The Hub on Causeway (née TD Garden Towers) | 80 Causeway Street | West End

Charlie_mta said:
As I recall, when it was being designed and built, it had to have a non-standard size to fit within the space constrained by the old Central Artery elevated ramps to Storrow Drive. Now that they are gone, maybe they could expand it to standard arena size?
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Charlie -- Ye Olde Gahdn was small and vertical it didn't have a standard sized Hockey Rink -- and that was OK then -- Now however every time that you play NHL hockey its the same and there are no more grandfathered original 6 rinks

All now meet the following NHL Standard:
The standard ice rink in North America measures 200 feet long by 85 feet wide. And every NHL game in North America is played on a standard-size rink
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The same is true of basketball although no courts were ever allowed with "foreign dimensions

An NBA game court is 94 feet long and 50 feet wide, divided in half by a midcourt line.
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Beyond the playing surface -- Nothing is really standardized with respect to Indoor Arena construction or dimensions

Capacity [for hockey] ranges from 15,294 in the 2004 MTS Centre in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
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to 21,288 in the 1996 Bell Centre in Montreal, Quebec, Canada
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In the US:

the smallest NHL arena, Brooklyn's Barclay Center [2012] seats 15,795
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while the largest, the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit, Michigan seats 20,027 in 1979-style
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For comparison Boston's Shawmut/Fleet/TD Gahdn [circa 1995 with several "mid-life" upgrades] seats 17,565
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Note: that United Center in Chicago [1994] essentially the same age as the Gahdn, holds either 19,717 in seats or 22,428 with standing room for Hockey and even more for basketball
[20,917 and with standing room at least 23,129]
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-- so it could be considered the arena with the largest crowds even if not the largest arena
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Interesting that it even looks a bit like Ye Olde Gahdn on the outside [particularly the windows]
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The appeal of MSG is that it is in Manhattan. Otherwise, it is dated. The spread out bowl is great for capacity and lack of obstruction, but other than the best 8000 seats sucks for proximity to the court. The internal exit "alleys" are terrible.

Manhattan deserves better.

What happened to turning the old post office into a new Penn Station?
 
tobyjug said:
The appeal of MSG is that it is in Manhattan. Otherwise, it is dated. The spread out bowl is great for capacity and lack of obstruction, but other than the best 8000 seats sucks for proximity to the court. The internal exit "alleys" are terrible.

Manhattan deserves better.

What happened to turning the old post office into a new Penn Station?
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MSG has gone through major renovations over the past 2 to 3 years, and is now one of the most updated and modern facilities in either nba or nhl
 
Can't attest to MSG itself, but from what all of you have said, it sounds many times better than Penn Station underneath. It sits over the NJ Transit and Amtrak concourses, which have actually been updated periodically. I've never experienced Penn Station or the surrounds when a game gets out, but I've definitely experienced the crush when a game starts around the same time as PM rush. It wasn't as bad as I was expecting it to be - thankfully it seems the entrances to MSG are positioned in a way that allows for attendees to not interfere with transit commuters within the station.

One way or another, it sounds like with space constraints, we could just upgrade the Garden around its bones for well over 50 years. By then, we can only hope for NSRL and BART-/S-Bahn-ification of commuter rail to justify the teardown of the circuitous I-93 ramps that make it waaay to easy to drive into downtown and allow us to build another Garden over the platforms.

Re: Farley Building/Post Office - The concourse is currently under construction to tie it to the existing Penn Station underground complex and provide access to Amtrak/NJ Transit platforms. Curbed NY has a pretty good brief from January, but it looks like things got pretty hairy in March with PANYNJ pulling out.
 
In their current form, Penn Station is to New York what Back Bay Station is to Boston. Utterly unbelievable considering the traffic.... Down near the LIRR, there's great chicken parm during reg bus hours...

If you party late in NYC and get to Penn station after say, about 1:20-30am, there's absolutely no restroom anywhere in the Amtrak, NJT, or LIRR waiting areas until about 4:45am. All three restrooms close at exactly the same time. So what if there are dozens of passengers in the waiting area/s w/ their tickets for those first early trains to Boston, DC, Montauk, Trenton, etc. Tough shit. It's been the same ridiculous arrangement for decades.
 
Comparing Penn Station / MSG to TD / North Station is a stretch other than the fact that there is a sports arena sitting on top of a train station.

MSG has undergone a major face lift and works perfectly well for basketball, hockey and concerts. The underground food court / hall on both levels are pretty basic / gross, but get the job done.

Case in point, Rose's Pizza, with 2 outlets in the station on the LIRR level sells tons of beers in tall cans that you can drink on the train ride home. Fantastic.

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How much excavation are they really going to need to do on this? Isn't this over the underground parking garage or does the parking garage exist only under the Garden itself?

Love those hubs on Causeway in the first photo. Second photo is top shelf construction/engineering porn.
 
DigitalSciGuy said:
How much excavation are they really going to need to do on this? Isn't this over the underground parking garage or does the parking garage exist only under the Garden itself?

Love those hubs on Causeway in the first photo. Second photo is top shelf construction/engineering porn.
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The parking garage is only under the garden. They will dig down to the 4th floor of the garage to expand it by 800 spaces.
 
whighlander said:
Palindrome -- we are talking about 60 feet then of excavation with slurry walls?
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Based on the 6 levels of garage at MIT SOMA being 70 feet below grade, I'd put it at 50 feet down to lowest level. Maybe a little less, as SOMA is being built to allow below grade loading docks (level P1 full height trucks).
 
Czervik.Construction said:
I was walking through midtown and saw this building and thought it looked a lot like one of the proposed buildings. If it looks like this, I don't know how it will look as a beacon, welcoming people to Boston, coming in on I-93.

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Boston will never get setbacks like this. I'll be honest, if SST had these set backs (the front can curve) and, like you said, the Hub on Causeway can get the top, I would be very satisfied.
 
That building is probably 20 years old and ours probably wont even be as nice. SMH.
 
That building feels very similar to our new State Street HQ building (close to 20 years old itself now I guess, so maybe not so new) both in set backs, mix of stone and glass, and vertical mullions.
Same architect or just similar timeframe and modern art deco revival style?
 
Czervik.Construction said:
If it looks like this, I don't know how it will look as a beacon, welcoming people to Boston, coming in on I-93.
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The problem is the RESIDENTIAL tower was supposed to be the beacon! It was originally approved at 600'+! I still don't understand why they're working so hard to stretch out the 420' office building when they could have just built the iconic tower next door to it. (still could, but I haven't seen any flying pigs lately)
 
because the developer caved to the West End nimby's.

the office tower isn't terrible.

but, we could easily have a better designed building here.
 
SeamusMcFly said:
That building feels very similar to our new State Street HQ building (close to 20 years old itself now I guess, so maybe not so new) both in set backs, mix of stone and glass, and vertical mullions.
Same architect or just similar timeframe and modern art deco revival style?
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13 years but who's counting right?
 
Don't get too down, that building is at 320 Park Ave. I think something better should be in a stretch of town where office rents are close to $200 / sq ft.

Sorry for the derailment.
 
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