Rose Kennedy Greenway

TheBostonBoy said:
I like the Greenway, but I must admit I miss the elevated highway. Ah sorry, I just have some fond memories from the elevated highway haha
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There are still elevated sections north and south of downtown so pack up your picknick basket and enjoy!!!!
 
Scott said:
It is like when people are nostalgic for the Combat Zone. It may have looked cool on some level, but it was not really cool at all.
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But the crowded, busy streets of that period were preferable to the emptiness you see in the same location now (Washington/Boylston/Essex).
 
Whoa. Looking at some of those building renderings, all I could think of was Jabba the Hut's Sail Barge.

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No?
 
How current is that video? Are those museums still as planned?
 
LOL. That propaganda video for the Greenway was PRICELESS!

I love the way there's people everywhere -- and they're standing about aimelessly, parallel to one another and not moving! You know somebody was saying, "OK, we have to have lots of people in the median strips... but what are they doing?" "Uh, playing frisbee?" "No, we don't want people playing frisbee -- this is a median strip in a highway, Jennings, the frisbee could hit a car!" "OK, uh, sitting at cafes?" "Cafes? What cafes? C'mon, what will people be doing on the Greenway?" "Uh, living, shopping and working?" "OK, wise guy, you're on thin ice..." "Sir, I guess they'll just be standing there, not really moving...?" "YES. I like it."

Even in the promo video, the Greenway looks like any median strip in Cambridge or Belmont. The only noteworthy things are the museums -- New Center for the Arts (uncertain what's going on with that); Boston Museum (no longer planned for the Greenway); Harbor Islands Pavilion (axed, lack of funds); Mass Horticultural Society areas (hardly fleshed out in the video, and who knows if those flakeballs will stop doing crack and get their act together); the Bullfinch Triangle developments squeezing out the huge car lanes (hardly seems to be happening, judging by Avenir); YMCA (up in the air).

The only parts that have been/definitely will be realized are the lights and the spigots spitting water out of the ground -- "a new Boston landmark" as the video says. Yeah, that wouldn't be out of place at Newton North High.

Then the empty promises the Greenway will "almost magically reconnect Boston and the North End" (for those willing to trundle across 8 lanes of windswept freeway) and "address past failures of urban redevelopment" (by eliminating all development. No news is good news, I guess...).

All this makes me very annoyed. For all the resources spent putting together the virtual Boston depicted and creating promo videos, why wasn't there a minute's thought given to exploring workable urban development schemes, or seeing if, say, Mass Hort, the Boston Museum, the Y and the New Center have any money or concrete plans beyond a starchitect.

I guess the video's music was its saving grace. That was dope -- like something out of a mid-80s Epcot Center Futureland attraction, or the music accompanying a film strip kids 20 years ago might have been forced to watch about pollen or the insect kingdom.
 
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Cojapo said:
How current is that video? Are those museums still as planned?
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The first video was quite old and I believe it used to be on the boston.com website. I think it might also be posted earlier in the thread.
 
Itchy said:
"I love the way there's people everywhere -- and they're standing about aimelessly, parallel to one another and not moving! "

LOL. When I first saw the distant-view shots, I thought all those symetrically arranged people were actually grave stones in a cemetary.

The video is entertaining as long as I fast forward through Amorello. His bullshit politician manner is just too much.

Speaking of the nostalgia for the old elevated highway, I don't think it should have ALL been torn down, but maybe only most of it.

Here's an idea for an alternative universe:
One side of the elevated highway and all of the ramps would have been removed, but the other side (3 lanes wide) of the elevated structure left standing and converted to rail for use as the North-South rail link. A three-lane wide structure with no ramps would have been a lot less intrusive than the old sprawling green monster, and we could have had a North-South rail link, three tracks wide, for a relatively small cost. Then the rest of the corridor could have been developed into parks and buildings, with some buildings developed underneath and over the remaining rail-converted elevated structure.

In my opinion that would have been a much more urban and exciting solution than the empty swath we have now.
 
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Any idea what this was? I walked the Greenway around noon today and saw a large number of Big Dig hardhat folks gathered at this location.
 
No, I meant near the (not currently operating) fountain, around Milk Street.
 
Yes, that is the board most folks had, although one group was playing Go.
This was the first group of people I've seen using any part of the parkway in a sociable way. I could picture my long departed uncle and grandfather there among them.
 
Skateboarders have discovered the Greenway -- I saw them all over various parts of it today.
 
Ron Newman said:
Skateboarders have discovered the Greenway -- I saw them all over various parts of it today.
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Likewise. Prepare to see the edge of the granite curbs around the fountain area turn black with their slimy lube. And I've seen plenty of damage from plowing, even on the light blades; nicks and dents that have gone through the finish and will result in rust.
 
awesome. the more fucked up it gets the faster we can tear it down!

(i'm only joking guys)



But seriously, are there any measures being taken to prevent skateboarders?
 
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