Rose Kennedy Greenway

Kennedy dude: pick up a copy of The Book of Common Prayer, 1928 or earlier edition, and you will get a literary mind rush full of these elegant literary anacronisms. Or for a mega combo of architecture, literature and (gulp) religion, attend a service at King's Chapel on Tremont Street. It was Church of England H.Q. until the revolution, got a bit awkward with England's defeat. Long story short: Church of England in America collapses (for obvious reasons); before it can reorganize into the Episcopal Church of the USA, King's Chapel, following a distinctly New England path, goes Unitarian.

So you get this perfect church sanctuary straight out of 1750 London, and the 18th century Book of Common Prayer frozen in time, albeit with all references to the Divinity of Jesus or the Trinity excised.

King's Chapel stands along with the Dover St. branch of J.J.Foley's as a distinctly Bostonian place.
 
T Wharf 1914. Street grid is mainly perpendicular to the water. Elevated railway bifurcates the wharves from downtown.

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Aerial date unknown, but not much there there even back then.

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State St. circa 1920s. Leading to Long Wharf.

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The Elevated Railway.

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Ron Newman said:
That photo of India Wharf sure looks like a 'superblock' to me.

The oldest superblocks in the area are the Quincy Market, North Market, and South Market buildings.
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I never thought of it that way, but you are right. But the proportions, low height, and a certain amount of applied segmentation prevent them from being Drucker style boroblocks.
 
And doors. Lots of doors. That is what a lot of today's superblocks are missing.
 
Since the tourists are gone I've been jogging down the Greenway in the evenings a lot. I think the nicest spots are (in order of "nice-ness"): 1) The North End Parks, 2) The Harbor Park between Columbus Park and Rowes Wharf; and 3) Dewey Square. One of the things that I think makes those three areas nice is that they are naturally walled in by the curve of the Greenway (you get this effect especially well in front of Rowes Wharf). So, what I'm getting at is, all the proposed buildings (YMCA, History Museum) will more or less be going in the areas where these natural walls are, so it would be my guess that they will definitly add the the nice enclosed-ness of them. On the other hand, the stretch between Congress St and Northern Ave is a waste land. It needs a serious rethinking and I think/hope that in a few years people will realize what a waste of space it is. Luckily, it's not a residential area.
 
The section between Congress St and Northern Avenue also is in a less 'finished' state than the rest of the Greenway, because Mass. Horticultural Society was supposed to be in charge of developing it. They've lost their designation, and no new developer has been designated yet, so these parcels are in somewhat of a limbo state, without lighting or paved pathways.
 
Crit Happens said:
It's called the subjunctive, and it's an integral part of the English language. As in, "if I were you."
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Sorry for further derailing this, but I have to defend myself lest you all think I'm an illiterate muppet. So, as I originially said, cz could have said "If all superblocks were...like so and so." instead of "would that every...were." all i am saying is that he could have used less formal language and still expressed his idea in proper grammar.
 
kennedy said:
Sorry for further derailing this, but I have to defend myself lest you all think I'm an illiterate muppet. So, as I originially said, cz could have said "If all superblocks were...like so and so." instead of "would that every...were." all i am saying is that he could have used less formal language and still expressed his idea in proper grammar.
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Apologies, kennedy, for my moment of snark. I should not have implied in any way that you are an illiterate muppet. Still, many of the muppets appeared to be semiliterate at best -- witness their unending struggle with the "silent e" -- and yet they maintained a high level of cuteness and charm. I'd say that one could do worse than to be an illiterate muppet.
 
I'm just going to go ahead and quit this discussion before Van changes my avatar into a semi-literate (but cute and charming!) fuzzy puppet.
 
Boston Herald - December 26, 2008
Greenway lot up for grabs
Museum proposal could be contender for park parcel
By Thomas Grillo | Friday, December 26, 2008 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Business & Markets
Photo
Photo by Mark Garfinkel

One of the last parcels overlooking the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway is expected to be available for development early next year.

The Boston Redevelopment Authority is nearing completion on design guidelines for Parcel 9, which includes the Market District and extends from the Haymarket MBTA Station to North, Blackstone and Cross streets. Request for Proposals on the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority land will be issued in February.

Among the proposed uses for the site include a ground-floor market, housing, hotel, office or cultural center.

But despite a half-dozen meetings on creating the guidelines, a consensus has not emerged for the best use of the location.

Frank Keefe, chief executive of the Boston Museum, whose mission is to tell the story of the region?s 400-year history, is hoping to get approval for a 100,000-square-foot museum and marketplace on the land with a pedestrian bridge to the Greenway. The four-story facility would cost $100 million. So far, the nonprofit group has raised $7 million.

?We haven?t had a new, exciting visitor magnet in the heart of Boston for a long time, so this is a real legacy opportunity here for the region,? he said. ?If we can create a stunning building at that site in the heart of Boston on the Greenway, it will be a great achievement.?

Nancy Caruso, chairwoman of the North End Central Artery Advisory Committee, is not convinced that the museum is the best choice.

?We haven?t seen any proposals, so there?s no way to know that the museum idea is best,? she said. ?But people are wondering how a museum would work given that it will be surrounded with lots of activity, making it difficult for tour buses and tourists to get there.?

Still, Caruso said a museum could win community support. ?They might be the strongest contender because it could be the lesser of the evils,? she added.

David Kubiak, a member of the North End/Waterfront Residents? Association, said the concerns are in the details.

?There?s no widespread community support for the museum,? he said. ?But I?d say there is no major opposition either. The possible concerns are traffic related.?
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/business/general/view.bg?articleid=1141301
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I have nothing against museums, but aren't the two already planned enough ? (Or has that changed ?)
 
The museum was originally planned for the ramp parcel between Commercial and North streets. They found it would be too expensive to build there, and scrapped the idea. Using Parcel 9 is Plan B.
 
Ix-nay on a museum for this site. Haymarket doesn't need to be crowded out by any more touristic crap. It would be perfect for an extension of the public market - or for any other commercial use.

Thanks to this ill-conceived museum's broken promises, we'll have a ramp-sliced parcel to deal with for decades as well. At least it won't have Safdie's glass shipwreck on top.
 
Forget about building museums in grandiose starchitect designed buildings. There clearly isn't enough funds to do it anyway. What the Boston Museum ought to do is to setup shop in an old historic building - now that would be a nod to Boston's history. I can think of a lot of places where it could go.

In Washington DC, there are a few small museums tucked into historic buidlings. The International Spy Museum and the National Museum of Crime and Punishment come to mind.
 
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City Hall (old or new) would be a great spot for the Boston Museum. Save the expensive and technically challenging Greenway parcel for private development.
 
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