Rose Kennedy Greenway

[Arborway]

A median strip is not where I'd want to spend a hot, sunny day. Then again, it's a matter of opinion.

 

[jass]

I was on the esplanade today and it was packed. The comm ave mall however....not a soul.

 

[tobyjug]

The Comm Ave mall is a funny thing. Is it that the mall is better to look at than to be in? Sort of like the fancy living room that your stuffy aunt kept "for company", but you weren't allowed to enter? Maybe the plastic covers stayed on the furniture too?

I love walking down the mall, especially this time of year when some of the trees flower. It is great to pass through. But I can't honestly say I've ever enjoyed sitting in it, even if I've brought a good book to read.

I have the same discomfort sitting outside at the tapas place at the Vendome. Might be the dark and the traffic. And the wine just won't chase those blues away, no matter how hard I try.

Briv, nice photos from an interesting angle. LRFox is right about the building orientation problem and the contast with the mall.

The photos were a bit eerie for me until I figured out why. If you put up some palm trees, the area in the photographs would look much like the approach roads at the Lee County International Airport in Ft. Myers, FL.

I hope you won't think the idea is mad, but it might be fun to plant "cold hearty palm" tree varieties out there. Might give it an exotic feel. Perhaps put up an orangerie to winter over some of the larger, less hardy types.

 

[Joe_Schmoe]

The North End Parks from today -- 84 degrees, sunny. The Greenway is a terrific place if you love the sights, sounds and smells of heavy auto traffic.

Actually, the designers of this section of park were pretty smart about blocking the traffic from the park. You can see that there are banks on the Quincy Market side that build a wall separating the park from the traffic.

 

[cden4]

IMO the Greenway would be much nicer if it were only two lanes in each direction for the entire length. Perhaps on the three lane sections, parallel parking could be added.

 

[Joe_Schmoe]

Just for reference, here are some pictures of what the Public Garden and Comm Ave looked like originally. You really have to wait, oh, say 50 years for the trees to grow out to get a sense of how successful it will be.

 

[Arborway]

The problem is that in the Greenway, most of the trees that are there are along the street so you will have to leave the Greenway and walk alongside traffic to find shade.

 

[statler]

Will the Greenway also be lined with Second Empire style mansions as well? 'Cuz that sorta adds to the effect of the Comm Ave Mall.

 

[unterbau]

It is unfortunate how nature doesn't try harder to keep up with our busy, get it done yesterday lifestyles....

 

[ngb_anim8]

Joe - great pics. If someone built that today we would rail against it on this board! Time and perspective should certainly help the Greenway. One generation from now when things are grown in and the surrounding architecture and businesses have adjusted people will look at what was there before (the elevated highway) and think "WOW - I can't believe there used to be a highway here." At least that's what I hope. Also, LRFox - I completely agree about the buildings along the RKG. I tried to find that silver lining and posted similar sentiments a couple months back.

 

[statler]

^^ Again. If someone proposed building a Parisian boulevard lined with Second Empire mansions I wholly doubt there would be any strenuous objections here.

The Greenway is not comparable to Comm Ave Mall. It won't be in a decade and won't be in a century.

Edit for further explanation: The Back Bay was throughly planned. Commonwealth Ave was design as a whole. It wasn't a matter of people throwing up random buildings and then deciding they needed 'open space' somewhere.
The space was planned in conjunction with the buildings and buildings in conjunction with the space.*
The same cannot be said about the Greenway. It's just open space for the sake of open space, crammed in without any thought to the surrounding areas (end parks excluded).

*and as far as I know there wasn't one public meeting about the whole thing

 

[czsz]

Actually, the designers of this section of park were pretty smart about blocking the traffic from the park. You can see that there are banks on the Quincy Market side that build a wall separating the park from the traffic.

This is a great illustration of the absurdity of this entire endeavor. The Greenway has a problem (it's a traffic sewer). Instead of the ever-forward-thinking highway people removing a lane, for example, mitigation falls to the park designers, who are forced to add vegetation barriers to "protect" the interior feel of the parks. So pedestrians looking at the park from the outside face the unwelcoming effects of both a three-lane highway and a wall of landscaping armor on either side of the thing. The ostensible goals of this thing (traffic artery + escapist, natural park) are at utter crosspurposes with one another, when they should have been complementary (framing side streets + open, public space).

 

[Merper]

well put.

i'd say the old pics of comm ave look infinitely better than the new pics of the greenway.

there's an order to them.

the greenway parks seem to add to the disorder of heavy traffic.

 

[AC]

They're redoing the two parcels across from the Intercontinental Hotel, which is good because they turn swamp-like whenever it rains.

along the greenway businesses and such -

that's a shame

Across the Chinatown parks, T-Mobile just moved into the corner of the Lincoln building, with a furniture store 'coming soon' a couple of doors down. It has been so long since I've seen any retail in this building that I can't even remember what was there before.

I find it odd that this parking lot, along the edge of the North End, has been locked up and unused since the police moved back up the hill late last year.

Brought to you by the BRA

Directly across from the fountain -

 

[Charlie_mta]

"Hey Mabel, that danged septic tank is backing up crap all over the yard again!"

 

[Suffolk 83]

NECN had a piece on this today. Some companies apparently volunteered to help plant trees and bushes w/ equipment and manhours and they said 500 volunteers were going to come in and help plant flowers and the like

 

[czsz]

The parks are too bland even for the corporates.

Maybe next they'll lobby for a better name than "Surface Road". Unfortunately, it'll probably be "Progresss Boulevard" or somesuch office park cliche.

 

[JimboJones]

This is as good a place as any for the following column to appear.

I have never agreed with Ms. Kressel on anything, I don't think, but there's always a first.

Regarding the above that "500 volunteers" are going to plant flowers being donated by local corporations, um, where the F- is the state on this?

Anyway, here's a column by Shirley Kressel that appeared in the South End News this week, talking about how citizens are increasingly being called upon to do the work we would expect our city and state governments to perform.

I don't know if I agree with that, totally. What about being "civic-minded"?

Boston Shines: Whitewashing fun
by Shirley Kressel, South End News contributing writer

Spring has sprung, and once again Boston Shines has swept the city, under the stellar leadership of Mayor Tom Sawyer. I mean, Tom Menino. You see, Tom M., like Mark Twain?s Tom S., has a fence to whitewash - the big city fence of parks and streets and schools and more. But he has managed to get his taxpayers to whitewash it for him by convincing us that it?s fun. He has redefined the "public service" as a service not for the public, but by the public.

Taking advantage of our yearning for decent public housekeeping (and fear of increased property taxes, since most people don?t realize he already taxes us to the legal maximum), he has turned a government chore into a warm and fuzzy community bonding experience. Now in its sixth year, the Boston Shines do-it-yourself city clean-up attracts thousands of volunteers in a military-like mobilization, "rain or shine." Over 75 reporting-for-duty sites are designated across the city. We even have to register; thankfully, there?s no admission fee (yet).

Neighborhood groups, individual residents, youth groups, corporations, institutions - all are given an opportunity to take care of the city?s property and bank the benefits of good-will from the powerful Mayor. Neighborhood leaders get a public pat on the head and perhaps a bit of indulgence from City Hall when they need something. Corporate sponsors supplying snacks to workers, adopting a trash can, providing company volunteers, etc., build good community and political relations (and get income tax deductions). Institutions count their participation as part of the "community benefit" packages that smooth the expansion permitting process and lighten city pressures for Payments in Lieu of Taxes. Even the State Lottery has been giving Boston Shines a $10,000 donation, letting both the state and the Mayor get some local political mileage out of the gambling losses of our low-income residents.

The Boston Shines program (perhaps inspired by Alley Rallies, Crime Watches and park Friends groups started by desperate residents back in Boston?s bad old days) has blossomed into Boston Shines 365, a full-time "Citywide Neighborhood Clean Up & Community Service Volunteer Program." Providing bags, gloves and tools, the Mayor generously offers: "Let us help you organize a neighborhood clean-up day or a day of community service for your co-workers."

So now, all year round, you can not only clean up streets and parks, but also do landscaping and maintenance work for community centers, schools and other public facilities. You can plan neighborhood clean-up Saturdays (pick your own or join a scheduled one) or "community impact projects," one-day service projects offering multiple types of service (painting, landscaping, beautification) for multiple areas (school, community center, green space), on the date of your choice. You can "adopt" a service site or a whole block for an "ongoing relationship" of clean-ups. There?s a separate Boston Schools Shine, letting students, parents and neighbors organize a school clean-up. We are truly fortunate in our choices!

These communal events have been made not only fun, but patriotic as well. Everyone is encouraged to pitch in and work together in hard times, to keep up our public realm while the government is otherwise engaged.

But in the end, this romanticized work-fest is simply a way to get us to whitewash the city fence, a service we already pay for dearly. We can just as easily bond with our neighbors, free of lower-back pain, at community events in parks, streets and schools cleaned and maintained for us by our government.

And a few questions arise: The City Council has considered letting elders work off some of their property tax by putting in a few hours volunteering in City Hall. In the 2006 Boston Shines, the 6000 volunteers who picked up 300 tons of trash reportedly put in a full day at, say, $20 dollars an hour; that?s $960,000 worth of time for that one day. With all the community days and adopted sites and Friends groups working on city property all year long, we are probably looking at several million dollars in labor (aside from cash and in-kind contributions). Should we figure out the value of Boston Shines volunteer hours outside City Hall, and give these volunteers a property tax credit? Is the volunteer work force gradually replacing public workers, like an unwitting squad of union-busters? What about neighborhoods where residents working multiple jobs may not have the time to donate? Should we simply cut the residential tax across the board? Taxes don?t go down if we save the city money; where do the savings go? What would happen if the volunteer army went on strike - would Mayor Tom leave those 300 tons of trash out there, the buildings unpainted, the flowers unplanted?

The private resources spent because the city won?t do its job are substantial and growing, although there always seems to be enough money for developer tax breaks, phantom jobs in the budget, a million-dollar public relations office, legal fees to fight citizen lawsuits, etc. And the more we virtuously step in to do, the more the City withdraws and lets us do. Community organizers should step back for a minute and figure out what we?re giving, why we?re giving and where this trend is going to take us.

 

[Scott]

I guess in Shirley Kressel's world volunteers and community groups are suckers.

Let someone else clean my neighborhood, I'm stickin' it to the man!

EDIT: Though I did like her rant about unwitting union busters.

 

[Ron Newman]

Maybe next they'll lobby for a better name than "Surface Road".

Wasn't the street name supposed to be The Greenway, resulting in street addresses like 70 The Greenway? This goes along with earlier street names such as Fenway, Riverway, Jamaicaway, and Arborway.