Its pretty sad between this and Emerson's dorm project. I really wonder how either got approval.
i thought one of the bldgs was to be left standing?
In the last photo it looks like both are coming down. wtf?
No one among us, I believe, would argue that we need to keep everything. Even those of us who may be so inclined we understand that a city that doesn't change and evolve is a dying place.
However, most of us would agree that what gets built these days fairly mimics what's going up in many other cities. No matter the high-minded intention, the result too often is generic, V-E, rentable space. Economics aside, that's a loss. No matter how sensitive the design you can't replace history. Particularly in a block, like this one, that is steeped in the history that helps make Boston so very different. Can you imagine any tourist gazing at the new building? Why would they? They see plenty of its like where they're from.
This property, the Dainty Dot, what may happen on Stuart Street, in DTX, at the end of Newberry, the Emerson dorm and more, they are all small wounds. None fatal by themselves, but all told, they present a growing wound, if untended, that, cut by cut, diminishes this city.
Sure, the money stuff may pencil out and that's good for the tax collector, but a city thusly diminished is a city with a weakened biography.
Point is - the City's been tearing down old things to build new things forever. Boston has a huge stock of 19th Century structures still standing. It's important to retain that heritage...that's not a corrupt process - no one is paying off the commissioners - in each of these cases the benefit of removing an old (and potentially dangerously out-of-code) structure outweighed the cost...
I'm frequently shocked when I look at pictures of gorgeous old buildings - Mechanics Hall, the Providence and Boston Terminal (all of Boston's old stations, really) and a bunch of others - how many of them were torn down in the 19th and Early 20th Centuries. Look in those old DTX pictures - a lot of those buildings were torn down back in the 1920s, and that was the same time period when the original NSRL and Central Artery were going to run through Downtown Crossing and obliterate Scollay Square 30 years before Urban Renewal got to it.
Point is - the City's been tearing down old things to build new things forever. Boston has a huge stock of 19th Century structures still standing. It's important to retain that heritage, so any project that's going to impact it has to be specially approved, as I assume this one and Emerson were. That's not a corrupt process - no one is paying off the commissioners - in each of these cases the benefit of removing an old (and potentially dangerously out-of-code) structure outweighed the cost.
Heritage is something to be managed, not worshiped. I'd rather Boston be Brussels than Bruges.
I think that's a good perspective to be mindful of: that we were in fact much, much worse at preserving heritage a few decades ago than we are today. I think today we are more mindful of it, respectful of it, see the value in it, and probably less corrupt (though I wouldn't bet on zero corruption).
I think the missing piece here is that, looking to the future, we need to establish a more systematic and proactive process to retaining heritage. It can't always be "oh crap, look what's happening." If we're serious about this, we should set up a more algorithmic system (coupled with case-by-case human review too, of course) that identifies in advance what should be barred from razing. It could be based on era built, condition, architecture, etc. I'm not saying to designate everything as a national historic landmark, but it seems there could be a more systematic approach to encoding each structure with some sort of a "preservation score" that could help us deal with this fairly.
Honestly, where are the NIMBYs when something other than a parking garage is getting torn down? I would have thought they'd be preserving more of this rather than unceremoniously smashing it down. I was more ok with this when I thought they would at least be keeping 3 walls. The lack of thought and respect put into this project just in the demolition gives me little hope for what they will build in this location. How cheap.
However I do think they'd have to make a concerted effort to make this development as depressing as what happened with this: http://www.archboston.org/community/showthread.php?t=4657