The Definitive ArchBoston Tall vs Small Debate Thread

Re: Millennium Tower (Filene's) | 426 Washington Street | Downtown

DZH22 said:
At least the biggest NIMBY of all (that dirty POS Menino) is finally out of office. His feeble-minded obstructionism was getting old.
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Really? The skyline has been littered with cranes for two solid years, Boston is sparkling in a way that it hasn't in decades (maybe even a century!) and Menino is a piece of shit? Maybe he wasn't a visionary but he was a damn good nuts-and-bolts manager. Once again you prove you have some enormous blinders on.

Oh and speaking of shit, yes mine does stink. Always gotta courtesy flush!
 
Moved this to the wrong sub-forum on the first try.

I think this is a better fit.
 
Re: Millennium Tower (Filene's) | 426 Washington Street | Downtown

kz1000ps said:
Really? The skyline has been littered with cranes for two solid years, Boston is sparkling in a way that it hasn't in decades (maybe even a century!) and Menino is a piece of shit? Maybe he wasn't a visionary but he was a damn good nuts-and-bolts manager. Once again you prove you have some enormous blinders on.
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Record amount of cranes! Except, how many of those were actually in Cambridge? How many of those were for shorter, value-engineered buildings compared to the original proposals?

Go to an observatory like Blue Hills, The Fells, Horn Pond, Robbins Farm Park, Mount Auburn... how many of these new projects make a dent? ZERO

Just because the guy approved a bunch of stuff on his way out the door, doesn't mean he was good for the city. How many tax breaks did he throw at his friends? How many bona-fide developments did he obstruct due to personal motives? He was both corrupt AND incompetent.

On the other hand, I am very optimistic about Marty Walsh.
 
Re: Millennium Tower (Filene's) | 426 Washington Street | Downtown

DZH22 said:
Record amount of cranes! Except, how many of those were actually in Cambridge? How many of those were for shorter, value-engineered buildings compared to the original proposals?

Go to an observatory like Blue Hills, The Fells, Horn Pond, Robbins Farm Park, Mount Auburn... how many of these new projects make a dent? ZERO

Just because the guy approved a bunch of stuff on his way out the door, doesn't mean he was good for the city. How many tax breaks did he throw at his friends? How many bona-fide developments did he obstruct due to personal motives? He was both corrupt AND incompetent.

On the other hand, I am very optimistic about Marty Walsh.
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Idunno, I'm less concerned how activity looks from the top of a hill out in the burbs rather than standing within 10 feet of it. As mentioned, beyond 20 or so stories there is little difference from the street between a tower you can launch suborbital space flight from and a midrise.

The bigger thing is these VE'd stumps you so casually dismiss are SO MUCH more transformative to the actual vibrancy and economy of the city than any one tower (or even a cluster) would or could ever be. Fenway is completely changed for the better, far more dramatically than DTX has been by ANY development that has happened in the past hundred years. Same with Kendall, Longwood, and hell, even Allston/Brighton or Southie. They don't look like much from far but these small developments are what drives the city, not a big tower.



Also, I'm getting tired of all this tax break bashing. It's not like the city is giving away money. It's a tax BREAK. They are currently getting little or no taxes from the parcels. They are allowing that to continue in order to get stuff built. They are still getting sales taxes from whatever will occupy the space, as well as the increased economic activity from construction and activities the building will contain. What is so wrong with saying "we aren't going to ask for this money we weren't going to be getting anyway unless you built this"?
 
Re: Millennium Tower (Filene's) | 426 Washington Street | Downtown

davem said:
The bigger thing is these VE'd stumps you so casually dismiss are SO MUCH more transformative to the actual vibrancy and economy of the city than any one tower (or even a cluster) would or could ever be. Fenway is completely changed for the better, far more dramatically than DTX has been by ANY development that has happened in the past hundred years. Same with Kendall, Longwood, and hell, even Allston/Brighton or Southie. They don't look like much from far but these small developments are what drives the city, not a big tower.

Also, I'm getting tired of all this tax break bashing.
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I don't dismiss the VE'd stumps, and I agree that they improve the streetscape and neighborhoods surrounding the city. But I also don't feel that "anything is better than nothing" as many of these stumps are total pieces of crap from the outside. I know you don't give 2 shits about this next part, but the more of these that get built, the more they lessen the vertical impact of the skyline. (skyline! some people care! some people don't!) I like these projects, but the largest proposals/approvals MUST be built so I don't feel like I'm driving a time machine back to 1985 everytime I take the trip in.

The tax break thing would be less of a problem if we could somehow get the universities to pay their fair share (or ANY amount really) of property taxes. The more land they snatch up, the less is left over for the city to generate revenues. How can "nonprofits" be allowed to generate such enormous profits?!?! These universities are every bit as greedy as Wall Street in their own "above-it-all" kind of way.
 
La defense is totally the worst part of Paris and London has a smattering of tallish buildings and one really tall one. And that one really tall one isn't part of the distinctive skyline that London is known for... that would be the london eye, st pauls, tower bridge and the houses of parliament. If Boston didn't have one skyscraper downtown and was known for the silhouette of Beacon Hill crowned by a golden dome and a scattering of church steeples, I'd be totally cool with that.

Is it ok to dump all my stupid oppinions about skylines here?
 
Are you sure there isn't some grey area between height fetishists and time machine candidates?
 
Just gonna leave this here... Towers do not a city make.

38628258.jpg
 
^^^Ahhh yes, Berlin, which I only recognized because of the tower.

Also, there are a few taller buildings in that city, not pictured, and more being built.
 
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Great cities are made by what the experience of being in the city on the streets is like, not by what it looks like from a distance, which could include skyscrapers or not.

I am not good at making arguments, so I will leave you with some words of wisdom from the gay anthem of 2001. "Always waitin' for someone
To make me happy, pick me up
I realize that someone is me
What you call life, that ain't livin'
Bless the child that's got his own
It's my season, now I stand alone
Just thought that I would let you know
Some things you just can't control"
 
gooseberry said:
Great cities are made by what the experience of being in the city on the streets is like, not by what it looks like from a distance, which could include skyscrapers or not.
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I would like some examples of great cities that BOTH:
A. don't have skyscrapers, and
B. weren't already great before the invention of skyscrapers. (let's say weren't great cities prior to 1900 for simplicity)

Ready? Go.
 
Re: Millennium Tower (Filene's) | 426 Washington Street | Downtown

DZH22 said:
Go to an observatory like Blue Hills, The Fells, Horn Pond, Robbins Farm Park, Mount Auburn... how many of these new projects make a dent? ZERO
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The amount of people that give a hoot about this could be counted on one hand, maybe even one finger. Good lord just go back to skyscrapercity where you belong and leave the real city building to the adults.
 
DZH22 said:
^^^Ahhh yes, Berlin, which I only recognized because of the tower. A wonderful home base for quite possibly the most evil person in the history of this planet.

Also, there are a few taller buildings in that city, not pictured, and more being built.
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He was from Austria…
And if anyone is truely to blame for him rising to power, its the winners of WW1 who decided to punish Germany so badly they allowed a sociopath to rise to power because it seemed like the only way to stave off starvation and economic disaster.



The only thing that concerns me about the skyline is differences in heights. A plateau makes a city look like garbage, you need some vararity. As for how tall it actually is though, who cares. As for shorter buildings looking like garbage, id rather that than a really ugly skyscaper. Considering we have a LOT of ugly towers, id rather take my chances with a midrise that can later be torn down.

Another thing I've found about boston and skyscrapers, is despite so many in the CBD, bostons iconic skyline is the back bay, which has only two real ones. Its the juxtaposition of the short brownstones with the high spine that makes it so sucessful.

/spelling. I'm on my phone
 
DZH22 said:
^^^Ahhh yes, Berlin, which I only recognized because of the tower. A wonderful home base for quite possibly the most evil person in the history of this planet.
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Wow.
 
DZH22 said:
^^^Ahhh yes, Berlin, which I only recognized because of the tower. A wonderful home base for quite possibly the most evil person in the history of this planet.

Also, there are a few taller buildings in that city, not pictured, and more being built.
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C'mon dude. Really? A Hitler reference?

Anyway, you're right that there are some tall buildings in the city other than the iconic Fernsehturm (which was the DDR showboating their power and ability to build a tall tower). During the DDR, we all know about the situation in Ostberlin with the endless rows of bland 28-story towers they built. Those have awful streetscapes. Most modern/post-DDR high-rise construction has been focused largely in the Potsdamer Platz area - such as the SonyCenter and DeutscheBahn Tower (I really like the DB Tower aesthetically) - which has considerably less of a tight-knit classic urban feel as the rest of historical Berlin. The streetscapes are cold and uninviting. I lived in Berlin during the harsh European winter of 2012 (while you guys here were wearing shorts and flip-flops in Feb) when it was freezing cold and snowing constantly. Those areas with the towers were miserable places to be. They were deserted wastelands, while there was plenty of activity that remained in the low-rise portions and corridors where you could hop from cafe to cafe and shop to shop.

With that aside/looping this back to Boston - I would much rather we build out a huge swath of available land with 6-10 story residential buildings/neighborhoods than build a single supertall skyscraper downtown.
 
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