tobyjug
Senior Member
- Joined
- Jul 21, 2007
- Messages
- 3,392
- Reaction score
- 413
Jimbo,
This is what we've got:
1) You are looking from west to east.
2) The immediate foreground Pike is now covered by Copley Place. The photo appears to have been taken from the former Huntington Ave. bridge.
3) The bridge in the midground is for Dartmouth Street.
4) The 10 (?) story brick building behind Dartmouth Street on the left is the University Club/John Hancock Visitors' Center.
5) The Y would be behind that. I believe it is obscured.
6) Looking to the right on the South End side of the Pike, the low brick structure on Dartmouth is Back Bay Station.
7) I am guessing that the midrise in the back of the station is in the vicinity of 75 Clarendon.
8) Generally speaking, much of what you see in the photo is now covered with air rights development, specifically Copley Place and the John Hancock Parking Garage.
9) The fact that the shot is unrecognisable to many is encouraging, because it points out the powerfully transformative effect of air rights development. The area where Copley Place is now was a miserable mudhole after the destruction of the S.S. Pierce Building (roughly where the Westin is now) and the construction/destruction wrought by the Pike. Yes, Copley Place is a truly mediocre thing, with its stupid big blank walls and gerbil tubes (like its first cousin, the crappy Simon mall that ate downtown Indianapolis). Although it can't touch S.S. Pierce, nonetheless Copley Place revived Dartmouth Street, allowed some Back Bay elan to migrate down Huntington, created housing at Tent City and connected the Back Bay and the South End for the first time since the advent of rail. Though Copley Place would be better designed today, and despite its many aesthetic (and social) shortcomings, it works commercially (Korpacz A plus rating) and as a connector. Hopefully, the Simon/Needless Markup tower will clean up some weak elements (it the City can figure out how to negotiate).
10) You have to think something even better could be developed on the air rights today.
Toby
This is what we've got:
1) You are looking from west to east.
2) The immediate foreground Pike is now covered by Copley Place. The photo appears to have been taken from the former Huntington Ave. bridge.
3) The bridge in the midground is for Dartmouth Street.
4) The 10 (?) story brick building behind Dartmouth Street on the left is the University Club/John Hancock Visitors' Center.
5) The Y would be behind that. I believe it is obscured.
6) Looking to the right on the South End side of the Pike, the low brick structure on Dartmouth is Back Bay Station.
7) I am guessing that the midrise in the back of the station is in the vicinity of 75 Clarendon.
8) Generally speaking, much of what you see in the photo is now covered with air rights development, specifically Copley Place and the John Hancock Parking Garage.
9) The fact that the shot is unrecognisable to many is encouraging, because it points out the powerfully transformative effect of air rights development. The area where Copley Place is now was a miserable mudhole after the destruction of the S.S. Pierce Building (roughly where the Westin is now) and the construction/destruction wrought by the Pike. Yes, Copley Place is a truly mediocre thing, with its stupid big blank walls and gerbil tubes (like its first cousin, the crappy Simon mall that ate downtown Indianapolis). Although it can't touch S.S. Pierce, nonetheless Copley Place revived Dartmouth Street, allowed some Back Bay elan to migrate down Huntington, created housing at Tent City and connected the Back Bay and the South End for the first time since the advent of rail. Though Copley Place would be better designed today, and despite its many aesthetic (and social) shortcomings, it works commercially (Korpacz A plus rating) and as a connector. Hopefully, the Simon/Needless Markup tower will clean up some weak elements (it the City can figure out how to negotiate).
10) You have to think something even better could be developed on the air rights today.
Toby