Rose Kennedy Greenway

Nowhere near as impressive as they'd like you to think. Remember, a park is defined by it's edges, and on the edges of this park are nothing, except a T.G.I. Friday's.
 
kennedy said:
Remember, a park is defined by its edges...
Click to expand...

A smart thought indeed, kennedy.

Over the weekend, my lovely assistant and I went to NYC. We visited both Madison Square Park and Bryant Park, both excellent urban spaces. Their smaller scale (in comparison to Central Park) made me consider the ills of the Greenway; it does come down to the way the space is defined.

Both NYC parks are permeable at the edges, and in several places along their sides, but they are fenced spaces, like the Public Garden. Traffic moves on the Streets and Avenues around them, but they are enclosed, structured spaces; on this strength, they become great urban rooms.

The only pieces of the Greenway that have a hint of this feeling of enclosure (and its implied safety) are the two North End parks, where the effect is created with plantings and a rise in the groundplain.

That said, there's nothing like this in the waterfront portions of the Greenway. Consider that traffic moves at higher speeds along the Greenway than in NYC, yet in some places, only a 6" curb separates a pedestrian or a person sitting on a park bench from tour buses, trucks, and SUVs. There is no sense of "rest" in these parks because there is no sense of enclosure or safety. These parks will never be rooms in their present state -- only corridors.
 
Last edited:
Boston Globe - July 8, 2009
GLOBE EDITORIAL
Getting to 'wow!' on Greenway

July 8, 2009

SUPPORTERS OF a proposed Boston Museum facing the Rose Kennedy Greenway say its historic location midway along the Freedom Trail and the ?wow!?? factor of its planned multimedia exhibits are sure to illuminate four centuries of the region?s history. But the group led by developer and former state official Frank Keefe must first overcome the ?huh??? factor.

The museum proposal is one of four under consideration by the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority for so-called Parcel 9, at the corner of Blackstone and North streets not far from City Hall and Faneuil Hall. Competing visions for the parcel include midsize residential and office developments, but all propose an upscale farmers? market on the ground floor to complement the Haymarket pushcart vendors who would share the space. Mayor Menino has questioned the economic sustainability of the $120 million museum project, which has raised just $8 million to date. But the combination of a museum and public market remains the most intriguing proposal for the site, if for no reason other than it is centered mainly around a civic mission.

Can it survive?
Concerns about the viability of the project are well placed. Will the museum attract the roughly 400,000 annual visitors at $10 a head needed to sustain operations? Can a modernistic facility that eschews permanent collections in favor of interactive and hands-on exhibits enhance the actual historical sites nearby, or draw visitors away from the Paul Revere House, Old North Church, and other attractions?

Done right, the museum could become ?part of the cultural dialogue of the city itself,?? says Richard Rabinowitz, one of the nation?s leading public historians and a consultant for the Boston Museum project. His glossy promotional literature describes ?core galleries?? focused on the region?s political, sports, scientific, and social history. Visitors might use screen technology to manipulate the division of cancer cells in the Judah Folkman lab while sports fans can run a virtual mile up Heartbreak Hill.

The challenge for such a museum is to keep putting together well-thought-out, well-executed exhibits year after year. Yet Boston Museum organizers have struggled to articulate a clear basic rationale for their project. There is reason, however, for caution. The original vision for a city museum, as well as its leadership and proposed location along the Greenway, have undergone several iterations, though largely for the better. It was designated originally for Parcel 12, near Christopher Columbus Park. But highway ramps on the parcel proved prohibitively expensive for the museum backers to build around.

And despite the success of similar projects in St. Paul, Philadelphia, and Chicago, the risk remains that the Boston Museum could become a mere stage set in the middle of a city known for its authentic historical sites, ranging from the Granary Burying Ground to the USS Constitution.

Enthusiasm in short supply
Mayor Menino isn?t exactly knocking himself out to help the Boston Museum proposal. Instead, he says, ?I?m not going to do anything to get in its way.?? Mainly he appears interested in ensuring that a public market is incorporated into the ground floor of whatever proposal wins. Other City Hall insiders say the museum project simply isn?t needed or economically feasible. But could the problem be less with the museum?s vision and more with turf concerns or the intrinsic orneriness of Bostonians? Rabinowitz, the president of the New York-based American History Workshop, suspects so.

?I?m so frustrated by the lack of confidence and pride?? in Boston, says Rabinowitz, who has fashioned scores of successful history programs on important sites, including the Lower East Side Tenement Museum and the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute.

The guy has a point. Despite recent improvements to the Freedom Trail, the opportunity for tourists and residents to soak up local history is static. And the museum?s vision, though still in a formative stage, is expansive. The proposed building?s five-story glass atrium is designed to reveal an entire region?s treasures. Backers are trying hard to form mergers and alliances with the Boston History & Innovation Collaborative, Sports Museum, MIT Museum, and other local institutions. And staffers are already reaching out to schoolchildren in the region to encourage oral history projects.

Backers are also proposing a low-lying pedestrian bridge that would connect their original Parcel 12 site north of the Faneuil Hall Marketplace to the Parcel 9 site, which still retains its 17th-century street patterns. The curved suspension bridge, which could be combined with a tree nursery space for the Greenway, might be a creative way to connect Atlantic Avenue with the museum entrance while bringing continuity to the Greenway. But like the museum itself, it still raises questions about whether it is more a frill than a significant addition.

The entire proposal would have more heft had it retained its original vision for an expanded visitors center with orientation films and information kiosks. The need for the Boston Museum may be debatable, but the need for a first-rate visitors center isn?t.

In any case, a prime parcel along the Greenway deserves a top-notch attraction. Boston Museum organizers haven?t yet proved they can pull it off, but they deserve a chance to try.
Click to expand...
 
I think a "Boston Museum" is a pretty bad idea. What exactly will be there? Pictures and videos of the sites people could leave the museum and go see? Hanging cutouts of sports stars? Would any sports fan visit this place over visiting Fenway?
 
I mostly agree with this editorial. I wouldn't give them preferential treatment just because they have a civic rationale, but I would certainly hope they can put their best foot forward.

However, I think the bridge idea is absolutely rediculous. Planning around the idea that the Greenway is essentially a highway median will not benefit progress.
 
The main thing I disagree with in that article is the city's lack of history museums. Personally, I think the city's main problem is that we have too many of them! We've got about a dozen small to medium sites that would all do themselves a huge favor if they'd only coordinate with themselves more to scarce the scare resources that get allocated to non-profits. Why are we throwing yet another museum up when we'd be better served using the money to help out the ones we already have?

Also, again, the bridge idea is about the dumbest proposal of the year. Even the new Shreve building is a better idea.
 
Last edited:
An occasional tangent in this thread is the comparison of the demolition of the old Central Artery and the Greenway that replaced it, and San Francisco's demolitions of the Embarcadero and Central (elevated) freeways, and the surface boulevards that replaced them.

Here is the rendering of a new infill project proposed for an abandoned gas station that bounded the demolished Central freeway: 115 condos at 1960 Market. Gazooks, I'm sure some will complain about the lack of height.

bu-uppermarket08_0500346255.jpg


And below is an image of Ferry Plaza in San Francisco. (Basically built after the Embarcadero freeway was torn down.) Note the six traffic lanes, note the trolley tracks and stop in the median. Arguably, this area has more pedestrians crossing the surface streets than any place on the Greenway, other than perhaps Dewey Sq. Note the absence of any bridge.

SF_Embarcadero_Ferry_Plaza.jpg
 
Opinions are funny things, everyone has one. Which is good, of course, but I wish it wasn't so.

Re: the Boston History Museum. Odd that I, who hate everything, think it's a great idea. It's a valid point, of course, that we have a good number of museums, already. In fact, I think the Computer Museum should close down (did it already??). And, we certainly don't need two art museums - take THAT, ICA! And, it's true, why go to a museum when you can just walk out the door and see the real thing?

Of course, the point of a museum is it can show you things you can't see in real life. I mean, the Museum of Science shows you how wind works, you can't see that in real life. LOL!

No, really. A museum has its place. Boston has 380 years of history (plus a bunch of things happened before then, not sure what ...). A Boston History Museum could house many artifacts from the Revolutionary War, plus give a history of landfill over two hundred years, plus talk about busing and urban renewal, and everything else that's happened during the 1900's. (Can we move it into City Hall?? A win-win, no?)

The period rooms at the MFA are a lot of fun. The Boston History Museum, or Museum of Boston History (MoBH, for short) could have these. It could have exhibits on the history of the Boston Harbor and on Roxbury and show the changes that have occurred on Beacon Hill and in the North End - from Jewish to Italian to Yuppie.

I am a big fan of museums being privately funded. The MFA, for example, gets no public funding. (The Queens Museum of Art, on the other hand, gets hundreds of thousands of dollars from the city of NY, as do many museums in other big cities, such as London, so there's an argument to be made for public funding.)

Or, we could just offer the museum a tax credit, like the film industry gets. Joking!

I always thought the old Alexandria (dra?) Hotel building in the South End would be perfect for a history museum, but obviously the floor footprints are too small for anything of significance, especially when you put in elevators, etc. (And, the requisite gift shop ...)

We visited the London Museum a couple years ago. It was terribly disappointing, considering the long, illustrious history of that city. I seem to remember most of it was off-limits, though, due to renovation. All they had up instead was a mural of 400 years of great fires. Boooring.

The design of the MoBH seems to be stupid. Too costly. What's the point of the bridge, again?

The concept seems as if it's a good one, to me. Perhaps the wrong people are in charge? Perhaps someone else should spearhead a campaign for a different museum?

It took years for the ICA to go from a rinky-dink one-room no-permanent-exhibit space next to a fire station to the institution it is, now. (It also took an embittered major donor trying to get back at her ex-husband, if memory serves correct.)

The MFA just finished up its $500 million campaign, which shows there is money out there. (Caveat - the MFA was able to easily get more than money it wanted for art and conservation but no one wanted to have his/her donation go toward the new building, itself, true story.)

I'm not sure the museum belongs on the parkway, but it has to be accessible to tourists, right?

Maybe Chiofaro or the Gov't Center Garage people can make a deal. With the new mayor.
 
I saw that too but the thing to remember is with those highways new ones were not built in their place, they were just taken down. The point of the article is that reducing capacity can lead to less congestion. We actually increased capacity with the new tunnel.
 
Boston made an aggressive push to get the Peabody Essex Museum to build its new wing along the waterfront in Boston. I don't recall what, if any, sweetners were offered to induce the museum to do this.

In the end, IIRC, the museum decided that effectively splitting the museum in two would ultimately result in a weaker museum, because the Boston annex would either be a sample of the entire, very diverse collection, or contain the entirety of a selected part of the collection.

As for the Boston History Museum, its unclear to me the extent of their current collection, and what other items they would hope to acquire or obtain through loans. A museum consisting of a lot of artifact photographs and inflatable sports figures isn't going to be much of a draw or learning experience.

atriumrendering600.jpg
 
I propose a Museum of Boston History thread!

That rendering is horrendous. Obviously, the museum's planners think if they pander to the Boston sports' crowd, their proposal will be met with open arms.

There's a lot of f-ing wasted space, just in that drawing, alone. Cut that in half, leave it for the expansion.

Wait, are you sure that's not a rendering of a new suburban mall?


Visit the new Museum of Boston History website at http://mobh.org
 
Boston history isn't that interesting. Ok, the history of most American cities is even less interesting. But as an abstraction, how many city histories are worth seeing in a museum? Rome, Athens, Istanbul, maybe Alexandria?

Boston's history is best seen in its buildings and institutions. That's why this will end up as a lame ass "People's Palace" full of mawkish homages to sporting figures, dull 17th century privy pit finds hyped into faux significance, and in the spirit of inclusion, a room for each and every immigrant group that has found its way to town. Animatronic "Hall of Mayors", anyone?

Pardon me now while I puke.
 
From the BOMU site (not MoBH.org):

Witness the great debates and explosive conflicts that gave birth to citizen democracy, the abolitionist and human rights movements, gay marriage and more. Walk the picket line with Boston cops.and find out how the 1916 police strike propelled Calvin Coolidge to the White House. Gather in the courtroom for the 1854 trial of fugitive slave Anthony Burns, a case that galvanized the abolitionist movement.

It was 1919 you dumb shits.
 
Boy, was I wrong. I can hardly wait for a swim in the molasses wave pool.
 
tobyjug said:
Boston history isn't that interesting.

I beg to differ with you on this. From 1630 on, trust me on this one, lots of interesting things happened in Boston. I urge you to read up on this subject, it's quite fascinating. From Hawthorne and the Puritans to the Colonial war through to the China trade, the Boston Brahmin era, to the Great Fire of the late 1800's, the writings and stories of the famous and infamous citizens of Boston is powerful indeed. The only question I would have about a Boston History Museum would be in the intelligent portrayal of such a glorious past. The presentation of authentic sculpture, documents, paintings and artifacts needs to be presented in a thoughtful and meaningful way. Lost architectural treasures due to the blunders of urban renewal. Famous authors, painters, sculptors and not just sports figures need to be presented appropriately. I personally think a museum honoring the city's past would be absolutely appropriate and wonderful. With only 8 million dollars raised thus far this will not become a reality. As great as a museum of Boston history would be, if done properly, I would much rather see housing, restaurants, and retail,in place of a museum of any kind.
Click to expand...
 
Obviously if they want this to be a serious museum they need to obtain a legit collection. Which they could probably never do.

Perhaps they could syphon off some pieces from the other museums but first they need to figure out what the hell they are trying to sell us.

Without a collection and without a niche it would be nothing more than a glorified visitors centers....which I don't mind so long as it doesn't come across as an oafish Duck Tours version of Boston History.

"This is the Old State House on your left...Go Sox!" Is not interesting.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top