Pier 4 Office Building | 140 Northern Ave | Seaport

Re: Pier 4 Office Tower | 140 Northern Ave | Seaport

stick n move said:
Seriously though, that little problem we had at one point of not being able to retain talent after students graduate college, is going to evaporate very quickly. The entire city is really turning the corner, and this is another huge piece of that puzzle. You think James Henderson the 3rd is going to turn down that view in that last picture when he graduates from Harvard to work in some 20th floor office in a tower in midtown Manhattan built in 1986 surrounded by 400 other towers 50 feet away from his window. I don't.


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I still say that this section of the city should should be zoned for later hours than the rest of Boston when it comes to restaurants/bars being open. Because they were essentially starting from scratch, this would have been the place to do it, very few existing neighbors to complain about it, and if you set up the rules at the beginning then anyone buying/renting here would have to be ok with it after moving in
 
Re: Pier 4 Office Tower | 140 Northern Ave | Seaport

they started pouring concrete on the foundation
 
Re: Pier 4 Office Tower | 140 Northern Ave | Seaport

Yesterday
 
Re: Pier 4 Office Tower | 140 Northern Ave | Seaport

stick n move said:
Holy hell that was a FREAKING GOLD MINE of a video. Imagine if they do that for all projects from here on out. You can just delete this entire forum at that point because theres pretty much no need for it anymore if this is where were headed. Slightly sarcastic but slightly not. I don't even know, that was amazing.


The seaport is officially not fuckin around anymore. Remember too there is still like 70% left of land area to build on. Im talking moving from the water all the way past gillette down to first street, wrapping around and over to the channel, back up to meet the harbor and around again to parcel K. If they keep moving forward/progressing at the rate they are now this may become just as good as the other beloved neighborhoods in Boston just in a modern way. There WILL be a library, grocery store, general amenities...etc at some point. This neighborhood is going to be THE go to spot when you want to head to a modern neighborhood on an easy to use street grid, with insane amounts of dining, retail, waterfront options. Lets get some more parks that you can actually play soccer, baseball, basketball, and its a wrap. Transit is still the glaring issue of the area, but they seem to be figuring out the rest. The M parcels are going to be incredible and those are coming soon also.

Remember too there was nothing here before. They didn't west end this place. They took a bunch of parking lots and are turning it into a gleaming beautiful neighborhood that is connected to the waterfront. I've said it before but I'll say it again. The north end, beacon hill, back bay...all of the great neighborhoods we all love will still be there once this is built. We will still have those charming places we all know and love. Now we will also have a modern area to go as well when you just want to shop your face off and be surrounded by modern architecture and streets that are flat, new, and gridded. This is a huge win for Boston for these reasons. The Boston as we know it isn't going anywhere. But were also getting another brand new downtown right next to the old one and there is nothing wrong with that.

Seriously though, that little problem we had at one point of not being able to retain talent after students graduate college, is going to evaporate very quickly. The entire city is really turning the corner, and this is another huge piece of that puzzle. You think James Henderson the 3rd is going to turn down that view in that last picture when he graduates from Harvard to work in some 20th floor office in a tower in midtown Manhattan built in 1986 surrounded by 400 other towers 50 feet away from his window. I don't.
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Stick -- those are all good observations of the current state of affairs

But we need to put the Seaport / Innovation District into the particularly Boston historic context:

Beacon Hill was the state of the residential art circa 1800 -- no more tangled old streets -- big new townhouses

Back Bay was the state of the neighborhod art circa 1880 -- no more dinky lots, but a wide Parisian-style Blvd and and a nice neighborhood of culture and religious institutions -- clean sheet design on the new land

Hate to say it but Gov't Center, Charles River Park and the Pru were the state of the planners art circa 1970 -- out with the old -- in with the new towers and plazas -- google 'Bosstown"

Quincy Market was the commerce state of the art circa 1830 -- clean, long, easily accessible market place --- of course it was replaced in that role for wholesale by Widett Circle wholesale meat and the Chelsea Produce Market

Hate to say this also but Lafayette Place was the state of the planners art for retail circa 1985 -- no more messy urban streets to worry about -- nice suburban-style mall easily accessible both by car with parking and the T

Similarly the Fan Pier and South Boston Seaport was the state of the interstate / international commerce art in the early 20th C -- got rid of the small wharfs which only connected by push carts and horse drawn wagons to the core of the city -- lots of room, Big New Warehouses and direct rail access -- replaced mostly in that role by Logan and Conley circa 2000

Bottom-Line Boston is always innovating these things -- the place can't get any bigger [we've filled most everything possible] -- so it has to be adaptive reuse of buildings and districts -- Fan Pier, Pier 4, Seaport Square, Logan Terminal E V3.0, and the nascent GE District are all just the newest instantiation of Boston
 
Re: Pier 4 Office Tower | 140 Northern Ave | Seaport

^ Yeah this is actually a reasonably useful framing.

So can we say that the current iteration of the seaport / innovation district is state of the art urban planning circa 1994?
 
Re: Pier 4 Office Tower | 140 Northern Ave | Seaport

 
Re: Pier 4 Office Tower | 140 Northern Ave | Seaport

atlantaden said:
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Does anyone on here have a background into traffic design? This feels like a really beefy installation of traffic signals (multiple doghouse configurations, double redundancy - three lights per side vs the standard two)?

Traffic signals aren't exactly cheap and I don't understand why such a small intersection has IMO such overdesign.
 
Re: Pier 4 Office Tower | 140 Northern Ave | Seaport

Really? Seems like a very basic signal configuration to me, one you'd find in any suburban town. Two lights up top because there's at least a turn lane and one going straight, pretty straightforward
 
Re: Pier 4 Office Tower | 140 Northern Ave | Seaport

there will be 2 approach lanes and each approach needs 2 signals (the redundant one can be shared between lanes).
The doghouse will be a protected NB left with the arrow, but the left lane is also permitted to go with the green ball (the NB approach is most critical because you cant have the traffic backing up the short block into Seaport Blvd). Also the permitted green is good here because there will typically not be much traffic SB on Pier 4 Blvd.

the middle signal is the redundant 2nd signal for that lane. If the dog house goes out, the signal would just operate without the protected lead left turn.
The middle one is also the main for the right lane (which will be shared through/right).

The third light is the redundant signal for the right lane. Its a little bit overkill because things would be just fine without it even if the middle signal went out, but this is the standard.
 
Re: Pier 4 Office Tower | 140 Northern Ave | Seaport

cburns said:
Does anyone on here have a background into traffic design? This feels like a really beefy installation of traffic signals (multiple doghouse configurations, double redundancy - three lights per side vs the standard two)?

Traffic signals aren't exactly cheap and I don't understand why such a small intersection has IMO such overdesign.
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CBurns -- that's a fairly important intersection where Northern Avenue meets East Service Rd and Seaport Blvd --a kin to Copley Square where Boylston Dartmouth and St. James meet @ the beginnings of Huntington Ave -- Seaport is Boylston, Dartmouth is E Service and St. James is Northern Ave. -- except this is more complex because Seaport is 2 way as is Northern Ave.
 
Re: Pier 4 Office Tower | 140 Northern Ave | Seaport

Suffolk 83 said:
Seems like a very basic signal configuration to me, one you'd find in any suburban town.
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^I'm just going to leave this here....more truth in this than you probably intended.

(For those of you who don't do subtlety and/or speak english natively, the point I'm making is that this suburban treatment is inappropriate in a putatively urban context)



...also, context is important here. Two blocks ahead of where the photo was taken is water, and one block to the right is water as well (there's also a small dog-shitting lawn, there's a photo of it somewhere on the thread). Both those segments act like service alleys (and garage driveways?). (They should be probably be woonerf'd but that's a different can of worms.)

So E. Service and Northern Ave act like a single street, just with a big turn in it (recall that Northern Ave used to connect directly to Seaport Blvd, and E. Service Road is the consequence of turning that acute intersection into a 90deg angle.)

So per Westie's comparison - I think this probably is (i.e. 'I think it should be...') more like the intersection of Arlington and Providence st. between Boylston and St. James....or maybe Berkeley and the Public Alley between Newbury and Comm Ave.

You could make this work with a pair of stop signs and maybe a raised table in the intersection.

But, yes....Cars rool!
 
Re: Pier 4 Office Tower | 140 Northern Ave | Seaport

CSTH said:
^I'm just going to leave this here....more truth in this than you probably intended.

(For those of you who don't do subtlety and/or speak english natively, the point I'm making is that this suburban treatment is inappropriate in a putatively urban context)



...also, context is important here. Two blocks ahead of where the photo was taken is water, and one block to the right is water as well (there's also a small dog-shitting lawn, there's a photo of it somewhere on the thread). Both those segments act like service alleys (and garage driveways?). (They should be probably be woonerf'd but that's a different can of worms.)

So E. Service and Northern Ave act like a single street, just with a big turn in it (recall that Northern Ave used to connect directly to Seaport Blvd, and E. Service Road is the consequence of turning that acute intersection into a 90deg angle.)

So per Westie's comparison - I think this probably is (i.e. 'I think it should be...') more like the

But, yes....Cars rool!
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CSTH -- Your analogy is bogus -- this is not an intersection with an alley -- these will be significant streets as the area develops and is built-out. Despite the fact that there is water nearby on two sides, there is plenty of activity that needs to be accommodated in the immediate vicinity -- we've been over that topic in this or one of the related threads -- there are a lot of big trucks that need to come through that intersection as well as T and private buses, and personal vehicles

By the way -- when you wrote
Cars rool!
Click to expand...
did you mean Trucks Roar :p
 
Re: Pier 4 Office Tower | 140 Northern Ave | Seaport

whighlander said:
CSTH -- Your analogy is bogus -- this is not an intersection with an alley
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29793809465_54b9e0a596_c.jpg
 
Re: Pier 4 Office Tower | 140 Northern Ave | Seaport

CSTH said:
(For those of you who don't do subtlety and/or speak english natively, the point I'm making is that this suburban treatment is inappropriate in a putatively urban context)

...also, context is important here. Two blocks ahead of where the photo was taken is water, and one block to the right is water as well (there's also a small dog-shitting lawn, there's a photo of it somewhere on the thread). Both those segments act like service alleys (and garage driveways?). (They should be probably be woonerf'd but that's a different can of worms.)

So E. Service and Northern Ave act like a single street, just with a big turn in it (recall that Northern Ave used to connect directly to Seaport Blvd, and E. Service Road is the consequence of turning that acute intersection into a 90deg angle.)

You could make this work with a pair of stop signs and maybe a raised table in the intersection.
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whether this intersection should be signalized or not could be a valid point (especially with existing volumes), if it is signalized though these are the standards for the signal heads.
and you dont even want to know what happened to the bike lanes on Pier 4 Blvd (for now anyway).
as your picture shows though, east of Pier 4 is a shared street and not pavement. north of northern will be the same.

whighlander said:
CSTH -- Your analogy is bogus -- this is not an intersection with an alley -- these will be significant streets as the area develops and is built-out. Despite the fact that there is water nearby on two sides, there is plenty of activity that needs to be accommodated in the immediate vicinity -- we've been over that topic in this or one of the related threads -- there are a lot of big trucks that need to come through that intersection as well as T and private buses, and personal vehicles
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use street view. its updated this spring. Northern ave doesnt connect to Seaport Blvd anymore, which is why there is a new signal being constructed. This intersection consists of 2 street approaches and 2 driveway approaches. So his analogy is much more appropriate than yours.
and youre right, we have been over it before. and you just refuse to let any of it sink in.
 
Re: Pier 4 Office Tower | 140 Northern Ave | Seaport

Can someone repost the picture youre all talking about?
 
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