse either, a good wind will blow that thing over. Even the sidewalks around it are just parking spaces and construction yards. It infuriates me every time I go past it, which is nearly every day.
 
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