The Bon | 1260 Boylston Street | Fenway

datadyne007 said:
This is a good post, but you actually left out the most important part about gay clubs. It's not just about the neighborhood being safe. The club itself is a safe haven for LGBTQ+ people to be or discover who they are.

If anyone is interested about what gay clubs mean to us members of the community, read the quotes from the patrons of Pulse that fateful night.

Machine closing down is a big deal. Boston is a highly liberal, allegedly accepting city, yet gay life in Boston is practically nonexistent. There is no gay village. There are hardly any gay clubs (and now one fewer). There are hardly any gay bars. Boston has never been able to shake its puritanical roots. My friends from Toronto, Chicago, NYC, Montreal are all shocked how pathetic Boston's gay scene is, despite our billing as all accepting and "progressive."
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It’s shocking how quickly the gay scene in Boston has been marginalized in the face of development, or maybe it shouldn’t be. The city of West Hollywood goes so far as to consider how new development impacts the local unique culture. Not surprisingly, the gay scene continues to expand in Weho rather than fight for its survival in the name of progress.
 
bdurden said:
It’s shocking how quickly the gay scene in Boston has been marginalized in the face of development, or maybe it shouldn’t be. The city of West Hollywood goes so far as to consider how new development impacts the local unique culture. Not surprisingly, the gay scene continues to expand in Weho rather than fight for its survival in the name of progress.
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Well, something of an apples and oranges comparison.

The gay scene dominates West Hollywood and its politics. West Hollywood, though is a tiny subset of Greater LA.

The gay scene has never been more than a footnote in Boston. We are a gay friendly location, but LGBTQ issues have never had a serious (and certainly not dominant) influence on Boston politics.
 
JeffDowntown said:
We are a gay friendly location, but LGBTQ issues have never had a serious (and certainly not dominant) influence on Boston politics.
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..... except when, for many years, St Paddy's Day was approaching!
 
JohnAKeith said:
It here.

It meaning the PNF for 1252-1270 Boylston Street, Scape Student Housing, or, The Ramrod dorms.

http://www.bostonplans.org/getattachment/ddafd84a-d058-4a39-bb4f-a32fc1fcea9d
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oh my gahd. I snorted when I read that.

But to add to the chorus, the Ramrod and Machine are not what they used to be. It always sucks to loose queer spaces, but all the real leather and rubber men in Boston go to parties like Fascination at Jacques Downstairs, or ship out to the Providence Eagle now.
 
datadyne007 said:
This is a good post, but you actually left out the most important part about gay clubs. It's not just about the neighborhood being safe. The club itself is a safe haven for LGBTQ+ people to be or discover who they are.

If anyone is interested about what gay clubs mean to us members of the community, read the quotes from the patrons of Pulse that fateful night.

Machine closing down is a big deal. Boston is a highly liberal, allegedly accepting city, yet gay life in Boston is practically nonexistent. There is no gay village. There are hardly any gay clubs (and now one fewer). There are hardly any gay bars. Boston has never been able to shake its puritanical roots. My friends from Toronto, Chicago, NYC, Montreal are all shocked how pathetic Boston's gay scene is, despite our billing as all accepting and "progressive."
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Agreed completely. Also, this is the BPDA public meeting on April 22nd: http://www.bostonplans.org/news-cal...4/22/1252-1270-boylston-street-public-meeting

There's a facebook event circling around to get attention about Machine closing so hopefully it can get a big crowd.
 
So are they letting Baseball Tavern stay or is it going. These drawings show two different things.
 
This reads as if it was designed by two separate teams that spent little time working with each other.

The base utilizes raw/precast concrete and glass with awkward cantilevers and angles to accommodate the increase in the size of the floorplate above, while the residential section is a mix of brick, glass, and copper to "respect the context." In the renders in the appendix, the residential section even appears as if it is on concrete stilts -- granted it is a bird's eye view and not a street level one, where it is less noticeable, but noticeable nonetheless. While most buildings use this material and design difference to 'ease' the heaviness of the building or provide some visual interest to pedestrians, or something of that sort, the difference here is almost too apparent to me and it doesn't really work IMO.

On a positive note, I'm excited for the copper. And the design of the windows, while a copied trend I'm rather tired of at this point, could be executed well here, so long as the precast brick panels aren't jarring (one of few renders I've seen where the expansion joints between panels are included in the render). Also, talk about density! Didn't hit me how many people they'll be cramming in here until I saw the floor plans and a picture of an example studio - definitely an upgrade over a traditional dorm, but different from most modern off-campus student housing options, where its built more like a suite of bedrooms. These are all studios. Will be interested to see what they end up charging...

Also, the pink branding literally hurts my eyes.
 
This thing looks like it was designed by people who know all the trends and tricks but not how to employ them. It's kind of a mess IMO. I think the massing is appropriate but that might be the easiest part.
 
Lol until your comment I thought you were someone else. Have we met?

JeffDowntown said:
Well, something of an apples and oranges comparison.

The gay scene dominates West Hollywood and its politics. West Hollywood, though is a tiny subset of Greater LA.

The gay scene has never been more than a footnote in Boston. We are a gay friendly location, but LGBTQ issues have never had a serious (and certainly not dominant) influence on Boston politics.
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Please don't hesitate to call me naive and uneducated, but wasn't the state that contains Boston the first to acknowledge gay marriage? If that's true, are we talking about the same type of social and political issues?
 
Perhaps the decline of gay venues in Boston is just following overall local commercial gentrification trends. In Boston, dive bars/neighborhood taverns close up shop on a regular basis, strip clubs have all but been eliminated from city (for better or worse), etc. Commercial gentrification exists in other cities, but my impression is that the pressures are particularly intense in Boston given some unique factors, liquor license regulations, the lack of available affordable commercial/retail space.

When supply is artificially restricted, we tend to get more than our fair share of the upscale quasi hip/trendy bars restaurants that appeal to the broadest audience
 
I was talking to a gay man from Boston not too long ago and he said he believed that the gay bars were closing BECAUSE of Boston's acceptance of homosexuals. Basically, he said that gays were being discriminated against less, so they no longer felt like they needed specific bars of their own to go to.

He certainly didn't long for the days of where he had to watch himself coming out of a gay bar, but he did miss the scene they had years ago.
 
Multiple interesting/frustrating things in here...

1) Fierce NIMBY pushback (oh the horror, it appears there are students in Boston!)
but,
2) The article seems to suggest the developers may be open to including a replacement space in the new development for The Machine nightclub...not sure how much commitment "work[ing] to incorporate and respond to feedback" implies...

https://www.bostonglobe.com/busines...on-hit-snag/KUYAfa7HGPI0TYXRvJhkfK/story.html
 
bigpicture7 said:
Multiple interesting/frustrating things in here...

1) Fierce NIMBY pushback (oh the horror, it appears there are students in Boston!)
but,
2) The article seems to suggest the developers may be open to including a replacement space in the new development for The Machine nightclub...not sure how much commitment "work[ing] to incorporate and respond to feedback" implies...

https://www.bostonglobe.com/busines...on-hit-snag/KUYAfa7HGPI0TYXRvJhkfK/story.html
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I have zero patience for the ageism at play in these arguments, which happen literally everywhere in the country that a university exists. STFU and let people live where they need to live.
 
I just had a Level 3 conniption reading that article, and of course commented. It should take 'months' to green light a development proposal, not years. And the feedback from the planning office about the zoning on this is irritating. Every large project requires a zoning variance!

Modernize the freaking zoning code, Boston! And let Scape build the gosh darned grad student housing! Don't tell them to build another Revere-slate-gray-walled, marble-counter-topped, cookie-cutter, pre-cast facaded, slant-roofed luxury apartment building if they don't want to.
 
Include the club, add another floor and coffee house on the 2nd floor w/ the main lobby. Add a pub on the roof.
 
dshoost88 said:
I just had a Level 3 conniption reading that article, and of course commented. It should take 'months' to green light a development proposal, not years. And the feedback from the planning office about the zoning on this is irritating. Every large project requires a zoning variance!

Modernize the freaking zoning code, Boston! And let Scape build the gosh darned grad student housing! Don't tell them to build another Revere-slate-gray-walled, marble-counter-topped, cookie-cutter, pre-cast facaded, slant-roofed luxury apartment building if they don't want to.
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This site is actually near some pretty recent zoning that allowed all of the development along this stretch. It was supposed to taper off at the end to the park. Pretty standard stuff.
 
estyle said:
This site is actually near some pretty recent zoning that allowed all of the development along this stretch. It was supposed to taper off at the end to the park. Pretty standard stuff.
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The operative word you wrote is 'near'. The truth is that you need a variance for the lion's share of new development in this city because the zoning does not respond to current market, community, and regional needs.

Has the Fenway neighborhood been more successful than others at accommodating growth? Yes; admittedly, it has. But even so, the review process for new construction is so cumbersome, drawn out, and saturated in nuance that it artificially increases the project costs for new construction, which thus is passed along to new residents and fails to more meaningfully help us solve our housing/affordability goals.

I went to the community meetings and approval meetings for Van Ness and Viridian years ago. Even with developments that were consistent with the Fenway's stated goals, it was still an irritatingly drawn out process.

It takes the City of Miami 3 months to review and approve a 600-foot skyscraper.
 
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