Rose Kennedy Greenway
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Ron Newman
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During the 3 hours of the concert, the weather shifted several times from blue skies to overcast to dark threatening thunderclouds. Fortunately the rain mostly held off until after the show ended.
statler
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BostonYoureMyHome is right, for as long as the Harbor Towers stand you will never see a night time concert on the Greenway.
I see what you are saying about an alternative to the Hatch Shell, but I still don't think the Greenway is the best spot for it. The Greenway was intended to unify the Waterfront with the rest of the city. Unfortunately a large, mostly barren expanse of greenery surrounded by 6+ lanes of traffic is a poor formula.
It need to have buildings abutting both edges filled with shops and restaurants and perhaps even a few apartment buildings. This idea, of course, is antithetical to most (all?) open space advocates.
And I think the photoshop comment was a joke.
BostonUrbEx
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bostonbred
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Green way IS unifying Harbour und inland places. MOST of land it sitting on is being the FILL. (that being as unify as you get) NO LICESE unser CHAP 91 for grosser old filling. DIG UP NOW!!!!
commuter guy
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From Boston.com, Robert Campbell speaks:
How to save the Greenway? Make it a neighborhood
By Robert Campbell, Globe Correspondent | April 25, 2010
Each year at this time, people begin talking and writing about what?s wrong with the Rose Kennedy Greenway.
This year, most of the hand-wringing has been devoted to the funding and management problems, or to the collapse of two proposals for museums. Those issues are important, and I hope someone solves them. But I?m interested in another subject, which is design.
The Greenway is a design disaster. This is not the way to create a good public space. If it is ever to succeed, the Greenway is going to have to move in new directions.
Last week on Patriots Day, a lovely spring afternoon with a pleasant mix of sun and shade, I took what has become my annual walk of the whole mile-plus length of the Greenway, from the approach to the Zakim Bridge in the north to Chinatown in the south and back again. I was almost alone.
There were rare walkers and a few skateboarding kids, no one else. I thought maybe the problem was I had come on a weekday, even though it was a half holiday. But as I finished my walk, I turned into Quincy Market and found, of course, that it was mobbed. Crowds were delightedly lining up for ice cream or lobster, or they were people-watching, or checking out the shop windows. Too hectic, maybe, but there was a powerful sense of place.
The Greenway, by contrast, is placeless desert. It?s a series of oversize shapeless spaces, none of which seems to have a purpose. Some are paved with stone, some with concrete, some have trees, some have flowers. It all feels random. It doesn?t look as if it?s been shaped by a creative mind. There are things to look at but nothing to do.
Only twice did I feel I was in anything I?d define as a memorable place. One was a lovely circle of budding trees around a sculpture, opposite Rowes Wharf. The other was a curving space in Chinatown, with a sense of enclosure and a respite from bigness.
As for the rest, it?s as if we had decided, when we tore down the overhead green-painted Central Artery, that we would memorialize it on the ground. We?d make another big green disruption through the heart of the city.
So what?s the solution for the Greenway? My answer is simple. Make it a neighborhood. A place where people live their lives. This will take time, but it?s possible. In Paris, when they convert an old industrial area into a new park they surround the park with new housing. The French can?t imagine a park without apartments or apartments without a park. Each needs the other.
People actually living, not just visiting, is what makes a great public space. It becomes tissue of the city, not mere scenery to be looked at. Babies in strollers, kids in playgrounds, sunbathing elders, joggers and students, dogs and pedalers, all of them mixing. The place becomes populated. It becomes genuine. When you?re a visitor, you start to imagine what it would be like to live here.
Nobody wants to look up from a park and see a row of dead office facades. We want a more human presence. We want to imagine ourselves sipping wine up on that lovely trellised balcony. We speculate on what lies behind that intriguing bay window. We are in a livable, inhabited city. By contrast, the Greenway today is a vacant stage set.
The edges of the Greenway ? the streets all around it ? should be salted with new housing. Apartments and ground-floor stores should belly up to it on all sides. There?s plenty of developable property, notably four big parking garages. There?s actually a fair amount of residential already along the Greenway, including Harbor Towers, the neighborhoods of the North End and Chinatown, and part of Rowes Wharf. The problem is not only to get to a larger, critical mass of residents, but also how to pull people out of their condos and into the park. There has to be some magnet.
The Greenway Conservancy, the group that runs the Greenway, does what it can. It programs activities such as concerts, health walks, and volunteer garden groups. But no amount of programmed activities are going to be as interesting as an inhabited place.
A new zoning law for the area around the Greenway is making its way through the Boston planning process. It calls for many of these same goals, including infill housing and retail at the edges. Ideally, that kind of planning should have been done years ago, right along with the engineering of the tunnels. Planning for people has been an afterthought at the Greenway.
But in any case, more is needed. The urbanist William H. Whyte proved, long ago, that a great public space needs food service. I?d love to see, in place of those missing museums, maybe three or four terrific restaurants, the kind that spill out with tables and canopies onto a lawn or plaza in good weather, where we can eat while we listen to the concert and watch the world go by. Pushcart vendors are now proposed, and I guess that?s better than nothing, but not much.
We need much more of that kind of activity on the Greenway. Unfortunately, many mistakes were made in the past. The worst is that we?re stuck with a rule that at least 75 percent of the area must be public open space. That?s far more space than anyone will ever know what to do with. Nobody ever decided this was the right size for a downtown park in Boston. It just happened to be the area formerly devoted to the Central Artery.
If it weren?t for that rule, we could have done something better. We could have built on much of what is now the Greenway, with low, four- to eight-story buildings, retail on the ground floor and apartments above. There would have been plenty of room for half a dozen smaller, useful, livable parks or squares along the way.
That?s not going to happen. But we can energize the edges of the Greenway. We can add what attractions are possible to the Greenway itself. Think of the cafe in Central Park that overlooks a boating lake, all created quite artificially. Eventually, we can enjoy an actual neighborhood instead of a sad, bloated void in a great city.
Robert Campbell, the Globe?s architecture critic, can be reached at camglobe@aol.com.
link: http://www.boston.com/ae/theater_ar...dy_greenway_from_emptiness_and_disconnection/
How to save the Greenway? Make it a neighborhood
By Robert Campbell, Globe Correspondent | April 25, 2010
Each year at this time, people begin talking and writing about what?s wrong with the Rose Kennedy Greenway.
This year, most of the hand-wringing has been devoted to the funding and management problems, or to the collapse of two proposals for museums. Those issues are important, and I hope someone solves them. But I?m interested in another subject, which is design.
The Greenway is a design disaster. This is not the way to create a good public space. If it is ever to succeed, the Greenway is going to have to move in new directions.
Last week on Patriots Day, a lovely spring afternoon with a pleasant mix of sun and shade, I took what has become my annual walk of the whole mile-plus length of the Greenway, from the approach to the Zakim Bridge in the north to Chinatown in the south and back again. I was almost alone.
There were rare walkers and a few skateboarding kids, no one else. I thought maybe the problem was I had come on a weekday, even though it was a half holiday. But as I finished my walk, I turned into Quincy Market and found, of course, that it was mobbed. Crowds were delightedly lining up for ice cream or lobster, or they were people-watching, or checking out the shop windows. Too hectic, maybe, but there was a powerful sense of place.
The Greenway, by contrast, is placeless desert. It?s a series of oversize shapeless spaces, none of which seems to have a purpose. Some are paved with stone, some with concrete, some have trees, some have flowers. It all feels random. It doesn?t look as if it?s been shaped by a creative mind. There are things to look at but nothing to do.
Only twice did I feel I was in anything I?d define as a memorable place. One was a lovely circle of budding trees around a sculpture, opposite Rowes Wharf. The other was a curving space in Chinatown, with a sense of enclosure and a respite from bigness.
As for the rest, it?s as if we had decided, when we tore down the overhead green-painted Central Artery, that we would memorialize it on the ground. We?d make another big green disruption through the heart of the city.
So what?s the solution for the Greenway? My answer is simple. Make it a neighborhood. A place where people live their lives. This will take time, but it?s possible. In Paris, when they convert an old industrial area into a new park they surround the park with new housing. The French can?t imagine a park without apartments or apartments without a park. Each needs the other.
People actually living, not just visiting, is what makes a great public space. It becomes tissue of the city, not mere scenery to be looked at. Babies in strollers, kids in playgrounds, sunbathing elders, joggers and students, dogs and pedalers, all of them mixing. The place becomes populated. It becomes genuine. When you?re a visitor, you start to imagine what it would be like to live here.
Nobody wants to look up from a park and see a row of dead office facades. We want a more human presence. We want to imagine ourselves sipping wine up on that lovely trellised balcony. We speculate on what lies behind that intriguing bay window. We are in a livable, inhabited city. By contrast, the Greenway today is a vacant stage set.
The edges of the Greenway ? the streets all around it ? should be salted with new housing. Apartments and ground-floor stores should belly up to it on all sides. There?s plenty of developable property, notably four big parking garages. There?s actually a fair amount of residential already along the Greenway, including Harbor Towers, the neighborhoods of the North End and Chinatown, and part of Rowes Wharf. The problem is not only to get to a larger, critical mass of residents, but also how to pull people out of their condos and into the park. There has to be some magnet.
The Greenway Conservancy, the group that runs the Greenway, does what it can. It programs activities such as concerts, health walks, and volunteer garden groups. But no amount of programmed activities are going to be as interesting as an inhabited place.
A new zoning law for the area around the Greenway is making its way through the Boston planning process. It calls for many of these same goals, including infill housing and retail at the edges. Ideally, that kind of planning should have been done years ago, right along with the engineering of the tunnels. Planning for people has been an afterthought at the Greenway.
But in any case, more is needed. The urbanist William H. Whyte proved, long ago, that a great public space needs food service. I?d love to see, in place of those missing museums, maybe three or four terrific restaurants, the kind that spill out with tables and canopies onto a lawn or plaza in good weather, where we can eat while we listen to the concert and watch the world go by. Pushcart vendors are now proposed, and I guess that?s better than nothing, but not much.
We need much more of that kind of activity on the Greenway. Unfortunately, many mistakes were made in the past. The worst is that we?re stuck with a rule that at least 75 percent of the area must be public open space. That?s far more space than anyone will ever know what to do with. Nobody ever decided this was the right size for a downtown park in Boston. It just happened to be the area formerly devoted to the Central Artery.
If it weren?t for that rule, we could have done something better. We could have built on much of what is now the Greenway, with low, four- to eight-story buildings, retail on the ground floor and apartments above. There would have been plenty of room for half a dozen smaller, useful, livable parks or squares along the way.
That?s not going to happen. But we can energize the edges of the Greenway. We can add what attractions are possible to the Greenway itself. Think of the cafe in Central Park that overlooks a boating lake, all created quite artificially. Eventually, we can enjoy an actual neighborhood instead of a sad, bloated void in a great city.
Robert Campbell, the Globe?s architecture critic, can be reached at camglobe@aol.com.
link: http://www.boston.com/ae/theater_ar...dy_greenway_from_emptiness_and_disconnection/
The analysis is right, but as usual, he offers no real, concrete solution --except for a lineup of grand restaurants with out door seating. That alone might be enough if they had the panache of the ones in the Piazza San Marco or Tavern on the Green.
I guess critics are critics, not creators. Then along comes a Francois Truffaut...
I guess critics are critics, not creators. Then along comes a Francois Truffaut...
On second thought:
But this is still the solution!
And then he pulls the rug right out from underneath himself:
We coulda been contenders...
But this is still the solution!
And then he pulls the rug right out from underneath himself:
As more of an advocate and less of a bystander, don't you think he could be more use to his city?Robert Campbell said:
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The comments on that article at Boston.com are mostly in agreement, except for one dude calling himself NorthEndWaterfrontDotCom who said:
"Just to clarify, an architect wants less public open space and more buildings. I guess that helps the architects make money, but what about the rest of us?"
The rest of us? If you go tot he Greenway that's the question you ask, where is everyone? This is the problem, too much selfish short sighted thinking.
"Just to clarify, an architect wants less public open space and more buildings. I guess that helps the architects make money, but what about the rest of us?"
The rest of us? If you go tot he Greenway that's the question you ask, where is everyone? This is the problem, too much selfish short sighted thinking.
JohnAKeith
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I assume that poster is Matt Conti, who publishes http://www.northendwaterfront.com
He's a registered architect, but he mostly practiced ages ago as an employee of Sert. He can often be found on panels.
I don't often agree with Campbell, but he is dead-accurate with his main argument about residential development. It's entirely an urban planning issue (e.g. land use), not about height, what or where.
To sum up, IMO:
1. Critical mass of residential development was key.
2. This will never happen.
I don't buy arguments that there wasn't demand for housing over the past two decades of CAT/Tunnel planning & construction. What is a plain fact is that developers pressed for a predominance of office space and hotels along the Greenway, and that is what was approved.
Beton Brut
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The Rose Kennedy Greenway: The answer to a question nobody asked.
dbhstockton
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The Rose Kennedy Greenway: an abstraction delivered
Here's a link to a good James Howard Kunstler article from 2001. Though he's not writing about the Big Dig here, he's fantastic at putting these kind of frustrations -- frustrations about the lack of imagination in american urban design -- into pithy little aphoristic observations.
http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/221/
Here's one gem on the "open space" fetishization of environmentally minded urban devlopment advocates.
"If you ask for an abstraction (green space) it will be delivered as an abstraction (grassy berm). "
Further along, this passage:
"Quit wasting your time and money on nature band-aids. Stop yammering about open space and green space, and open your mind... The antidote to America?s terrible urbanism is, simply, good urbanism."
Here's a link to a good James Howard Kunstler article from 2001. Though he's not writing about the Big Dig here, he's fantastic at putting these kind of frustrations -- frustrations about the lack of imagination in american urban design -- into pithy little aphoristic observations.
http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/221/
Here's one gem on the "open space" fetishization of environmentally minded urban devlopment advocates.
"If you ask for an abstraction (green space) it will be delivered as an abstraction (grassy berm). "
Further along, this passage:
"Quit wasting your time and money on nature band-aids. Stop yammering about open space and green space, and open your mind... The antidote to America?s terrible urbanism is, simply, good urbanism."
stellarfun
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Patriots_1228
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"Quit wasting your time and money on nature band-aids. Stop yammering about open space and green space, and open your mind... The antidote to America?s terrible urbanism is, simply, good urbanism."
I wish I could put that on a pamphlet and staple it to every staple-able object in Boston.
I wish I could put that on a pamphlet and staple it to every staple-able object in Boston.