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

Well done dshoost!! Very informative. Very much appreciated!
 
dshoost88 said:
Dude, preach! I normally frown upon vertical videos as well; however, I'm exceptionally unfamiliar with making Facebook Live videos and rotating the screen mid-video doesn't exactly work. Hopefully I'll figure it out before the next video I share.
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No worries, man. Good stuff nonetheless. Looking forward to seeing more of these. If you're not loving Facebook Live give YouTube a try.
 
Oh man, it looks like Open Canal did not have a good turnout at all, at least not when that video was recorded. I feel like the City did not do a good job promoting this. And it's actually probably not a very good time to do an event like this. A Saturday night would have been much better, when the bars and restaurants are busy. You could have outdoor beer gardens all along the street. There isn't much to do on Canal Street during the day, and when there aren't TD Garden events happening, it tends to be very quiet.
 
cden4 said:
Oh man, it looks like Open Canal did not have a good turnout at all, at least not when that video was recorded.
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Honestly, the street activities/closures had just started when I got there. After 30 minutes or so people started filtering into the streets, which I obviously documented:

Open Canal Street by Derek Shooster, on Flickr

Open Canal Street by Derek Shooster, on Flickr

Open Canal Street by Derek Shooster, on Flickr

Open Canal Street by Derek Shooster, on Flickr

To your point about the city not marketing it well, that's fair. But there were also a number of other things going on in the city Saturday (namely the Pizza Festival).
 
Oh that's much better. Thanks for the photos. Also, it was a beautiful weekend to go to the beach. So many competing things to do in the summer!
 
For those of us that are older and gay, I remember when Canal Street was closed for a Street Block Party and dance for Pride celebrations at the former Bobby's bar. (It was the location of the Grand Canal)

So, this isn't the first time that street was full of people! It was on a Saturday if I remember correctly. Probably back in the mid-90's sometime. I went from the Fritz block party over to Bobby's, so it had to be a Saturday.
 
cden4 said:
Oh man, it looks like Open Canal did not have a good turnout at all, at least not when that video was recorded. I feel like the City did not do a good job promoting this. And it's actually probably not a very good time to do an event like this. A Saturday night would have been much better, when the bars and restaurants are busy. You could have outdoor beer gardens all along the street. There isn't much to do on Canal Street during the day, and when there aren't TD Garden events happening, it tends to be very quiet.
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Its crazy how one picture will make someone create and entire story/narrative of what happened somewhere without even being there in their head and then believe that that is what happened. For some reason people automatically just fill in the blanks in their mind whether they're right or completely wrong. That comment went all the way to the city not promoting it good enough without knowing what the promotion entailed at all, not the right time of the year, wrong day of the week...etc. Then another post pops up with pictures of thousands of people in the streets and everyone just forgets and moved on to the next.

We weren't there so we kind of imagine what happened in our heads without even realizing that we are doing it. Im not trying to pick on you its just interesting to see how peoples minds interpret and react to different information that they receive throughout the day to create your reality of what you see. I think that is what is happening here on a smaller scale with a comment like this after the picture. His mind (just like everyone elses) sees the picture and then kind of has to create the story that lead to the picture and what the picture means by getting all of the information you can out of it. Everyone will get different information from looking at the same picture so thats partially what leads to the difference of opinions as well.
 
stick n move said:
.....Then another post pops up with pictures of thousands of people in the streets and everyone just forgets and moved on to the next.......
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Where are the pics of thousands of people? I actually tried counting and don't even see 100 in the busiest picture.
 
Sorry knock the s off for the pictures. I could assume and say that it stayed about that capacity for the bulk of the day possibly swelling to much more and much less at different points of the day I would venture to guess that thousands of people were there. I wasn't there though and cant say for sure.
 
Java King said:
For those of us that are older and gay, I remember when Canal Street was closed for a Street Block Party and dance for Pride celebrations at the former Bobby's bar. (It was the location of the Grand Canal)

So, this isn't the first time that street was full of people! It was on a Saturday if I remember correctly. Probably back in the mid-90's sometime. I went from the Fritz block party over to Bobby's, so it had to be a Saturday.
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Older but not. Canal was also closed in maybe '97 or '98 for an Irish music fest; I remember going in the evening and enjoying some Gaelic Punk.

Street closings used to be far more common in the '90s, even Newbury was closed for a day as part of a jazz or swing fest around the same time.
 
DZH22 said:
Where are the pics of thousands of people? I actually tried counting and don't even see 100 in the busiest picture.
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There a ton of new people coming to the neighborhood... + what, 6 new hotels within a few blocks in the next 3-5 years (i almost can't believe it)..... This looks like the go-to street in this area of the City for outdoor bars and restaurants, tons of trees, and just delivery (2am-10:30am?)/police/fire access, and nix the cars, soon.
 
I've seen very little about how the Open Canal Street event actually went. These photos and the descriptions from people who were there are all I have to go off of. The photos were taken around 2 pm, which is when I would expect it to be very busy if it actually got very busy. I haven't really seen any photos where it was very busy. It's certainly possible that it was, but I can only go off of the information I have.
 
Canal Street (at present) just doesn't have as much going for it as Newbury does. If Canal were to become a permanent pedestrian area, a number of changes would need to be made to the streetscape, facades/storefronts & retail uses in order to make it a nice space to inhabit. Right now, it's all just TD Garden-oriented bars. Also notice in the photos how many shops are run down/closed. Newbury, despite the traffic, is designed for people with an attractive mix of shops & dining. Canal is designed for cars, sports fans & concertgoers.

This trial really wasn't destined for success. I hope it's not used as a basis to put the kibosh on studying a permanent switch because Bulfinch Crossing will be at the end of this and could spur a refresh of the street.
 
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