Rose Kennedy Greenway

It doesn't do any of those things yet because it's not finished. Some of it is not even started.

The building edges you are all complaining about are all private property beyond the boundary of the Greenway. It will take some time for these owners (or their successors) to reorient or re-fa?ade their buildings. The elevated Artery has only been gone for about two years.
 
Okay, I just want to ask all of the complainers and pessimists out there, where were you when they were holding all of the design meetings? Task force meetings?

The Greenway looks bad now because a) it's still a construction site; b) there's a lack of critical mass (people, businesses oriented for the Greenway).

ablarc - if you recall, a lot of the original street grid (circa 1950) has been restored. Also, the ramps and retaining walls you mentioned will be built upon with the YMCA, Boston Museum, and the New Center, as I've stated before. In addition, the city's Crossroads Initiative will help integrate the Greenway into the abutting neighborhoods. I'd like to know exactly what you would have done differently in terms of layout? I love your eternal pessimism.

The Greenway corridor is an evolutionary process that we can all shape...just go to those public meetings and speak up instead of complaining about what could have been.
 
Shrubberies and chain link fences are our friends. I love me some low-maintenance plantings, and mulch, you can never have too much mulch. All great cities have a healthy surfeit of mulch.

I've walked up and down the Greenway a number of times and the thing that pisses me off more than the office park landscaping is the incredibly half-assed quality of the construction. The brick sidewalks and stone pavers have gaps and bumps all over the place. It's very easy to tell which sidewalks were done by someone who cares--such as the walk in front of the Intercontinental, and which were done by the Turnpike Authority. It really does make one ponder the quality of the tunnel construction when they can't even get a brick sidewalk right.
 
^ I agree. The Turnpike Authority really screwed this one up. But the designs were the results of raucous neighborhood groups as well as the dim-witted highway planners at the MTA.
 
What I would have done differently:

As a minimum, the two parallel roadways didn't have to be exactly parallel, the same distance apart, through the whole corridor. The gun barrel effect could have been eliminated by varying the distance between the roadways, and even combining the two at some locations into a two-way roadway on one side of the greenway.

Another measure to eliminate the corridor effect would be to allow a few 3 or 4 story buildings to create a density connection spanning the corridor and connecting the two sides. This would have been especially effective if the new buildings had been strategically placed to hide the demolished ends of the old buildings.

And of course, a light rail line connecting North and South Stations. Some have said the location of the highway entrance and exit ramps makes this impossible, but I disagree. Short flyovers structures for the light rail over the ramp tunnel portals, or short underpasses for the light rail under the top of the ramps, would help.
 
briv said:
What a horrible fiasco. Our grand Greenway is nothing more than green trickle running between six lanes of traffic. Its a glorified median strip and does none of the things it was promised to do-- i.e. knit neighborhoods back together, provide Boston with a "world-class public space", etc. And what a fantastic view it affords of all those buildings that were mutilated to make way for the elevated expressway. They look like the ruins of a war zone. Lovely.
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What "neighborhoods" are there to be knit back together? The old West End with the North End? Scollay Square with the North End? This seems to be nostalgia for a city long disappeared.

Having a world class public space is not exactly a high standard. That's because there are very few truly world class public spaces being created in the middle of established cities these days. (Except maybe in Dubai where they have more money than God.)

After tearing down the seismically unsafe elevated structure, the new Embarcadero in San Francisco is a nice vista and promenade/boulevard, but that's as far as it goes.

IMO, a successful creation of a neighborhood-knitting green space after tearing down an elevated roadway was Octavia Boulevard in San Francisco. But that was a small project. (Octavia won the excellence in urban highway design award for 2006.)
octaviablvd(1).jpg


It took San Francisco 15 years to agree on the new boulevard that replaced this elevated freeway.
SFCentralArtery.jpg


As for building an urban cityscape on top of a tunneled highway that was burrowed next to the ocean, the building costs get to be rather expensive, plus you add more costs on an already extremely expensive highway project. I don't see Menino and Boston taxpayers clamoring for higher city taxes so a world class public space can be built. As I recall, Menino didn't even want to pay for the upkeep of the greenspace that is being put in.

I read a lot of boitching and kvetching in this thread, but how many have cited an example from elsewhere of what should have been done, or given specifics about how they would have done it differently.
 
stellarfun said:
I read a lot of boitching and kvetching in this thread, but how many have cited an example from elsewhere of what should have been done, or given specifics about how they would have done it differently.
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Not mine, but here are some ideas and examples that were put out during the planning process:

Beyond the Big Dig
 
Maybe it's just lipstick on a pig, but for what it's worth I walked by this section of park:

img6220dr6.jpg

and the stone they used is really purty. Anyone know what it is?
 
Granite? Slate? Definitely not limestone (Mandarin Oriental-style?). It looks pretty good.
 
first post - yay! i've been reading this site for a while now, and really love seeing what my beloved city will have to offer in the near future..

onto a comment.

as inherently awkward as the space looks right now, think back to what the city looked like when they were still building the tunnels. you wanna talk Armageddon? yeah, we already survived that. throw a few buildings on the greenway, and once local businesses see that its worth investing in the area, I think we'll all be pleasantly surprised at what happens. also - development on the waterfront has yet to really have any meaning in terms of people hangin out bein groovy in public spaces.

if nothing else remember - the artery tore Boston a new @$$shole - that takes time to heal ;)
 
Hey, remember that open air market under the artery? I remember that and am wondering if maybe on of the Greenway parcels could go to building a new open-air market. Or maybe that's already happening. That would be really cool, and would attract even more people to the Greenway.
 
What are they gonna call the Greenway during winter, the Grayway?
 
LeTaureau said:
That stone looks like granite, or maybe gneiss to me.
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I agree. Perhaps granite that has been partially metamorphosed and is on its way to being gneiss, if there is such a distinction.
 
Closer view of the stone.
_0704280141S.jpg


Even more trees for Fidelity's forest-in-a-driveway.
_0704280148S.jpg


Meanwhile, the poor relation down the street gets by on scraps.
_0704280225.jpg

Rich park, poor park. Very Dickensian.
 
Fidelity had a golden opportunity to have made a real gem of a park here. The themes of the park were so easy, right in front of them... aquarium, nautical, sea creatures, harbor! A cool sculpture garden(imagine a humpback whale sculpture balanced on a pedestal with the aquarium/city framed in the background or a scaled down version of a tugboat or fishing boat plopped down in the park), imaginative seating shaped from sea creatures, a simple water feature, etc. Nice photo ops and interesting sights for thousands of parents and kids who visit the aquarium. I know it isn't finished and maybe there will be some nautical elements included. I love trees and damn, these trees are awesome, Fidelity spent some big bucks here, but in this case.... "you can't see the aquarium for the trees!!"
 
statler said:
Maybe it's just lipstick on a pig, but for what it's worth I walked by this section of park:

img6220dr6.jpg

and the stone they used is really purty. Anyone know what it is?
Click to expand...

It's nice to see that they found the shrubbery, and placed it here, beside the other shrubbery, only slightly higher, so we get the two-level effect with a little path running down the middle. A PATH! A PATH!
 
What?

"Fidelity missed a chance here"?

Fidelity owns the park land in front of the Aquarium? Fidelity Investments?
 
Joe_Schmoe said:
It's nice to see that they found the shrubbery, and placed it here, beside the other shrubbery, only slightly higher, so we get the two-level effect with a little path running down the middle. A PATH! A PATH!
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With.... a HERRING! :lol:
 
atlantaden said:
Fidelity had a golden opportunity to have made a real gem of a park here. The themes of the park were so easy, right in front of them... aquarium, nautical, sea creatures, harbor! A cool sculpture garden(imagine a humpback whale sculpture balanced on a pedestal with the aquarium/city framed in the background or a scaled down version of a tugboat or fishing boat plopped down in the park), imaginative seating shaped from sea creatures, a simple water feature, etc. Nice photo ops and interesting sights for thousands of parents and kids who visit the aquarium. I know it isn't finished and maybe there will be some nautical elements included. I love trees and damn, these trees are awesome, Fidelity spent some big bucks here, but in this case.... "you can't see the aquarium for the trees!!"
Click to expand...
Something like this would have been a good starting point, with the grass replaced by water to make a shallow wading pool like the Frog Pond.

_0704140021S.jpg
 
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