The Beverly (née Merano) (Parcels 1B & 1C) | Bulfinch Triangle | West End

These sections of the CAT were built with the supports in the walls for these buildings. They were always going to be this. I dont think this is even the problem with the area. The residential part of the west end is the problem, and the wacky street grid that throughout the west end is basically a mess no matter where you are makes it worse. Theres places for height here but it wont fix the road layout. These new buildings have ground floor retail and affordable housing I think they do what they were intended for preftty well. Causeway is being filled in and I think the shift in focus may turn peoples attention to the area and hopefully theyll start thinking of smart ways to improve the street grid.
 
DZH22 said:
IMG_8881 by David Z, on Flickr
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I think this looks pretty good minus the banner. They are the low rises that give the step back effect to where youll see the govt garage towers behind them coming down the zakim, and then the causeway/north station/garden garage towers on the right. Lovejoy wharf also adds an extreme amount to the area as it is a part of the overall package and you wont just see one building each alone but all as a part of the greater picture.
 
You make a good case for the 'cheerleader effect' (don't feel great about the analogy but it fits) of the buildings in the Triangle: none of them are standouts up close but collectively they're inoffensive and doing their jobs. Every city is filled with these kinds of buildings, so let's fill fill fill.

I'm satisfied with it as a response because we can't be mad at everything all the time, and there are bigger fish to fry. But it's actually not a direct response to the charge. At some point you're going to get closer to these than that flattering angle and distance, and you'll be reminded that these designers are just not giving us their best efforts, and you'll wonder why they couldn't be better than just good enough.
 
Beton Brut said:
Actually, they're just garbage.
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I remember this area in the 60's and 70's when this area was nothing but garbage! Dark, dirty, the overhead train blocking most of the light, few people on the streets unless there was a game at the old garden. This area is absolutely beautiful compared to what it was. I'll take this area today any day of the week over what was there.
 
Has anyone spent any significant time over there recently that can comment on the street-level vibrancy on non-game days? There is a lot of new housing, etc. and was wondering if it it less of a ghost town over there now.
 
Czervik.Construction said:
Has anyone spent any significant time over there recently that can comment on the street-level vibrancy on non-game days? There is a lot of new housing, etc. and was wondering if it it less of a ghost town over there now.
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Hard to say since the closing of the sidewalks, plus the forcing of all the commuter rail-bound people onto the street to get to the subway, makes the whole area chaotic. Causeway still feels dirty and seedy, and other than the new buildings on the northern end of it, it feels pretty much the same. And, other than the Tavern in the Square, the new resi projects didn't add a lot of retail or restaurants. Once the "Hub" project is actually finished, I think things will really start to feel different, but not until then.

The area behind Lovejoy, headed toward the locks, is similarly about the same, but it definitely makes a difference having the Lovejoy project and all the landscaping just from an aesthetics perspective. The State Police Station is a big blight, if anything just because they need to repave their dead end road and parking area, which currently feels very haphazard and with a "Im a govt official so I'll park however I want" feel. I'm always surprised at the amount of foot traffic headed over the locks... I think the biggest and best project for this whole area was the Paul Revere Park - that really made a huge difference and generates a lot more activity, I would bet, on the south side of the locks.
 
cadetcarl said:
You make a good case for the 'cheerleader effect' (don't feel great about the analogy but it fits) of the buildings in the Triangle: none of them are standouts up close but collectively they're inoffensive and doing their jobs. Every city is filled with these kinds of buildings, so let's fill fill fill.

I'm satisfied with it as a response because we can't be mad at everything all the time, and there are bigger fish to fry. But it's actually not a direct response to the charge. At some point you're going to get closer to these than that flattering angle and distance, and you'll be reminded that these designers are just not giving us their best efforts, and you'll wonder why they couldn't be better than just good enough.
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I was going to share my pictures of what you see going over the zakim but theyre too dated at this point. In person though it looks good as you approach the city/tunnell. Causeway st imo looks much better filled in now, but as the other poster said the hub is a major construction site kinda leaving a few other things in chaos at the moment. Once the hub is done its going to be great.

Its also true that these dont add a ton of retail which I think they should have, but its not finished. Either way its kind of a pass through area now to get to the hub. Which brings me to this next point. Haverhill st needs trees...bad. I dont know why they left it completely barren but its unacceptable. You dont need retail everywhere you look, but dont leave the pass through as blank concrete sidewalks, brick buildings, and no trees whatsoever. Idk what thats all about but that HAS to be addressed. Besides that its lookin pretty good so far, much better than it was, and the hub on causeway is really going to be huge. Cant wait.
 
This whole area is pretty impressive in a way. The development in this area alone definitely exceeds that of nearly all New England/Northeast/Midwest smaller cities. Of course it's not as perfect as we'd like but there's nothing even close to this in New Haven or Worcester or a ton of other places.
 
BarbaricManchurian said:
This whole area is pretty impressive in a way. The development in this area alone definitely exceeds that of nearly all New England/Northeast/Midwest smaller cities. Of course it's not as perfect as we'd like but there's nothing even close to this in New Haven or Worcester or a ton of other places.
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Ok, but to be fair, that's arguably not a very high bar.
 
Well, that means there's a pretty short list of cities that have matched or exceeded what's going on just in this immediate area. Probably NYC, Toronto, DC, LA, SF, Seattle, maybe a few others, but this is just to put things into perspective, the scale of urban development is definitely world-class under this lens. This is probably better than anything happening in Brazil, for example (although existing Sao Paulo urbanity is really fucking great). Or almost anywhere in Latin America, except perhaps Santiago and Mexico City. Only the top cities in Europe and North America and East Asia are really matching or exceeding. Almost all of America (and much more of Latin America than most think) is completely lacking in real urban placemaking development at any significant scale.
 
The Courtyard Boston Downtown/North Station by Marriott is now open. Room rates start at $391/night!
 
navigator4 said:
The Courtyard Boston Downtown/North Station by Marriott is now open. Room rates start at $391/night!
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"Start" at $391? Yikes. I know hotel rates are crazy in Boston but that seems extreme for a Marriott. If the rates start at nearly $400/night that means average rates must be a fair amount higher.
 
BosDevelop said:
"Start" at $391? Yikes. I know hotel rates are crazy in Boston but that seems extreme for a Marriott. If the rates start at nearly $400/night that means average rates must be a fair amount higher.
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May means graduation season. Hotel rooms are really scarce this month.
 
The buried artery putting limits on the height for the Merano and its neighbors is nice. I just wish the buildings had some better cornices.
 
Why do people go to meetings about tall buildings and voice their disdain meanwhile the thing that really matters...ground level, on haverhill st, is an absolute atrocity. Are there ground floor meetings you can go to? Lets get a jackhammer, some soil, and like 10 trees and that street will go from disaster to blending in. Hell Ill go there and do it myself over a couple weekends if they supply the trees. That street is a war crime as it is today. I get that its never going to be Newbury st, nobody expects that, although 1 store front wouldnt have killed anyone. Plant a couple trees for christ sake. All it has to be is not purely concrete and bricks with 0 signs of life, thats it its a pass through, plant some trees and forget about it.
 
Older pic but nice aerial.

96992682-47e4-421b-bf09-ccf2360f817f_image.jpg
 
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