Rose Kennedy Greenway

[AmericanFolkLegend]

^Note the structure on the right side of that rendering. That's the Boston Museum. So this park will basically be over highway ramps for the foreseeable future.

 

[Beton Brut]

Isn't it time to demolish the low-rise portion of Marketplace Center?

 

[Justin7]

Why the hell are there four lanes between this parcel and the one next to it?

Park looks nice, assuming the fountain will work.

 

[Arborway]

Why the hell are there four lanes between this parcel and the one next to it?

Because Boston under the Menino administration believes transportation is about moving cars, not people.

 

[statler]

Did the Menino administration really have that much say in the street layout?

If anything, the MTA should shoulder most of the blame here.

 

[pelhamhall]

Because Boston under the Menino administration believes transportation is about moving cars, not people.

Please explain the difference?

Reducing automotive gridlock improves the lives of pedestrians, bikers and the public transit users that have to walk to/from the stops, or that take the bus.

Automotive gridlock (with the ensuing noise and pollution) does not improve a city's downtown in any manner. For all the so-called "Greenway" and the Big Dig got wrong, you can't argue that driving around downtown Boston is easier, with quick traffic-lite-timed funnels down into the tunnels and off the streets. Walking around Boston is much nicer without the constantly clogged side streets.

 

[statler]

I used to work in the Financial District with it's maze of one way, crooked and narrow streets. It was a breeze to walk around.
I currently work in the West End with it 3-6 lane streets (i.e. Cambridge, New Chardon, Sudbury, etc) and high speed traffic. It is a pedestrian hell.

 

[Pierce]

Please explain the difference?

Reducing automotive gridlock improves the lives of pedestrians, bikers and the public transit users that have to walk to/from the stops, or that take the bus.

I'd say its exactly the opposite. A parking lot is much more conducive to pedestrian movement than an interstate.

 

[type001]

Whatever to Street vs Pedestrian traffic. Trying to encapsulate the best possible park within a 6 lane road = epic fail, whether or not the traffic is flowing or gridlock.

 

[tobyjug]

Whatever to Street vs Pedestrian traffic. Trying to encapsulate the best possible park within a 6 lane road = epic fail, whether or not the traffic is flowing or gridlock.

T-1,
I agree that it makes it more difficult. But I keep thinking back to Post Office Square. The surrounding roads there are many lanes wide. Traffic can be fast and/or dense, depending on the time of day. Yet it is a success.
For me the difference makers are the quality of the streetwall, which provides an attractive enclosure for the park, and the quality of the park itself.
My 2c.
Toby

 

[Beton Brut]

Kennedy was on point with this thought:

Remember, a park is defined by it's edges...

Enclosure, provided by low walls, ornamental fencing, plantings, and trees equates to a sense of restfulness and protection in an urban park. Most of the Greenway is defined by a lack of these features. More here.

 

[tobyjug]

I like that "traffic sewer" expression you hint at!

 

[Beton Brut]

Toilet humor is one of my gifts, Toby. I refer to my own neighborhood as New England's Litterbox.

 

[choo]

I do like the low rise walls on the ramp side, which will hopefully be covered by a building sometime soon. But walls would at least give it some definition, and not make it one fountain in a string of undefined "open space"

As for the design, I know the labyrinth is not to new, but go down to BC and check out their 9-11 memorial, its that same thing. A nice reflective space tho.

 

[bostonbred]

I been reading this for a LONG time now, but you guys don't get it. You gotta embrace the history. Living here ALL my life I know, IMHO, that if you put colonial re-enactors out here the place would have that many more people. See what I mean? You could have changing of the colonial guard, and hanging pirates, and George Washington and lots of people in costume. You forget IT ALL STARTED RIGHT HERE!!! If you build it, they will come!!!

 

[Beton Brut]

If you build it, they will come!!!

Some of us aren't interested in living in a theme park.

Those of us who are highly critical of the Greenway only want thoughtful, sustainable designs, durable, high quality finishes, and where possible, an excellent streetwall (as opposed to a median strip).

The Greenway is the sad result of non-designers engaging in design. Their preference for parks over buildings is the result of a cultural desire for a "corrective experience" after the failed urban renewal of the 1950s. The result is little more than an act of urban vandalism with a frosting of green.

 

[statler]

The Greenway is the sad result of non-designers engaging in design. Their preference for parks over buildings is the result of a cultural desire for a "corrective experience" after the failed urban renewal of the 1950s. The result is little more than an act of urban vandalism with a frosting of green.

The problem is that it is a continuation, rather that a correction, of the 1950's urban renewal ideals. They just changed the paved open spaces for grassy open spaces and called it an improvement.
The open spaces are still too undefined and inactive and the roads are still too wide and pedestrian unfriendly. We have learned nothing.

 

[bostonbred]

A. I've lived here all my life and read some history, so I know a thing or two too.

First, Boston is the BEST! It is the HUB!!! (in case you smart alec negative people missed that.)

B. History is the most important thing because we have the most of it in the whole country, and art too, and that should be our guide. The Revolution and the colonial days is the most important ASSET. What do ya do with assets? SELL THEM! That is what the history museum ought to have, like said above by the smarter posters.

Fianlly, you guys miss the big picture. Did you ever notice that the same sun that tans our skin bleaches our sheets?.

Which sets up the last and MOST IMPORTANT POINT: if you would just embrace the open space and put some history in it, there would be NO SHADOWS and alot of money in it for everyone, IMO. It would be a real GREENWAY then, ha, ha!

So think more Bulfinch, and clapboard. Maybe a big Sturbridge village with renactors and musicians playing colonial music. We did a big field trip there and you could see how this could be done.

There is a mystical quality to being born here that you can't explain to outsiders, but you should sell it. It defys explaining, which is the mystical part. But that's how you know. And as some of the other intelligent native Boston posters have written, all these are the important thing.

 

[choo]

^ if you want that live in plymouth plantation and go to the dress up in Concord and Lexington.

Boston needs (and for the most part has done a good job) of living with and using its history, while still growing as an active and important world city. That is key. Not some tourist theme park. I would prefer a 5000 box over an amish pasture on the greenway.

 

[bostonbred]

Trust me on this one. I'm Boston born and bred, so I know that the Amish played no significant role in Boston's history. I think you would have to go to what, Lancaster, PA for that. Still, you are entitled to your own view of history, however wrongheaded.