Rose Kennedy Greenway

Ron Newman said:
I'm not understanding why you or other folks think this will disrupt Haymarket at all, since it's indoors and on a different piece of land.
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Easy. Let's assume that the amount of people that will shop there does not increase dramatically (if at all). Let's also assume everyone carried the same amount of money to spend as they did before, so in other words the pool of cash is about the same. Now you have two places (doesn't matter if they offer different items for sale). Customers now have two places to spend their cash instead of one. Assuming both places attract an equal amount of customers, in theory, the size of the customers for both market will be smaller, than if it was just one. The same goes for the amount of revenue they receive.
 
Roxxma said:
The current Haymarket is kind of gross. It's mostly leftovers that the supermarkets wouldn't buy from the New England Produce Center.
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Try it before you turn up your nose at it. If you were poor, you would have a different attitude to it.
 
You want a Greenway trolley? I'll give you a Greenway trolley, circa 1937:

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Workers clear shadow-casting, traffic-drawing buildings for the future Rose Kennedy Greenway, which will provide light and air to Boston, the City of the Future:

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Just a friendly reminder that the Greenway is in no way a restoration of the urban fabric that existed before the highway, just another modernist plaza wasteland that happens to have grass planted on it. With several lanes of traffic on either side...occasionally disrupted by an onramp...oh hell, it's still a highway.
 
God damn el tracks were cool. Boston pretty much dosen't have them anymore.
 
GW2500 said:
God damn el tracks were cool. Boston pretty much dosen't have them anymore.
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You see, the shadows cast by the El Tracks leveled an entire swath of the city which was promptly replaced by a highway for the safety of everyone in the area.
 
I'm 60, and though not old enough to have walked 1937 Boston, I did walk around 1965 Boston and rode all of the elevated lines. I also remember the old West End, which I would often see from the inbound elevated Green Line. It reminded me of an Italian village, all colorful and alive. The downtown shopping district was absolutely vibrant, clean and exciting.
 
^ You officially suck for being able to experience that (j/k, just envious).
 
I'm envious too!

The most tragic part is that we can be building contemporary West Ends today--it's all in the increment of buildings. The problem is we have an oblivious mayor and, thus, BRA who are actively working towards the polar opposite--consolidated parcels and megablocks.

This vague idea of "Boston's DNA" that our current Chief Planner, Kairos Shen, constantly refers to but conveniently never defines can be glimpsed here:

Charlie_mta said:
I'm 60, and though not old enough to have walked 1937 Boston, I did walk around 1965 Boston and rode all of the elevated lines. I also remember the old West End, which I would often see from the inbound elevated Green Line. It reminded me of an Italian village, all colorful and alive. The downtown shopping district was absolutely vibrant, clean and exciting.
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It can also be seen in today's Back Bay, South End, North End, Beacon Hill, Customs House District, Fort Point, Leather District, Chinatown, etc. See the pattern? Menino and Shen don't apparently. They've clearly mistaken Atlanta's DNA for ours.
 
The essential problem can't really be pinned on Menino & Co. though, tempting as it feels. Nowhere in the U.S. is experiencing development as fine-grained as the old West End. The closest equivalent anywhere in the world is a tiny island in Amsterdam, and it still looks somewhat cold and lifeless in photos. Nothing is going to be like those neighborhoods again without some economic incentive to build really fine-grained, small-parcel urban architecture, and without time to help it fill up with life.
 
Zoning.

If you zone a district, like the Seaport, for small footprints you'll have a district of small footprints. If you zone otherwise, you'll have otherwise.

By otherwise I mean mega-parcels that will host mega-stubs that can't exist profitably until conditions are Baby-Bear just right. In other words, Fan Pier.

If we had hundreds of small parcels instead of half a dozen huge ones the Seaport would would be well on its way now.

Maybe the whole world is wrong, CZ.
 
Would the small parcels get developed, or would developers balk at a risk factor that they feel is high because it's something they're not used to?

Could the zoning even get off the ground after lobbying from these people over such a concern?
 
I don't know, maybe I'm dreaming, but I'm assuming smaller parcels means lower risk, which means a lower barrier of entry, which means more developers can now participate, which means more buildings are built. Someone stop me if I'm wrong.

You zone for giant parcels that require a several-hundred million dollar investment and you're asking for...Atlanta.
 
The reality of current zoning and economics is one thing, then there's the reality of what we've learned from a couple thousand years of city building. Small parcels and mixed uses make virant cities, mega block don't. Its a ashame we don't/can't just go with what we already know works. Its sad.
 
I still don't get why you have to stand or sit near a six lane or highway ramp if you want shade. The whole "Don't complain about the Greenway, give the trees time to grow in!" argument falls flat when you see pictures like that.

The obsession with constant, inescapable sunlight is baffling. You'd think the city had a vampire problem or something.
 
Instead of stealing the chairs, I think it would be great if they all ended up under trees every day, to help send a message.
 
^ Nice idea, but what trees would you put them under?

Aren't the the trees really sculptural landscape elements to be looked at from afar --as from a moving car?

Artistic compositions growing out of shrubbery.

Many places, you can't even get under the trees.



Office-park landscaping.
 
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