Rose Kennedy Greenway

Creepy would be carved men in raincoats and weeping clowns.
 
Yeah, it might be a bit creepy, but everyone will get on the damn thing regardless.
 
BussesAin'tTrains said:
Sorry. I just don't buy this "it's creepy, what are they thinking, ew untraditional" foolishness.
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"Foolishness" implies that your aesthetic sensibilities are correct, and those of anyone in disagreement with you are wrong. Meh.

To me, this is a bizarro-arse clowncar of a carousel that will (rightly) freak out a lot of kids and was concocted by solipsistic people who spent a lot of money building a carousel ostensibly for children but to the tastes of pseudo-arty adults. That's my opinion. You don't share it, and that's OK.
 
^^^ I love your analysis! But I think kids will like the thing anyway.
 
Toby, I'd be happy to come in a trenchcoat, you in clown attire. We can share a paper-bagged fifth of Evan Williams while doing a circle or two on the merry-go-round. You take the (brown) squirrel; I'll grab the sea turtle. This will be my controlled, double-blind, placebo experiment to test whether this carousel scares the kiddies :)
 
This will scare kids in the same way that everything adults worry will scare kids ends up scaring them.

In other words, it won't.
 
Walked the Greenway from North to South Station. It was really nice at night except for the highway on/offramps and the frequency in which I had to stop for traffic. I think that the Greenway might be improved by getting rid of some of the roads in between the parcels and connecting them up a bit more. (As well as developing things over the on/offramps but that has been said a thousand times already.)
 
Earlier this week, I was talking with someone who worked on one of the CA/T contracts years ago and we both agreed that the surface artery needs to be downsized. He suggested the city ought to look into closing some of those cross streets temporarily with an eye to permanent.
 
Proposition Joe said:
Walked the Greenway from North to South Station. It was really nice at night except for the highway on/offramps and the frequency in which I had to stop for traffic. I think that the Greenway might be improved by getting rid of some of the roads in between the parcels and connecting them up a bit more. (As well as developing things over the on/offramps but that has been said a thousand times already.)
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The Greenway basically falls apart when you hit the segment across from the large parking lot in the North End. Not sure what you could do to remedy that besides closing the off ramps.
 
Here's what the Greenway should look like:
D4L91nt.jpg


Three long strips of park land. With major streets preserved, but all the minor ones obliterated. The minor cross streets are a mess: they try to be traffic alleviators while also trying to be pedestrian-friendly, they end up doing neither.

And have Kathryn Gustafson, who did the North End part of the greenway, redo the whole damn thing.
 
Put cutesy Esplanade-style foot bridges over the cross streets and put height restrictions on anything wanting to u-turn. Trucks would have to go all the way around to reverse direction.
 
I spent about 3 hours today on/near the Greenway. First I took a walk over to the end of Long Wharf because I'd never gone to the very end before... there were literally thousands of people over there, mainly getting onto the P-town & harbor island ferries. Then I grabbed a sub and ate it by the jumping fountains for 30 minutes, which continue to be the biggest success of the greenway. After that, I slowly meandered to Hanover Street to pick up a cannoli and enjoy it on the RKG lawn between Hanover and New Sudbury Streets (I think it's called North End Park here). I spent about 2 hours just laying out there, people-watching, and doing some work from my cellphone. Finally, I bought a pineapple for $1 from the Haymarket before heading to meet some people over at Boston Common & the Public Garden.

After my very outdoor afternoon around Boston's signature public spaces (minus the Esplanade), I think the Greenway was easily the most crowded and activated, and would've certainly been more-so had the carousel been open (***which, BTW, they were testing earlier and had it rotating!). I think I must've seen at least a half million people out and about around Boston today. It was a great day. :)
 
Bravo, kz, bravo! Thank you! Nice, nice pictorial of the Greenway which seems to be turning out, as the plants mature, quite nice. Your feelings for the place? Looks successful as far as drawing the locals and visitors to hang out for a while, wander around. Enough bench seating, surprisingly quiet areas that seem far from the maddening rush? What's your take on the RK Greenway?
 
I'm not doubting your general conclusion:

dshoost88 said:
I think I must've seen at least a half million people out and about around Boston today. It was a great day. :)
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but your estimate reminds me of the old Bette Midler joke for some reason:

My boyfriend Ernie was suffering fron silent gas emissions. I sent him to the doctor. He said "Doc, you gotta help me I'm suffering from silent gas emmisions. Last night at the opera I had ten silent gas emmisions, this mornig at breakfast I had two silent gas emmisions and sitting here in this office I had five silent gas emmisons. What the hell am I going to do?"

"Well first were going to check your hearing"
 
Thanks for the photo tour, kz! Exactly the kind of update I was hoping to see, definitely appreciated!

I have to admit, it looks good. By now I've accepted the fact that the RKG will never be a world-class, destination park. It's low key, utilitarian and I'm just happy to see it increasingly lush, well-used, and well-programmed.

However, it will not even reach its potential in that regard unless something is done about the ramp parcels...the fact that the surrounding parks are getting better and better unfortunately makes those parcels all the more jarring and depressing. Think alarm clock killing a nice dream.
 
I like the way the ramp parcel near Rowes Wharf turned out, with a curving path and a real sense of enclosure. I would not make any changes there. The one that really needs attention is between the carousel and the North End parks.
 
The ramp parcels suck, but for me what kills it are the constant cross roads. It's hard to enjoy the scenery or feel any respite when you find yourself having to survive crossing a four-lane road every other minute. If even just a few of them were removed (like someone illustrated recently) it would do wonders.
 
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