Rose Kennedy Greenway

^I disagree. It is not the Greenway that is a bust, it is the development along it. Throw in some more ground floor retail and restaurant space. Too much of this focus is being dedicated to Downtown Crossing...the only reason I even wander into Downtown Crossing is for falafel and CVS. Otherwise I despise that area of the city. Then, I take my lunch to the Greenway and sit in the sun. Now I can grab lunch there and not even have to wander into Downtown Crossing. Tuesdays and Thursdays I can grab some fresh veggies before hopping on the train at the farmer's market.

They keep adding regular programming like this and I see it as a success. If additional retail and restaurant space is added from Harbor Garage to South Station, then designate it a Business Improvement District so that it can sustain itself, it works.

Rifle, why are you so anti Greenway?
 
I say let the homeless have it. Gives them somewhere central to go other than the common.

What do these people mean by providing access to the harbor? How does the greenway, which isn't even on the water and forces you to cross a wind blown dead space and six lanes of traffic to get to the harbor improve access? How does a 200' building provide better "access" than a 600' building on the same foot print? How does making the building taller block access? What's blocking access to the harbor is all the buildings that are already there like the harbor towers and rhowes warf which are designed in a way that makes it clear the owners don't really want you there. Those building aren't going anywhere. There's too many rants like this in this thread already, so I'll go back to trying not to think about it.
 
As someone who used to regularly walk from Government Center through Faneuil Hall Marketplace to Christopher Columbus Park (and then northward towards Battery Wharf), I can testify that removing the Central Artery and replacing it with the Greenway was an enormous improvement. It removed a very unattractive and impenetrable-looking barrier between the Marketplace and the waterside park.

The entire Long Wharf - Aquarium area now feels connected to the rest of the city in a way that it never was before. Ditto for Rowes Wharf and its lovely archway, which is now finally visible from many blocks away.
 
BostonYoureMyHome said:
^It is not the Greenway that is a bust, it is the development along it. Throw in some more ground floor retail and restaurant space.
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I attended this Greenway Planning Study Meeting last year. During the Q&A, I asked why a district master plan wasn't created concurrent to and in conjunction with the design and execution of the Greenway parks.

Click here for the BRA's response to my question.
 
BostonYoureMyHome said:
Rifle, why are you so anti Greenway?
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I would rather see the private sector take full control and let development be built along both sides of the Greenway along with city planners that actually have creditability. I'm annoyed at our city officials on how they are presenting the Greenway as this future great park without working with private developers. Trying to compare the Greenway to the Common. Is like comparing Apples and Oranges.

1# The city needs to auction off the Greenway Parcels which will stop being a burden on the taxpayer. 10 Million a year to maintain this is absolutely insane.
2# Get rid of the Greenway Conservancy
3# Let private industry mold the city not these DUMB hacks.
4# In fair world without any Political influence the BRA would be a great planning organization that could help the private industry work with NIMBY's.
5# Develop Harbor & Congress garages especially focusing on the streetscape . The BRA should be working with Chiofaro to open that area up. This is also making me think that our officials are not out for the best interest of the city.

"If additional retail and restaurant space is added from Harbor Garage to South Station" The problem is those existing developments are not built towards the Greenway so I feel that the Greenway will have to develop on it's own overtime. Walking around that area just doesn't feel right to me. Very COLD even on a nice day.
 
What's blocking access to the harbor is all the buildings that are already there like the harbor towers and rhowes warf which are designed in a way that makes it clear the owners don't really want you there.
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Harbor Towers, yes. But I disagree on Rowes Wharf. The patios on the harborside are very inviting. Even when they're not holding free concerts for the public, it's a pleasant area to stroll. And incorporating a commuter boat station specifically invites the public.
 
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Ron Newman said:
As someone who used to regularly walk from Government Center through Faneuil Hall Marketplace to Christopher Columbus Park (and then northward towards Battery Wharf), I can testify that removing the Central Artery and replacing it with the Greenway was an enormous improvement. It removed a very unattractive and impenetrable-looking barrier between the Marketplace and the waterside park.

The entire Long Wharf - Aquarium area now feels connected to the rest of the city in a way that it never was before. Ditto for Rowes Wharf and its lovely archway, which is now finally visible from many blocks away.
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I largely agree with this. I've had a number of really good experiences on this section of the Greenway. I think it is a definite improvement*, and is in fact, pretty good as is. The plans for future elements will make it quite nice. I think there is a significant problem between Rowes Wharf and Dewey Square, however. Something needs to happen to bring life to that area.

* I do miss the parking lot under the express way, though. I always thought that was a pretty good example of the way cities crowd things into whatever space is available. That's fundamentally the problem with the greenway -- it is too expansive, and the lack of crowding in and around the edges as you move further South gives the impression of a city that is too suburban in character.
 
Boston Redevelopment Authority "approves Greenway District guidelines - includes height & density recommendations for 20 development parcels" at meeting tonight.
 
Boston Globe - August 19, 2010
They?ve been swayed: Huge hammock rocks

539w.jpg


By Jack Nicas, Globe Correspondent | August 19, 2010

The Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway just got a lot more comfortable.

Downtown yesterday, several architects, a few students, a couple of lawyers, and a businessman swung together in the breeze on a 33-foot-long hammock, a two-week art installation unveiled this week that may become a permanent fixture on the Greenway.

?You know, people walk by without speaking [to one another] in this city; that?s the rule,?? attorney Charles Kazarian, 57, of Arlington said, as he reclined on the multicolored web several feet above the grass. ?But you sit next to people on a hammock, and you?re talking to them.??

It began with a tweet. About a year ago, Hansy Better Barraza, 34, a Roslindale architect and professor at Rhode Island School of Design, saw a post on Twitter offering a $1,000 grant for an ?awesome idea.?? She knew she had one.

?It just so happened that I was so upset that morning that I couldn?t hop on my neighbors? hammock,?? Barraza told the dozen lounging on the hammock yesterday. ?I said: ?Oh, my God, you know what?s needed? A public hammock, a communal hammock for everyone to come together.? ??

With that idea, she won the first-ever grant from The Awesome Foundation, which donates $1,000 to an interesting project each month. Four permits later, she secured a space on the Greenway on the corner of Atlantic Avenue and Oliver Street.

With the help of donations and volunteers, the hammock came together: 4,278 feet of rope made from recycled bottles woven over curved steel pipes. Barraza has asked Guinness World Records to declare the hammock, which is about 264 square feet (about the size of a large parking space), the biggest portable hammock.

Since Sunday, when the weaving was finished, curious pedestrians have been hopping on, lying back, and sometimes nodding off.

?We?ve had lots of kids playing on it, rolling around; a lot of people just taking afternoon naps,?? said Philip Glenn, 24, a recent RISD graduate from Worcester who mans the hammock eight hours per day on Barraza?s behalf, talking about the project, accepting donations, and making sure users sign waivers for liability reasons.

Barraza will host a kick-off party for the hammock with live music tomorrow at 1:30 p.m. And for five days next week, parents are encouraged to bring their children at 3 p.m. for stories read in English, Spanish, and Mandarin.

The hammock is open noon to 8 p.m. daily (volunteers tie it up at night) until Barraza?s permits end on Sept. 4. She said she will then offer it as a public gift to the city.

The conservancy that manages the narrow 1.3-mile park said yesterday it is considering keeping the hammock. The city has looked for ways to improve the Greenway, such as recently adding free Wi-Fi and six new food stands, amid criticism that it lacks vitality.

To the workers on their lunch break and tourists alike yesterday, it was simple: The hammock should stay.

?It?s a big hammock,?? said Peter Evans, 24, who works at a nearby investment firm. ?How could you go wrong???

Jack Nicas can be reached at jnicas@globe.com.
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If they put this on the High Line people would saying it was greatest thing ever and "Why can't Boston ever do anything cool like that?"
 
This is exactly what the Greenway needs...functional art & design. As the guy above said; if this was on the High Line people would be soiling themselves with envy.

Maybe the conservancy is finally learning...or maybe they just got lucky and were able to sponge off someone else's good idea...

Either way; I am going to have to check this baby out at lunch time.

KILL DEAD SPACE
 
statler said:
Boston Globe - August 19, 2010


If they put this on the High Line people would saying it was greatest thing ever and "Why can't Boston ever do anything cool like that?"
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I don't think any of the criticism of the Greenway is unjustified...Boston or not, it's an urban planning nightmare.

The hammocks are neat though. Would have been even better in Post Office Square.
 
Off topic: Is there an indoor component to the Harbor Island pavilion?
 
The one exhibit the Greenway Conservancy needs to build is the Green House proposal. This would really cool for the strip.
 
Just rode the greenway back from a meeting.... i was intimately familiar with it two years ago but since leaving the north end I'm never over there. So here was a chance to hit Caffe Paradiso, get some sun, smell the ocean, and see the big hammock everyone is buzzing about.

And maybe it was freak, but everyone on here makes it sound like a ghost town. It was very well populated, and this even at 11am, before lunchers head out into it. Cycling the length of it was a nightmare, I had to decide block by block whether I was better off trying not to upset pedestrians walking and looking in different directions, or SUV drivers barreling through at 45 mph trying to catch lights, a lose-lose.

But the North End Park probably had 30 or 40 people sitting in various places around it, that amount again walking through, a few kids in the fountain. It was of course desolate around the the ramps, but alot of cross foot traffic at the Clinton Street crosswalk. There isn't much breathing room these days at the Columbus Park/Quincy Market part, the carousel (running and half-filled) and the Harbor Islands Pavilion (construction work active) squeeze it out, but its exciting to see what appears to be a very cool, beautiful, functional and curious structure being built (as opposed to the other structures at North End Park, Chinatown and especially Wharf District which are just oversized/priced ornamental follies). The fountain was being used per usual, though the next 2 or 3 parcels were well vacant, though I was excited to see the beautiful umbrellas and the cafe tables and chairs near the Rowes Wharf Hotel. Now that I know they're there I'm likely to start heading that way for lunch! The big surprise was the weird temporary, gardeny parcels that run in front of the Incontinent Hotel to Dewey Square: these have always been the most vapid, underthought of the dig, though it seemed they had a different scope [ie temporary placeholder] and budget than the rest, but I was surprised how many people were using the little hidden spaces in it. The hammock had not even opened yet, and it was garnering no attention from anyone other than me, but within a hundred foot radius of this were about a dozen people, sitting in cafes chairs in the grass having what looked a business conversation, tourists taking pictures of flowers, people splayed out on a blanket on the lawn, a nanny toddling after her toddler, it was the first time I've ever been surprised on that parcel, and so excited for it.

And then of course I got to Dewey Square and the farmers market was going, Clover food truck was there, and the area was just mobbed with people, a full hour before most lunch times. Its time I think to rip out the anemic baldcypress trees that divide Dewey from the lawn where Clover sits and consolidate that area... could this be Boston's Union Square? Is this market successful to the point where it could warrant a more permanent infrastructure, 7 days a week kind of stuff?

I know that a certain percentage of this board will always be pissed that this wasn't a necklace of "1000 footers" or whatever the going rate for a "world class city", and they are predetermined to hate any urban greenspace that asserts itself as anything more than parsley around some piggish building, but for the first time since it was built I left the Greenway genuinely excited for its future. With time, thoughtful tinkering and investment maybe this can be improved upon it. Does it need infill building? Bike lanes? Transit? Yes, of course, all of those. But what is the point of 382 pages of bickering and pessimism? These parks are definitely more than these boards suggest, and I think creative minds should be identifying opportunities for improvement--there are plenty of reactionaries out there to just piss pessimism down the leg of this thing.

Ok that feels better. You can continue your shadow and median strip jokes now.
 
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