Rose Kennedy Greenway

I would keep one of the parks down near the InterContinental Hotel but other than that I think your plan is perfect.
 
Another great job, Charlie. They should fire the planners and hire you.

Not a bit of doubt in my mind that this is the way to go.

Greenway: great lumbering waste. No one knows what to do with it because it's totally superfluous. Emperor's clothes.
 
The original proposed plan for the "greenway" land was to build rowhouses (i don't know the exact configuration).
 
I disagree, I rather have a greenway but one that is better thought out than the current one. Besides building buildings on top of the Greenway is a lot more difficult than it looks. You have to redo the foundation to support it and it could affect the load on the tunnel. Plus if you end up building a building on top of it, the vibration from inside the tunnel will probably caused the building to shake all the time.
 
I think that the problen was that from the beginning the greenway was described as a "string of parks" instead of as a "grand boulevard." If it had been envisioned as a grand boulevard it could allow a line of development on one or both sides with the park running down the middle. As it is, it is too narrow for it to be a string of parks i.e., the Emerald Necklace, and too wide to be a grand boulevard.
 
Those are going to be the most expensive townhouses outside of Manhattan. If built, the sales price will be about $2,000 per sq. ft. You'll have to cantilever them above the surface. The Big Dig tunnel roof was NOT designed to be weight bearing. In several locations, they can't even plant trees because there is less than a foot of soil.
 
They can't plant any real trees anyways even if there is enough soil.

Like I said, i don't know the specifics, I just know the original proposed plan called for buildings. It was shelved because of politics.
 
There are several buildings already proposed to be built over the Central Artery tunnel, in the Bullfinch Triangle area as well as the proposed YMCA, the museums and the arboretum buildings. As others have mentioned before, if necessary you can span the tunnel roof with beams to transfer the weight of a building. Its expensive, but the City or State should kick in some funds, as it would be a good investment in the urban character of Boston to have some buildings on the greenway.
 
Having visited the Greenway multiple times, and spent a considerable amount of time there last week, I don't hate it as it is. The city needs a N-S corridor for visitors (not necessarily tourists) who arrive at South Station, either on the train or on the Silver Line from the Airport. Part of the Boston "character" you save by extending the grid is the confusing web of historic downtown streets. Obviously, this is wonderful, and it adds to the city's charm, but for those who don't know it it can prove endlessly frustrating.

Signage and map kiosks could prove quite useful (there aren't nearly enough of them), but I still believe that the Greenway helps provide a clear way north for people who don't know the city well.

Besides, let's be honest. If the Greenway were developed as a long chain of buildings we'd all be complaining about how they didn't fit in, were too experimental or too boring, or didn't leave enough open space (not as likely on this site). Right now, it indeed leaves the scar on the city, but the public spaces and museums, even if the design leaves much to be desired (see...) will break up the line a little.

Right now, we have a park, and a clear, bright, and pleasant thoroughfare from one end of the city to the other. I can think of a lot of ways it could be worse, and it isn't even finished yet.

Besides, in twenty years, the Greenway won't be deserted. Maybe not packed, but it's on everybody's way and convenient to everywhere.
 
I don't know if this is recent or not, but the Boston Museum completely redesigned their website. Among other things, they've announced a few of the exhibits they want to create and have set a 2014 opening date. Sounds like this proposal is still very much alive.

http://www.bostonmuseum.org/

Unfortunately, the Darwin Project's site has been the same for years and the YMCA has no mention of their planned Greenway facility on their website. The New Center's site hasn't changed, but I think everyone pretty much agrees that it's the most likely to happen (it's Jewish, what do you expect? :lol:)

Just thought an update on the buildings that are actually planned would be useful in the middle of this conversation.
 
the YMCA has no mention of their planned Greenway facility on their website
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Hopefully it'll be redesigned or simply go unrealised. The current plans are not just abysmal, but banally abysmal.
 
^I agree, since the YMCA is so strapped for money, you know they're going to try and build this thing in the cheapest way possible. Be prepared for a bland box that leaves all of the highway ramps exposed...
 
Equilibria said:
Besides, in twenty years, the Greenway won't be deserted. Maybe not packed, but it's on everybody's way and convenient to everywhere.
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Quite so. Sometimes it's not deserted now. Sometimes it's even packed.

RKGreenway-20070901-278s.jpg


RKGreenway-20070901-265s.jpg


RKGreenway-20070901-283.jpg
 
But those packed sidewalks aren't the Greenway. They look to me like the sidewalks in front of Rowes Wharf and the Federal Reserve Bank.
 
^ The question those pics raise for me is whether the tourists will eventually start to cross the road and use the parks to walk north/south instead of staying on the outside sidewalks like they do now.

Edit: exactly, Ron. Right now there's still too many signs of construction happening to make the park look inviting to the semi-intrigued tourist, so I guess the jury's still out on this matter.
 
Some of the parks are still fenced off and therefore unwalkable, including the one between Faneuil Hall Marketplace and Christopher Columbus Park. (You can walk across this park, but not along it right now.) The North End parks are also not yet ready for use.
 
Ron Newman said:
But those packed sidewalks aren't the Greenway. They look to me like the sidewalks in front of Rowes Wharf and the Federal Reserve Bank.
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I've always considered "The Greenway" to mean everything from streetwall to streetwall, from the Chinatown park to the North End parks. I wasn't aware there were fine distinctions to be made. So what exactly is "The Greenway", if it doesn't include these sidewalks, or, by implication, the buildings lining the sidewalks?
 
Why would anyone cross a busy three lane street with the express purpose of visiting a park that's neither very tranquil nor very interesting? The vast majority of people will only be heading across those streets is to get to the next side where there are buildings, shops, and other uses.
 
Charlie_mta said:
There are several buildings already proposed to be built over the Central Artery tunnel, in the Bullfinch Triangle area as well as the proposed YMCA, the museums and the arboretum buildings. As others have mentioned before, if necessary you can span the tunnel roof with beams to transfer the weight of a building. Its expensive, but the City or State should kick in some funds, as it would be a good investment in the urban character of Boston to have some buildings on the greenway.
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The buildings to be built on the Greenway are over ramps. Thus the design and engineering made specific provision for structures, and their weight, at these locations.

Unlike building over train or subway tunnels, e.g., NYC, the difficulty in constructing buildings over the tunnel portion of the Greenway is that the Big Dig tunnels are a.) wide, which necessitates an elaborate load-transfer frame; b.) dug from harbor muck, and not bored through rock (which is partly why they continue to leak); c.) shallow in depth (much of the tunnel was built using cut and cover method).

Assuming you still decided to build, you'd sacrifice the first floor of any building for a big steel truss that transferred the weight (and load) sideways, and then you'd still be limited to how much height (and weight) you could build on top. The bigger and more expensive the truss, the higher you could go.
 
On my way to work today, I saw them testing the fountain in the southern North End Park. It should only be a few more years before it's ready!
 
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