Shreve, Crump & Low Redevelopment | 334-364 Boylston Street | Back Bay

Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

Those in opposition to Druker's proposal to demolish these buildings will holding a short ? hour demonstration in front of the Shreves Building (corner of Arlington and Boylston) at 10AM this Wednesday, Dec. 10th. Placards saying ?Save the Shreves Building? will be available, but we encourage people to make their own home-made signs too. The media is being alerted.

Attend if you can.
 
Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

The demonstration occurred today. There were probably 20 maybe 30 people there. May have been more if we had better weather. Pamphlets were handed out to passerbys explaining the situation and providing contact info for the mayor, local citiy councilors and John Palmieri of the BRA. People passing through were supportive of the cause and signatures were collected. I did not personally hear anyone voice opposition to preservation.

Had a pleasant brief conversation with Shirley Kressel. Among others present were Boston needs a Shake Shack and Diana Eckstein. Sorry Boston needs a Shake Shack that we didn't have a chance to talk. Representative of the Herald, Metro and Back Bay Sun were present. The Herald was taking pics and I think the Metro was too.
 
Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

I think it is really great that people here have taken action on something; cynics always complain that people talk but don't act. I am so guilty of that.

While I am ambivalent about this project, specifically, I appreciate the time you all took to do something, anything, to make our city better.
 
Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

From today's Herald:

The Boston Herald said:
Shreve building a ?jewel,? say Back Bay protesters
By Thomas Grillo | Thursday, December 11, 2008 | http://www.bostonherald.com | Business & Markets

Preservationists rallied around the former Shreve Crump & Low building yesterday, seeking to save the historic Back Bay structure from the wrecking ball.

?People all over the world are telling the city to save this building, but those pleas are being ignored,? said Tony Fusco, president of the Art Deco Society of Boston.

Two dozen protesters held signs in front of 330 Boylston St. to urge Hub developer Ronald Druker and Mayor Thomas M. Menino to reconsider a plan to tear down the five-story building and replace it with a taller office building.

The Boston Redevelopment Authority approved the $120 million project in October. But some residents petitioned the city to give the building landmark status.

The Boston Landmarks Commission rejected the petition, saying the building has no significance ?beyond the local level.?

On Tuesday, the protesters filed an appeal in Suffolk Superior Court, asking a judge to block demolition of the building while the case is heard.

Menino is unsympathetic to any effort to delay the project?s progress. ?This project has gone through the landmark process twice,? he said. ?We have extended ourselves and they?re still not satisfied.?

Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/business/general/view.bg?articleid=1138304

From Today's Metro:
The Boston Metro said:
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Rally held to save building

Supporters of the cause to save a 104-year-old Back Bay building of unique architectural style took to the streets yesterday, railing against the city?s decision to allow for its demolition.

One month after the Boston Landmarks Commission denied landmark status for The Shreve?s Building ? whose Art Deco facade and copper cornice loom over the intersection of Boylston and Arlington streets ? the group publicly expressed its displeasure.


?In a city as preservation-minded as Boston is, we are actually surprised our efforts to save this building have come to this,? said Tony Fusco, president of the Art Deco Society of Boston.


The Nov. 10 BLC decision was its second such ruling on the building. An appeal has been filed in Suffolk Superior Court and international Art Deco experts have weighed in, calling a possible demolition ?a horrible mistake.?
The building is one of three on the fringe of the Public Garden that incorporate such a style.


?From the Public Garden you see Boston as it was years ago with very little change and I think it?s important to keep that,? said Dave Friend, a Back Bay resident for 30 years who led the demonstration.


Fusco and Friend said they would welcome an agreement with developer Ronald Druker to keep the facade in front of Druker?s proposed ?opulent? eight-story office complex.


Tony Lee
LINK


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Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

I was able to get a good friend of mine to write an article about this building (he's a copywriter) that he's going to shop to some of the media outlets.

Please private message me if you are familiar with this project... there are some details that we're not sure about, such as the date the building was built and some of the other details regarding art-deco and beaux-arts movements. We filled in the blanks as best we could from information we gleaned, but neither of us are too well versed on these architecturally movements.

I think the article is fantastic. It puts in regular language why this building is important, and it humanizes the property - very, very important in public relations. I can't post it here yet (because then no media outlets will want to re-publish it).

Private message me if you're interested in helping out with some of the details. Right now it's too long, we're working on cutting it (it's 3 pages, needs to be no more than 2 for publications)
 
Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

Is this the building directly across from the red brick Shreve, Crump & Low building? I just started working in the John Hancock Tower and when I've been strolling around the neighborhood I've been trying to figure out which building is the one they're planning on destroying.
 
Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

Other end of the block.....the SCL building to be demoed is catty-corner (across Boylston and Arlington) to the Public Garden.
 
Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

To clarify, the endangered building is the former location of Shreve Crump & Low. Not their current location, a block away.
 
Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

Is this the building directly across from the red brick Shreve, Crump & Low building? I just started working in the John Hancock Tower and when I've been strolling around the neighborhood I've been trying to figure out which building is the one they're planning on destroying.
ShreveCrumpLowbldg.jpg
 
Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

Thanks for the clarification everyone.
 
Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

From the BBJ article "Waiting out the Big Chill" --

There have been few instances when building a commercial and retail building has been a bad idea in Boston?s Back Bay. Just ask Ronald Druker, who built the Heritage on the Garden and Atelier 505. He planned to start construction on a boutique, 221,000-square-foot building at the corner of Boylston and Arlington streets. Druker, of The Druker Co. Ltd., said last February he would fill the building with wealth management firms, hedge funds and financial institutions and hoped to charge the highest rents in the city. That was before the market collapse.

Druker is continuing to work on plans but, until he can secure tenants for at least 50 percent of the building, it will remain a project on paper.

?We?re not bigger than the market,? Druker said. ?We need a tenant and we need a capital market which is viable.?

. . .

Druker, half-jokingly, said he would play tennis and spend time with his grandchildren while he waits for the market to recover.

?These times, right now, are as bad, as complicated as anything I?ve experienced in my 40 years of working,? he said. ?And I have no idea what the depth of this will be.?

Link
 
Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

Ronald Druker seeks say on Shreve building
By Greg Turner
Monday, January 12, 2009

Hub developer Ronald Druker is moving to help thwart an appeal of a city decision to deny landmark status for the former Shreve, Crump & Low building.

A lawyer for the Druker Co. filed a motion last week to intervene as a defendant in the Suffolk Superior Court case.

A group of Back Bay residents filed the appeal Dec. 9 after the Boston Landmarks Commission rejected their petition to preserve the 104-year-old art deco Shreve building.

The appeal is blocking Druker?s $120 million plan to demolish the 330 Boylston St. structure and replace it with a new office and retail building.

?While the Boston Landmarks Commission will act to defend its decision, (Druker Co.?s) interest in the property and the development is not adequately represented by the (commission), which has no interest in the property or in the development,? Kevin O?Flaherty, an attorney at Goulston & Storrs, wrote in Thursday?s motion.

Druker was not available for comment.

Diana Eckstein, the Back Bay lawyer leading the appeal, will challenge Druker?s bid to join the case.

?He?s hardly an unbiased party when it comes to determining the historical significance of this building,? said Eckstein. ?He?s the one that wants to tear it down.?

The Boston Redevelopment Authority approved Druker?s project in October and Mayor Thomas M. Menino supports it.


Link
 
Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

Here's a legal update:

Druker and his legal team filed a motion to intervene as a defendant in the case. The petitioners filed a motion in opposition, stating that this is an administrative law appeal regarding the BLC decision, and whether they adhered to their own processes and procedures, and not a dispute regarding Druker's proposed development. The Superior Court judge decided to allow Druker to intervene and he is now a defendant in the case along with the BLC.

Now Druker has filed a motion to transfer the case out of the Superior Court and into the Permit Session of the Land Court. Essentially, Druker is trying to hijack the case, just as a lot of people suspected he would.
 
Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

Here's a legal update:

Druker and his legal team filed a motion to intervene as a defendant in the case. The petitioners filed a motion in opposition, stating that this is an administrative law appeal regarding the BLC decision, and whether they adhered to their own processes and procedures, and not a dispute regarding Druker's proposed development. The Superior Court judge decided to allow Druker to intervene and he is now a defendant in the case along with the BLC.

Now Druker has filed a motion to transfer the case out of the Superior Court and into the Permit Session of the Land Court. Essentially, Druker is trying to hijack the case, just as a lot of people suspected he would.

Druker is pond scum.
 
Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

Today at 2pm, the Land Court will hold a hearing regarding the BLC and Druker's motion to dismiss the ongoing lawsuit filed against them to stop the demolition of the Arlington Building.
 
Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

Goddammit, why doesn't the recession kill the ones you hate?

DIE SO FILENE'S MAY LIVE!
 
Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

Itchy posted this on another site recently. Since he hasn'y been around here in a while, I thought I would post it here:

Itchy said:
Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Boston Mayor Tom Menino: Counter-Revolutionary

NEW YORK, New York -- Boston is a spirited city, but it has a few problems. Here's an interesting story about Beantown that spins three of the city's biggest problems together:



1)
Firstly, the city has never really recovered from its brush with "urban renewal" in the 1960s, which saw about 1/3 of the downtown core of the city demolished to make way for ... (you'll love this!) ... an elevated highway in the middle of the city; a "development" of two apartment buildings with big, pointless lawns (left), parking lots, Brutalist government buildings on a vast empty plaza and a hospital building, which now take up a large chunk of downtown and look like a slice of Moscow on the Charles; and a second highway cutting through the city center. So much of Boston, despite its fame as an historic, colonial city, looks like shit.



2) A second problem is that Boston thinks of itself as a small city. New York is the closest big city, but Boston obviously can't compete on size. So it gets Napoleon where it can, and picks fights over insignificant thinks like baseball. Where it counts, Boston thinks very small, very unambitiously. The Big Dig (which did nothing more than sink a half-mile of roadway) aside, the biggest the city wants to think is when it builds a branch library in the Mattapan neighborhood.




This may be due to the self-esteem issues of the city. Just 15 years ago, Boston was the headquarters of at least 6 substantial regional, national and international banks: BayBank, Bank of Boston, Fleet Bank, Shawmut, First Boston, and State Street.

BayBank and BoB merged, as did Fleet and Shawmut. Then the two combined banks merged. Then Bank of America, of North Carolina, swallowed them all. Nazi gold looters Credit Suisse ate up First Boston. State Street remains, but is rumored to be a target for bigger banks, perhaps the one that helped Boris Yeltsin steal international development money.

Moreover, local industrial giant Gillette was bought by Ohio's Proctor & Gamble a few years back. Mergers generally aren't very kind to the hometown of the company that gets eaten, and lots of Boston companies have been eaten in the last 20 years. Meanwhile, the hot new life sciences and tech companies in the area are generally based in the suburbs, where large floorplans (the better for labwork) are easier to come by, and cheaper.

For whatever reason, Boston seems to be dead-set on being a small city. Even though much of its area riiiight outside the city center is decidedly suburban -- and not exactly thriving economically -- the city stubbornly refuses to build these areas out more densely, with areas a mile from the city center as densely built as the outskirts of Helena, MT. That results in the area's 6 million people sprawling out to Rhode Island and New Hampshire. Boston is the big city that wants to be a county seat.

3) Mayor Tom Menino is the third big problem the city has. Boston is known for its role in fomenting the American Revolutionary War. John Hancock, Sam Adams and Paul Revere sparked the independence movement in this onetime hotbed of democracy. And yet its politics are orders of magnitude less democratic than that of other US cities (e.g., New York). The mayor has almost unchecked, arbitrary say on whatever he wants, neutered City Council be damned. (Here and here are the latest stories about the man.) And Hizzonah Tom "Turkmenbashi" Menino has almost never seen a real challenger in his nearly 20 years in power.

In a city known for its high level of education, Menino appears to be functionally moronic, to boot.

Why such political malaise? Take some machine politics, add voter apathy, and subtract any reform-minded outsiders or businessmen who might give the mayor a run for his money. (Note to Mitt Romney: If you care about doing good for the state you live in more than you do about being an attractive version of Rush Limbaugh, run for mayor of Boston.)



Guess who's in charge!

With those three elements in place, the story, as promised, goes like this:

Given its small-town mindset and autocratic mayor, it may come as no surprise that real estate development in Boston is controlled by a cabal of developers close to the mayor.



One of them, Ronald Druker, builds lots of garbage "landscrapers." That means buildings that are very long while at the same time not very tall. Sort of like fat-kid buildings, or choad buildings. This is okay, though, because Mayor Menino wants to make love to Mr. Druker (or perhaps he actually does make love to him), and nobody's opinion about what happens in Boston matters but the mayor's.




Enter developer is Donald Chiofaro. He's a bit of an ugly duckling because mayor is said to hate him.

Both of these developers now have projects they're proposing. Mr. Druker wants to raze a 100+-year-old building across from one of Boston's most famous, historic and photographed spots, the Public Garden. It was the first public park in the country. The Arlington Building he wants to raze is considered by architectural historians around the world to be a unique example of Beaux-Arts neoclassicism mixing with a nascent Art Deco -- the first beginnings of one of America's most original and successful styles. A group of neighborhood supporters and architecture fans (full disclosure: I am among them) have tried to prevent the destruction of the building.


Today



Tomorrow?


Mr. Druker, in the best tradition of Boston razing its beautiful old buildings to build shit, wants to put up a "landscraper" that he promises will be the "most expensive office space in Boston." It will also serve as a parking garage for hundreds of cars. He argues that he is compelled to build this new building because the Art Deco building is in a state of disrepair and can't be used. It is probably no coincidence that he has owned this building for years and coincidentally didn't invest in its upkeep; nor is it a coincidence that he raised rents on his tenants to kick them out in a recession, later saying that he "couldn't find" any tenants after the rents were raised to exorbitant levels.

Mr. Chiofaro, on the other hand, recently bought a parking garage near the harbor. This parking garage was built in the 1980s, when the area was right next to the elevated highway and no one wanted to invest in an office or residential structure in the middle of an exhaust cloud.



Today, Mr. Chiofaro wants to build a set of skyscraper residences on the site of the parking garage. The towers would be near the park that has replaced the elevated highway. What's this about a park, you ask? Rather than sew up the old neighborhood that was razed in the '60s by allowing stores or homes on the area, a park was built, and the city also bought up lots of adjacent land to have as more parks. Mayor Menino is currently determining what height limits there will be for buildings around the park, since wee, small little Boston can't have shadows over any grassy areas. But since there are few buildings around the park that aren't parking garages, there's little reason to go to the park. And since the only scenery around the park is more parkland, it's a pretty boring, standard park. So it's almost always empty (see below).



Mr. Chiofaro's idea seems pretty good. Boston has almost no residential skyscrapers, and building a few would meet strong existing demand (at least not during economic collapse). It would also help bolster Boston's wimpy skyline to supply a more cosmopolitan, big-city feel that might help attract businesses and more residents from out of state looking to live the city life. And luckily, Mr. Chiofaro's development doesn't involve destroying any of Boston's history or aesthetic ensemble.

Mr. Druker's idea, on the other hand, is atrocious. He wants to raze a beautiful, landmark structure (in a historic zone designated by the National Historic Register), and put up a squat landscraper in its place. I'd say that Mr. Druker's proposal belongs in a suburban industrial park, but that's what Mayor Menino seems to want Boston to be.

Of course, this being Turkmeniston, the mayor has been pulling for his pal Druker's little piece of "urban renewal" while impartially and diplomatically telling the Boston Herald that Chiofaro's project has the chances of "an 80-degree day in January" of getting built. What do you think will happen, dear reader? Well, we're dealing with an autocracy run by an incompetent fool. Since 1776, Boston has gone from one of the largest cities of the New World to a sorry little suburb. It has few scruples about wiping out its historic and architectural integrity. And it's ruled by a man with Turkmenbashi's iron (or gold-plated?) fist, though arguably without the intelligence it takes to run a Central Asian satrapy into the sand.

I hate to sound pessimistic, but here's my likely outcome (at least there aren't any shadows on the lawns):

turkmenistan113.jpg

Original blog post can be found here: http://walterdurantyreport.blogspot.com/2009/03/boston-mayor-tom-menino-one-of-countrys.html
 
Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

Lets elect that guy mayor.
 
Re: Shreve, Crump & Low bldng may be replaced w/ new develop

Well that was refreshing. I've been avoiding this site because the discourse seems to have been co-opted by clench-cheeked old nannies.... the same which enable this mayoral totalitarianism. But I would gladly support a Mayor Itchy, because he gives me hope (or has that phrase been copyrighted?)
 

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