Rose Kennedy Greenway

Also, you need to give the trees and everything else time to grow. Even if the trees don't grow to more than 50 feet, the greenway will at least fill out more than it is now.

But how much depth do you really need for large trees anyway? I've seen 100' trees that have fallen over whose roots were about 7' at the deepest. I've also read that 90% of the roots don't go deeper than 2'. Then again, I have no idea how much topsoil is on the greenway.
 
Marley said:
The Greenway looks like shit, especially during winter. Even though its better than the old X-way, if you didn't know that the highway was there originally you'd think it was some horrible mistake. They need to pack it full of very tall trees(>50').
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The Greenway doesn't look like shit. It looks young/immature and needs architectural infill on the edges...come on...this was finished when...all of 18 months ago? Very tall trees are exactly what the parks need, but the thing about trees...they grow. Planting/transplanting mature (>50') trees is incredibly expensive and risky for the trees. The trees on the city-side edge of the parks, that form/will form an all?e are American Plane trees...here's some stats for the more patient of us to focus on:

Growth Rate: Rapid
Height at 20 Years: Maximum (feet) 65
Height, Mature: (feet) 100.00

Could the parks be better? Yeah, maybe. Will they be better as they mature and the city grows into them and their edges? Absolutely. In the meantime, I, for one, will continue to enjoy my lunch time stroll from North to South Station - even in the winter.
 
ledjes said:
The Greenway doesn't look like shit. It looks young/immature and needs architectural infill on the edges...come on...this was finished when...all of 18 months ago? Very tall trees are exactly what the parks need, but the thing about trees...they grow. Planting/transplanting mature (>50') trees is incredibly expensive and risky for the trees. The trees on the city-side edge of the parks, that form/will form an all?e are American Plane trees...here's some stats for the more patient of us to focus on:

Growth Rate: Rapid
Height at 20 Years: Maximum (feet) 65
Height, Mature: (feet) 100.00

Could the parks be better? Yeah, maybe. Will they be better as they mature and the city grows into them and their edges? Absolutely. In the meantime, I, for one, will continue to enjoy my lunch time stroll from North to South Station - even in the winter.
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An optimist on this board! Good for you ledjes! Too much doom and gloom here sometimes.
Nice to hear some positives once in awhile.
 
Are you kidding? There's someone preaching "wait til the trees grow" on every page of this thread.

Guys, good parks are good parks whether or not they have mature trees. Hundreds of thousands attended the opening of Central Park just after it had undergone total terraforming. The Greenway is a failure for other reasons - the fact that it's a glorified median strip overwhelmed by traffic, but still too wide to tie together the buildings on either side, the fact that it's interrupted by pedestrian-hostile ramps, the fact that most of it parallels preexisting open space, the fact that it is both too close to the cold winds of the harbor in winter and too closed off from it in summer.
 
And now for something completely different:

Take the Greenway, add the world's longest roller coaster, call it the Atlantic Avenue El, figure some way of adding molasses into the ride for effect, profit?
 
czsz said:
Are you kidding? There's someone preaching "wait til the trees grow" on every page of this thread.
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...which puts us on a par with the purveyors of gloom and doom.

So this begs the question: what qualities make a park success? Because it seems to me these parks qualify:

Thoughtful, interesting landscaping with 4 season interest:
Fountain frolickers: yes
Pretty girls in bikinis: mhmm
Lunch time businessmen/women enjoying a lunch time respite: yup
Frisbee throwers, book readers, joggers, walkers: yup, yup, yup...

So "failure"??? Really??? From my daily observation, I respectfully but wholeheartedly disagree.
 
All four seasons? Have you seen many bikini-clad girls on the Greenway this month?

In fact, there are far fewer of the things you mentioned on the Greenway, even in August, than in many of the other parks in central Boston. And no, I don't think the myriad users are just waiting out the fifty years before the trees grow.

Maybe it has something to do with the structural flaws that I identified up the thread...Boston Common doesn't have to wrestle with them.

And then there's that tiny matter of the Greenway's purpose. If we evaluate it as a park - or, even more favorably for its "designers", a series of parks - it may come out ahead. If we evaluate it as an urban phenomenon, as an object easy for pedestrians to navigate and enjoy and one that knits the city together, as promised...it fails almost as miserably as the highway it replaced.
 
^^

I almost hesitate to post, because this thread seems to feed off of the bashing of the opinions of rational people (who constitute the majority of this community), but you just completely took the previous poster's comments out of context.

Is there any rational way he could have meant that bikini-clad women would frequent the park in all four seasons? Of course not. What he meant is that the park is interesting in all four seasons, and is designed to be appreciated in winter. I'm not sure I agree with that part, inasmuch as the Greenway does not include any sort of provision for winter enjoyment, but you have imposed ridiculous exaggerations on what I found to be a good argument.

That said, I question (once again) your reasoning about the purpose of the Greenway. The project was indeed proposed to knit the city together, and I think many North End residents would argue it has. The section of the project most maligned as scar-like is that which passes in front of Long Wharf and Rowes Wharf, through to South Station. Accepting that much of this stretch is projected to be developed and built up (breaking up the expanse of open space), I would argue that the failure of this section can be blamed less on the Greenway and more on its surroundings. International Place, the Intercontinental, and the Rowe's Wharf complex were all built to interact with a scar at their front gates. It doesn't matter whether that scar is a highway, a park, or a line of low-to-midrise buildings, which the tunnel depth at that location dictates is all the development that is possible.

Until these buildings, some of which are currently perceived as city landmarks, are replaced or renovated to relate better to their new frontage, there will always be a "scar" on the city. The relative height and development patterns on either side dictate it. New projects built on the borders of the Greenway, like Avenir, do a better job, but this site can never be judged on how it "knits the city together" because nothing there ever will. Instead, the Greenway must be judged as a park, and since all my personal experience there supports Ledjes's observations, I would agree with his conclusion that as a park, the Greenway is a success.
 
Equilibria said:
^^

International Place, the Intercontinental, and the Rowe's Wharf complex were all built to interact with a scar at their front gates. It doesn't matter whether that scar is a highway, a park, or a line of low-to-midrise buildings, which the tunnel depth at that location dictates is all the development that is possible.
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I see your point, but the Intercontinental was built around the vent stacks for the new tunnel so I think it would be fair to say the Intercontinental was designed to face the Greenway. Overall the Intercontinental fails to activate the street because it has a huge footprint and there are no doorways facing the greenway other than the door for the lobby. No restaurants etc. Rowes Wharf puts on a slightly friendlier face toward the greenway.

IMO, the parks still feel like a chasm in the city. For example, although many might consider the North End parks to be nice parks, I think an extension of the low rise buildings from the blackstone blocks would have certainly connected the N. End to the rest of the city in a much more meaningful and urban way.
 
I would like to see a more bikini clad women based development scheme in this part of the city. Ok. In any part of the city.
 
tobyjug said:
I would like to see a more bikini clad women based development scheme in this part of the city. Ok. In any part of the city.
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Considering it's reputation, I would've thought all the bikini-clad women in Boston would be right in DTX's sleezy alleys?

You know I'm just kidding you, Toby. I like DTX.
 
Private conservancy signs lease with Turnpike to maintain Greenway
CommonWealth Unbound
By Bruce Mohl

A private conservancy will take over day-to-day operations of the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway later this month under the terms of a five-year lease signed with the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority.

The lease calls for the Greenway Conservancy, which relies on a combination of state aid and private donations, to pay the entire cost of maintaining and operating the park that snakes for more than a mile through the heart of Boston above the Central Artery. The Turnpike, which built the park after the elevated highway cutting through Boston was torn down, is struggling with a heavy debt load and a deteriorating road system, and is eager to shed responsibility for the park.

Under terms of the lease, which expires December 1, 2013, but can be renewed by mutual agreement, the Turnpike is not required to provide any additional funding for the Greenway. The Turnpike, however, agreed to provide maintenance and parking facilities for the Conservancy at Pike-owned properties located at 185 Kneeland Street and 128 North Street.

The Conservancy board unanimously approved the lease Monday night and then voted to pay Work Inc. of Dorchester $450,000 a year to handle basic landscape and maintenance for the park. Work Inc. will be paid separately for snow removal. Greenway officials said they plan to supervise Work Inc. employees while handling all horticultural work at the park. The total maintenance and horticultural budget, including the Work Inc. contract, is expected to be $2.2 million a year, close to half of the Conservancy's overall $5 million budget.

The Greenway Conservancy has received $15 million in pledges from private donors and another $5 million from the Turnpike Authority. Lawmakers last year agreed to provide another $2 million plus half of the Greenway Conservancy's budget -- up to a maximum of $5.5 million -- through 2012, but the funds were contingent on surpluses and interest earnings in state accounts. The $2 million disappeared in the economic downturn and the matching funds have dwindled dramatically, but state officials have scraped together about $3 million for the coming year.

Even with money tight, Greenway Conservancy officials indicated at the board meeting that they may part ways with the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, which has spent close to $800,000 planning, planting, and maintaining gardens on the three parcels near South Station.

The Horticultural Society once had ambitious plans for a garden under glass on the Greenway, but financial problems killed that initiative. Horticultural Society officials subsequently entered into an agreement with the Greenway Conservancy to build a series of gardens on the parcels near South Station, but that agreement would be nullified by the lease with the Turnpike. Horticultural officials said they were prepared to continue maintaining the gardens they built last year, but the Conservancy's executive director, Nancy Brennan, made no promises other than to say she would meet with society officials.

"I was totally flabbergasted," said Joe Kunkel, the interim managing director of the Horticultural Society. "It's pretty clear they don't want us there. They want to take over the property and do something different. They said they'll meet with us, but the handwriting is on the wall."

Some members of the Conservancy board apparently had concerns about the financial terms of the lease. Charles Baker, the chief executive of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care and one of the Conservancy's board members, said he had considered voting to reject the lease with the Turnpike but ultimately concluded approval of the lease was in the best interests of both the park and the Turnpike. He said the Turnpike needs to focus on its financial problems and the Greenway needs a full-time overseer who can take care of the park and raise money for it. Still, he said, the Greenway Conservancy's job won't be easy.

"Private fundraising in this environment is going to be brutal," he said.
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this morning a rainy day on the greenway
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That building to the right of the Federal Reserve has got to be the dullest high-rise in Boston. Thank you, Jung/Brannen.
 
it is amazing how bland both One Financial Center and now Two Financial Center are....

the first should really be imploded.....it is basically as dated as a building can be....
 
I actually like One Financial. I used to think it was horrible, but I've grown to actually like it. It's nothing flashy, but it's not horrible either. The Federal Reserve and Harbor Towers are much more offensive to me than One Financial could ever be. It's not going to be imploded anytime soon either, it was built in like 1983 or something.
 
Eerily familiar, possibly a guide?

An urban renewal project in Turin, Italy, has renovated the north-south rail line, moved half of it underground, and created a wide boulevard on the surface. The boulevard, known as La Spina (the backbone), is lined with tall white light fixtures and can be seen in the background. In the foreground is a small park adjacent to the boulevard that contains a walkthrough sculpture of a tree.
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Almost all the way down the page.

Turin has a similar climate to Boston, look, they use theirs in the winter!
v2tm6u.jpg
 
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