Rose Kennedy Greenway

The Boston Public Market opened last week at Dewey Square (South Station). It will operate every Tuesday and Thursday from 11:30 am to 6:30 pm, through October 30, selling locally grown fruits, vegetables, meats, and other farm products.
 
Nice pic! I'm interested to see if that yuppie nursery school will ever happen.

Is that the building that's going to be replaced by the yuppie nursery? I thought it was somewhere else.
 
Dry Greenway foutain compounds misery inflicted by Big Dig

By Jazmine Ulloa, Globe Correspondent | June 6, 2009

One of the most dramatic features of the downtown Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway, the large circular fountain that shoots columns of water skyward, has been dry this spring, even on sweltering days, because of a mysterious mishap.

When the Greenway Conservancy was preparing to inherit the grassy corridor from the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority this February, officials noticed that the fountain's wide stones were wobbling. Their best guess? A truck - possibly a snowplow - mistakenly drove over the fountain last winter, damaging critical underground supports.

"Nobody knows," said Nancy Brennan, executive director for the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway Conservancy, the private nonprofit that oversees the park. "I don't know if we'll ever know."

It's another lingering example of the frustrations that accompany almost anything that touches the Big Dig, even the welcome green space that replaced the old elevated highway.

The damage to Rings Fountain occurred sometime between October, when it was turned off for the winter, and February, Brennan said. She does not believe the fountain's lights were damaged, but the park's operations staff will not know for sure until a test drive next week, she said.

Asked why the problem was not addressed well before the onset of the warm weather, Brennan said that it took time to diagnose the problem.

The conservancy, she said, then had to negotiate with the suppliers of the damaged jacks - the 8-inch-tall devices that support the fountain's granite pavers.

The Greenway Conservancy's staff is also working to restore its basin with stronger supports, which will require fewer repairs in the future, and Rings should be fully working by June 19, the nonprofit announced on its website yesterday.

Mario Passi can't wait until the water begins flowing again. The 55-year-old vendor on Boston's harbor walkway likens the fountain to the breathtaking water displays of Las Vegas, especially at night when its waters spray upward in multicolored rays.

"It's free entertainment for zilch, especially during these hard economic times," said Passi, who sells T-shirts and sweat shirts out of his mobile booth, Boston T's Party Waterfront. "It's a shame it's not working."

Tens of thousand of people gathered at the Greenway's official opening last fall, and children reveled in the water that sprays out of the large stones. The 13.2-acre park, which runs from Chinatown to the North End, was a reward to Bostonians after years of construction headaches caused by the massively mismanaged $15 billion Big Dig, which chronically ran over budget and behind schedule.

Once completed, the Big Dig continued to be plagued by problems. It remained without cellphone service long after most major tunnels were wired; and even after it got cell service, the Turnpike Authority has had a difficult time maintaining it. The Greenway has also encountered fund-raising difficulties, and officials have had to repeatedly scale back their vision for the space.

Since the Greenway opened, the park's Rings fountain has been a favorite, serving as a playground for children excited to trigger the water and as a hang out spot for older children.

These days, many people walking along the Greenway ask Charles Gibbs, who volunteers as a gardener, when the fountain will come back on, he said yesterday. Gibbs, a 74-year-old physician originally from New Mexico, moved to the city three months ago and walks through the public space everyday. But he has seen the fountain squirting water only in advertisements, he said.

"I can't wait until the water comes on," Gibbs said. "I want to see this park in full action."

Noah Bierman of the Globe staff contributed to this report.

Link.
 
Exactly how many "sweltering Spring days" has Boston had? I have two weather docks on my desktop (Minneapolis & Boston) and I don't recall seeing many days that would qualify as "sweltering."

I know it's a minuscule point in the article, but when it's the first thing you read, it kinda makes you wonder how much other hyperbole is in the article.
 
The Greenway never really made sense. It's too big and it really is nothing more than a median. I don't know why the concept of the Greenway was ever adopted instead of replacing the Artery right of way with buildings to bring downtown and the waterfront back together and add people and vibrancy to the area. Someday the concept of the Greenway will be abandoned. An ill conceived project never works and always seems unlucky.
 
Greenway looked beautiful today, even with clouds. The greenery is lush. I had a nice, short talk with an "unofficial" arborist. He said he used to live in New Mexico, in a house, and missed the yard work.
 
Boston Globe - June 8, 2009
GLOBE EDITORIAL
Debate the Greenway now

June 8, 2009

MAYORAL ELECTIONS should offer a choice between competing versions of the future, and few things will affect Boston's historic heart more than development along the Rose Kennedy Greenway. And yet a Greenway study commissioned by the Menino administration is less likely to foster a spirited discussion than to delay it until after this fall's election.

The city doesn't control the Greenway itself, but it does control what gets built along either side. At Mayor Menino's direction, the Boston Redevelopment Authority has funded a broad study meant to yield guidelines for such development. Fair enough, but the study, which promises to consider environmental, urban design, transportation, and economic impacts, should have been conducted years ago. Menino is in no rush now: He announced the study in March 2008; consultants weren't selected until late last year; and the timetable for the study stretches into the fall.

In the meantime, there are already development proposals for key parcels along the Greenway. Most controversial is developer Don Chiofaro's plan to replace the Boston Harbor Garage with two skyscrapers linked with a rectangular arch. Planning officials say a review of that proposal can proceed in parallel with the Greenway study. But how can this be, if the BRA's design guidelines for the district are still up in the air?

Menino's BRA should hurry up and propose its guidelines, instead of making developers, neighbors, and Boston voters guess at what might be allowed along the Greenway.

Park seeks identity
In an interview, Menino dismissed any suggestion that politics entered into the timing of the study, adding that building decisions affect the city for many years and ought to be made wisely. He also says development should be carefully controlled; he warns against "Manhattanizing" the Greenway and walling it off from the harbor. How might those instincts translate into specific limits? The mayor says he'll wait for the results of the study.

Yet the problems sapping the vigor of the Greenway are obvious now. Many buildings face away from it, as if an expressway still ran through it. Cultural institutions have long been planned for key park parcels but may never be built. The nonprofit Greenway Conservancy has taken responsibility for maintenance, but state funds allocated to it have failed to materialize as revenues plunge. To its credit, the group keeps raising private money for events to draw visitors.

Crucial as this programming is, the success of the park as a public space will depend less on special events than on bringing people to it daily. A bustling Greenway lined with shops, restaurants, hotels, offices, residential buildings, and attractions would be a focal point for downtown Boston.

Chiofaro and his team have seized upon this possibility. They say the 1.5-million-square-foot mixed-use project would bring a huge number of people to a central link of the Greenway near Long Wharf. At public meetings, supporters wear bright T-shirts that proclaim "activate the Greenway."

BRA officials insist, rightly, that energizing the new park isn't as simple as building one megaproject. They insist the Greenway study isn't about any one development. But officials also hint - especially in response to concerns from neighbors about traffic, parking woes, and obstructed views - that Chiofaro's project is out of scale.

To maximize revenue, developers often try to build as big as they can. The benefit of removing an ugly but lucrative parking garage might justify a taller replacement.

But there's tall, and then there's tall. The top of Chiofaro's arch would be 770 feet high - more than enough to raise an objection from the Massachusetts Port Authority, which runs Logan Airport. It's uncomfortable to imagine a structure barely shorter than the John Hancock Tower on the thin ribbon of land between the Greenway and the harbor. Just as supporters cite the 40-story Harbor Towers along the waterfront to justify Chiofaro's much taller proposal, the latter could create upward development pressure in the surrounding areas.

The public discussion process for Chiofaro's project is underway, and the developer deserves the chance to make his case without being kept at bay - officially or unofficially - by a drawn-out Greenway planning study. But it's not an easy case to make.

The outlines emerge
The current planning study is making at least some progress. At a recent public meeting, a presentation by the BRA's consultants, Ken Greenberg and Utile Inc., acknowledged a need to build a critical mass of development on the edges of the Greenway. The consultants sketched out scenarios to bring density to various parcels, for instance, by adding retail and hotel space along the Greenway behind Quincy Market. What remained unclear was how likely any of those scenarios were to come to pass.

Also unclear is how detailed - and how binding - the final development guidelines will be. In their presentation, the consultants entertained building heights much greater than the 155 feet now permitted by the Harbor Garage site's current zoning, and at least some buildings above that height may be needed to bring life to the Greenway. The study will also consider such matters as the potential for new development to cast shadows on the Greenway.

But the BRA has already indicated it will not codify Greenway guidelines in zoning changes. The practical result may be the same ad hoc, project-by-project development approach that prevails now. A long study that, in the end, just ratifies the status quo doesn't help the Greenway.

All mayoral candidates need to explain how they would reconcile the need for greater density along the Greenway with the desire to avoid Manhattanization. Voters shouldn't be kept in suspense.
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I went a little rant-y on the Globe. Don't blame me, I haven't had a good night's sleep in three weeks. :)

This is a city, not a suburb. We have a suburban mayor with suburban vision, but that doesn't mean every project must be limited to West Roxbury-level myopic scale. The paranoia over shadows is absolutely insane in an urban context. Especially in light of the architectural blight that these towers would replace.

This city is currently being littered with stumpy little cookie-cutter buildings made of repetitive cheap materials designed with barely enough vision to see across the room. We need something better, we deserve better. Boston isn't a forgettable office park on Rt. 128, but Mayor Menino treats it as though it should be.

Post Office Square was built before we became so afraid of letting Boston BE Boston. It's one of the best public spaces in the city. On a square foot basis, The Greenway has a fraction of the foliage and sits sandwiched in-between six lanes of high speed traffic. It's a glorified median strip in its current state, and now we are expected to have the city retreat from it, as though it were some kind of sacred ground that cannot be disturbed or approached by manmade structures beyond a handful of middling little buildings? Really?

Throw in the comedic and horribly outdated Boston zoning regulations which would actually be funny if you didn't take into account the fact quite literally every proposal needs a variance on account of the fact they weren't written for the last century, much less this one. The icing on all of this is the broken BRA which serves Menino first and foremost.

Want to build something?

OK, first, your building is too tall. (It always is)
Second, your building needs a code variance. (Don't worry, a shoebox would too)
Third, three people from a neighborhood on the other side of the city have complained that it will effect them in some way. (It never does, but we'll listen to them anyway)

Cut the size of your building by 1/3 to 1/2. Build an unremarkable park around it (because we can't have buildings next to each other - we might end up with DENSITY like The Back Bay or North End all over again!) and put up a sign saying it was brought to you by Mayor Thomas M. Menino.

Oh, the economies of scale have been destroyed by cutting the size of your building in half? Well forget about making it look interesting and just wrap it in whatever crappy exterior paneling every other new building uses and call it a day. We can't frighten the NIMBYs anyway.

Look to the desolate, isolated, ugly buildings going up in the Seaport if you want an idea of what the future of Boston looks and feels like. Bland, uninviting to pedestrians, very welcoming to cars, and unthreatening in their generic office park "charm".
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Who is the most pro-development mayoral candidate for the upcoming election?
 
The problem is Chiofaro is not Menino's Friend. This development proposed by one of Menino pals would be already approved.

That is the reality to development in the city of Boston.
 
The carousel on the RKG cost a couple bucks. My scowl is free.

wtf-300x225.jpg
 
Re: Greenway Center (Bulfinch Triangle)

From Todays Globe:

Boston Globe said:
FREDERICK A. KRAMER AND LYNN WOLFF
Greenway in need of density

By Frederick A. Kramer and Lynn Wolff | June 15, 2009
AT RECENT public meetings about the Rose Kennedy Greenway, attendees have voiced their concern about the vital importance of new and strategically programmed activity to bring life to the open spaces that stretch from Chinatown to the North End. "There's no food market," one said. "There are few places to sit and have lunch outdoors, and there's a dearth of public shelter from the cold or rain or snow," said another.

The question is, does the Boston Redevelopment Authority, which has hired a consulting team to study and recommend design principles and guidelines for the built environment abutting the Greenway, have a bold plan to achieve activated parks, ones that create opportunity for - and benefits from - cafes, park benches, and a diverse mix of uses for the space that office workers, residents, and visitors will populate day and night?

An analysis of successful and failed open spaces shows that the key to a vibrant park or streetscape is density and the provision of activity along the space's edges - the very thing the Greenway study must embrace.

Boston is a city where density belongs, and beautiful open space without density will lead to the type of space where people won't want to be at any time of day or year.

It will, of course, be crucial to encourage density in bold and innovative ways, providing strong and vibrant open space edges that are open to pedestrian and vehicular access and view corridors. We have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to not only knit the Greenway to adjacent built environments, but to leverage its value to make a vital connection to Boston's waterfront, another valuable and distinctive open space in our city.

Poorly sited density and impenetrable bulk, driven by an overstated concern about shadows and a historical fear of tall buildings, can do more damage than good. A weak-kneed and timid density, often caused by fears about height, shadow, and "canyonization," will undermine the goals of bold architecture and elegant tall buildings. These could not only activate the Greenway's ground plane with dynamic uses but allow sunlight and views to and from the open spaces whose very heartbeat derives from new density and activity.

When well-designed and accessible to a range of transit and an intensity of uses, density creates a synergy with open space, much like the buildings that rim Central Park. The Greenway risks being the type of grand space between buildings that won't see the activity it deserves.

At a time when the growth of our cities through sustainable building practices such as transit-oriented development, live-work districts, and well-conceived development projects is being heralded, a Greenway study that embraces density and partnerships with landowners and visionary development professionals is critical.

The Greenway's return on the public's investment will only be achievable with a carefully crafted relationship between the Greenway study team and the public and private development community. The study, which unfortunately might not emerge until after the mayoral election, should support a rich diversity of abutting uses activated by a thoughtful and bold vision for density and height. While we should congratulate the mayor and the BRA for finally initiating a planning process that looks at the entire area, in this debilitating recession we can only plead for an expeditious process. It should be one that encourages development soon with design guidelines and conclusions that welcome density rather than suppress it.

Frederick A. Kramer is president of a design firm, ADD Inc., and chairman of the Urban Land Institute Boston Council. Lynn Wolff is president of Copley Wolff Design Group, a landscape design firm, and program chairman of the Urban Land Institute Boston Council.
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Holy shit, it took them only a few years to realize that. It's a new record! Hopefully the Aquarium Tower will be approved and built.
 
This is exactly what the developer proposed for the Harbor Garage. Good vision for the city of Boston.

Boston needs this development for much needed life in that area of the Greenway.
 
KentXie said:
Holy shit, it took them only a few years to realize that. It's a new record! Hopefully the Aquarium Tower will be approved and built.
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Ahhhhh, Lynn Wolff did the overall master plan for the Greenway.

As for Chiofaro's proposed Harbor Towers project, it would be sited at that point in the Greenway where there already is a lot of destination traffic already: the Aquarium and Quincy Market.

As for investment partner Prudential, their outlook is gloomy almost as far as the eye can see.

http://www.investmentmanagement.prudential.com/media/managed/documents/pim/Pru_USQ_Apr_09.pdf
 
So Lynn Wolff is suggests "be crucial to encourage density in bold and innovative ways, providing strong and vibrant open space edges that are open to pedestrian and vehicular access and view corridors. We have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to not only knit the Greenway to adjacent built environments, but to leverage its value to make a vital connection to Boston's waterfront, another valuable and distinctive open space in our city."

Except at Harbor Garage, this makes alot of sense. After that parking spot selling in the Backbay for 300k I wouldn't even develop the site for principle.
 
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