South Huntington Ave Infill and Small Projects

I heard that the Goddard House 201-221 S Huntington should be starting construction early next year.
 
Too bad... they should just tear down the stupid building, these turn of the century brick piles with cement detail are a dime a dozen. We've gotten more romantic than the maudlinness of the Romantic period about old stuff. Honestly, the entire west side of South Huntington would be a hell of a lot better if it were just bulldozed and rebuilt at a minimum of six stories.
 
FK4 said:
Too bad... they should just tear down the stupid building, these turn of the century brick piles with cement detail are a dime a dozen. We've gotten more romantic than the maudlinness of the Romantic period about old stuff. Honestly, the entire west side of South Huntington would be a hell of a lot better if it were just bulldozed and rebuilt at a minimum of six stories.
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Right, just like next door at the Home for Little Wanderers. Please tell me that you're being sarcastic...

Also, this project has a thread but it's over in "Design a Better Boston". Maybe a mod could move it here?
 
^No, I'm not being sarcastic. Why are we saving these buildings? There is nothing of any architectural merit here at all. Guess what? Not everything that's "old" needs to be saved. This area was developed as an institutional zone in the 1900s, and now is converting, finally, to residential. I already described above why I thought these buildings were not special. Just because something is big and brick and has some molding made out of cement does not make it special. These are tired, institutional buildings and saving them just increases cost and mucks up what could be a well-planned residential corridor.

We save too much in this city, only to wind up losing the real gems (e.g. the building on shattuck street - THAT is a building worth saving. Why? Because there aren't any others like it outside of Harvard med.)
 
JumboBuc said:
Right, just like next door at the Home for Little Wanderers. Please tell me that you're being sarcastic...
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Ironic that the very last post on that thread is from the poster you are arguing with...

FK4 said:
I live in jp and this piece of shit makes me sick every time I go by it. It is plastic hideousness at its worst. Low slung, mind numbing, sideways monolith orange turd. A true disgrace for this site.
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The quote above is why we need to save as much as possible in this city. We are replacing nice historical structures with diarrhea. Boston is losing its soul, 1 building at a time, with every travesty like this that is allowed to proceed.
 
FK4 said:
^No, I'm not being sarcastic. Why are we saving these buildings? There is nothing of any architectural merit here at all. Guess what? Not everything that's "old" needs to be saved. This area was developed as an institutional zone in the 1900s, and now is converting, finally, to residential. I already described above why I thought these buildings were not special. Just because something is big and brick and has some molding made out of cement does not make it special. These are tired, institutional buildings and saving them just increases cost and mucks up what could be a well-planned residential corridor.

We save too much in this city, only to wind up losing the real gems (e.g. the building on shattuck street - THAT is a building worth saving. Why? Because there aren't any others like it outside of Harvard med.)
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But any new building we get here will be even less "special". I'd take 1927 not-special over 2017 not-special any day. Just look at the project immediately next door, which is a perfect test case for this situation. You yourself called it a "piece of shit" and a "true disgrace". That's the sort of crap we'll get here if this building is torn down.

Preserving and converting the 1927 building and adding units in a new building next door is exactly the way it should be done.
 
^Two things can be true at once. I think we would have a hard time finding anyone who thought the plastic-faux-terracotta-paneled monstrosity attractive. Certainly, I don't.

I think in Boston, "historical" ends up being used in a one-size-fits-all fashion by bureaucratic agencies that prevent change even where change would be welcome. It's also used as a weapon by NIMBYs to prevent development. In the end, it also does not prevent the destruction of some true gems — again, like the marble building by HMS, which is a truly elegant structure.

And again, the fact that something is old — even if it's old and probably looks better than what would replace it — is not an argument for preserving it at all costs. These brick buildings on S Huntington certainly have a few flourishes typical of big structures of yesteryear, but they're actually not that nice at all... they look exactly like what they were built as: big, institutional buildings. They look tired, they are set back from the street, and they don't add anything other than a taste of run-of-the-mill 90-year-old architecture. Preserving them continues the bad urban policy of setting buildings back from the street, drives costs way up, and that means less money for affordability and good urban design.

I would much rather have a rational approach to preservation and a city with a design commission that actually forced developers to build things that didn't look sheathed in plastic. I would much prefer that money be spent on a taller building that was forced to look nice and sat right on the street, rather than forcing the preservation, costing millions, with a bunch of prefab panelling on the new stuff.

This corridor is dead because it was built to house hospitals and orphanages, and it will remain so until aggressive moves are put into place that change the character completely. Having lived here for 10 years, and the other side of the Muddy for most of my preceding life, I would like to see good development happen. As it stands, we are not gonna get that, not even close.
 
Spotted cladding going up on this today. Looks to be hand-laid terracotta panels! Delightfully unexpected. I'll try and grab a photo on my commute tomorrow.
 
Also worth noting is that they pulled the barriers from the street in front of 101 S Huntington. Looks like they're just about done!
 
Construction to begin soon on Goddard House.... Let's see what retail moves into this up and coming Huntington Corridor.
 
That white terracotta looks really nice - much better than I would've imagined.
 
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