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

The Towers have no relationship with each other whatsoever. This is insanely bad. How does Boston continue to build this garbage?

I actually like the new design but the condo tower should have the same complimentary design.
 
stick n move said:
I worked with a girl from asia for a while and she kept asking me where the tall buildings were (I dont really care), and where all the "happening" spots were. We worked in Cambridge so I brought her to porter sq and a couple other spots close to work and she was disappointed.
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She kept asking where all the tall buildings and happening spots were, so you took her to Porter?
 
chrisbrat said:
opinions differ, i suppose. i've never heard anyone apply those adjectives to boston's skyline -- outside of folks on AB.
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For those of us whose formative images of Boston were imprinted in the 70's and 80's, "brown, ugly and plain" would definitely fit; the skyline was dominated by One Boston Place, One Beacon, the two 100's and the old State Street Bank building. But, coming from Maine I would not have included "short" :) .

I also recognize that this is far afield from the Hub on Causeway. For the record, I prefer the spire version.
 
tysmith95 said:
I mean if you're going to compare Boston to Tokyo, Tokyo is of course going to be a lot larger. But Tokyo is actually pretty lacking with regards to tall towers for a city of its size. The Tokyo Skytree is 2k feet tall, but it's more similar to the CN Tower in Toronto and isn't a true skyscraper. The Tokyo Tower is 1092 feet tall, and is just a glorified antenna that looks like an ugly Effiel Tower.

The tallest skyscraper in Tokyo is 838 feet tall. The tallest in Boston is 790 feet tall. But Tokyo has a metro area population of over 38 million, Boston's is just 4.6 million. Per capita we do much better on the skyscraper front compared to Tokyo.
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I was in Hiroshima , but Im not sure where in Asia she was from. There was still people everywhereeeeeee. I remember specifically one huuuge group of people dancing in a massive group just holding up their ipads for no reason. Then since my buddy was black they brought him on stage and he danced with an ipad for no reason too lol. It was weird but awesome.
 
DZH22 said:
She kept asking where all the tall buildings and happening spots were, so you took her to Porter?
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Like I said we worked in cambridge so I took her to porter and central we didnt have too long of a lunch break. She commented on the skyline when we would go down memorial drive.
 
Hiroshima. I was deployed to iwakuni japan for 7 months in the Marines and hiroshima is a 20 min train ride. Unlike what you would imagine hiroshima is a massive thriving beautiful city. It was....interesting. But yea literally you see people in huge groups all over the city doing very weird stuff like that. We literally turned the corner n stumbled upon a very awkward ipad dance party. I dont get it but if theyre havin fun...hey. Odd bunch of people but beautiful country.
 
Explained on last page we were at work n on lunch break. Didnt only take her to porter but that was the first stop because they have the incredible asian food section tucked in the mall. I didnt realize people would care, but we made it to basically every square at some point handing out gym promotion flyers lol, but it was lunch, shes not my gf so didnt really care, and not much is going to be going on at noon. But if you havent been to asia you wouldnt understand what she was looking for, I already knew she wasnt going to find the covered streets with open air markets and street performers. Anyways my main point was that although to me its quality over quantity, she did mention many times that we dont build tall buildings here, so people outside this forum do notice.
 
stick n move said:
Explained on last page we were at work n on lunch break. Didnt only take her to porter but that was the first stop because they have the incredible asian food section tucked in the mall. I didnt realize people would care, but we made it to basically every square at some point handing out gym promotion flyers lol, but it was lunch, shes not my gf so didnt really care, and not much is going to be going on at noon. But if you havent been to asia you wouldnt understand what she was looking for, I already knew she wasnt going to find the covered streets with open air markets and street performers. Anyways my main point was that although to me its quality over quantity, she did mention many times that we dont build tall buildings here, so people outside this forum do notice.
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Asia is a big place. Can you be more specific? For instance, if she was from one of many cities in China, she would be asking where the tall buildings are in every US city outside of NYC or Chicago. It's all relative. In China every city is getting their own supertall (or 3, or 12).

Boston should be compared more to cities like Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Seattle. No places on earth, aside from maybe Toronto and NYC, are building at the pace of Asian cities. Also, you seem to be assuming Japan based on your experiences there, but Japan has the shortest big cities in Asia!
 
For a brief moment in the late spring/early summer of 2016, it seemed like the Downtown skyline could get a nearly incredible makeover--that just a short time earlier would have scarcely been believed.

The positive additions had been slow; 1 Financial Center (overall, a positive), Exchange Place, 1 Intl Place, Rowes Wharf, 1 Lincoln (arguably a positive) & 33 Arch....

Millennium Tower might have been joined by Accordia (maybe topping 213m), 1 Bromfield (~216m) and 1 Congress (197m).... Clearly they would have been stunning additions to the Downtown skyline and quite nicely balanced, and enhanced the looks of the fat, squat brown/red/tuscan/beige/grey..... tall, slender, and even in the case of 1 Congress, sort of almost appearing tall and slender.

Slow and sad

yes, sad.
 
I know I'm stating the obvious but supertalls in Boston ain't a'happening unless Logan is moved and the parks are bulldozed over. Airplanes and shadows rule this town. Having said that, few US cities compare with the urban street life of Boston.
 
stick n move said:
Explained on last page we were at work n on lunch break. Didnt only take her to porter but that was the first stop because they have the incredible asian food section tucked in the mall. I didnt realize people would care, but we made it to basically every square at some point handing out gym promotion flyers lol, but it was lunch, shes not my gf so didnt really care, and not much is going to be going on at noon. But if you havent been to asia you wouldnt understand what she was looking for, I already knew she wasnt going to find the covered streets with open air markets and street performers. Anyways my main point was that although to me its quality over quantity, she did mention many times that we dont build tall buildings here, so people outside this forum do notice.
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I get it, stick -- sorry for doubling down. I get defensive over Boston (in a way we all do) but I know we sell ourselves short by default, which I think is the worst thing we locals pass on to visitors (you're a wonderful host, mind you -- that food section at Porter is a Gaddam gem).

Boston ain't Tokyo, and our nightlife is decentralized, which I think was your point. Porter Square on a lunch break is just a terrible counter to your guest's argument against Boston's urban vibrancy when we have a good deal of adequate examples.
 
Bostons height problem isnt the lack of sueprtalls, it's the lack of anything higher than 4 floors when you go half a mile out of downtown.

The only exception are college dorms.

Forget Long Island City and Jersey City. Look at the Bronx.

This is what development should look like in Brighton, Roxbury, Quincy, etc.

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.856...ata=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1swkF5I-GQIny1hr13buVKrw!2e0

Except the ugly part. It doesnt have to be ugly.

For reference, that link is a 40 minute subway ride from midtown, or almost 9 miles.

Thats almost the same as South Station to Braintree. Except Braintree is single family detached homes.
 
I see your point, but Boston really shouldn't be built that densely 9 miles out from the city considering it doesn't have anywhere near the population of NYC. On the other hand I think that areas in the urbanized core should be shifting towards mostly 5+ story developments and that does seem to be happening although it is a very slow process.

I think that overall most of the infill the Boston area has been seeing has been raising the density of the area and has consistently been a little bit denser on average than what is surrounding it.

Also that isn't even the majority of NYC for example most of Brooklyn and Queens is 2-4 story attached apartments or row houses depending on the neighborhood. Astoria, Queens
 
jass said:
Bostons height problem isnt the lack of sueprtalls, it's the lack of anything higher than 4 floors when you go half a mile out of downtown.

The only exception are college dorms.

Forget Long Island City and Jersey City. Look at the Bronx.

This is what development should look like in Brighton, Roxbury, Quincy, etc.

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.856...ata=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1swkF5I-GQIny1hr13buVKrw!2e0

Except the ugly part. It doesnt have to be ugly.

For reference, that link is a 40 minute subway ride from midtown, or almost 9 miles.

Thats almost the same as South Station to Braintree. Except Braintree is single family detached homes.
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Where are you going to find the people to live in your tenementopia? Where are they all going to work? How are they going to get around?
 
kmp1284 said:
Where are you going to find the people to live in your tenementopia? Where are they all going to work? How are they going to get around?
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1: The same way literally any other city finds people. If demand was falling for dense urban living, we'd see prices in the Bronx dropping. Instead we see the opposite.
2: Luckily, we've already discovered how to stack commercial floors on top of one another. In fact, CBD job density is practically unlimited, with no horizontal expansion required.
3: The same way any large, dense city does- a mix of transit, bikes and cars for commutes and long trips, and high residential density allowing for most other trips to be served by walking.
 
FitchburgLine said:
1: The same way literally any other city finds people. If demand was falling for dense urban living, we'd see prices in the Bronx dropping. Instead we see the opposite.
2: Luckily, we've already discovered how to stack commercial floors on top of one another. In fact, CBD job density is practically unlimited, with practically no horizon expansion required.
3: The same way any large, dense city does- a mix of transit, bikes and cars for commutes and long trips, and high residential density allowing for most other trips to be served by walking.
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1. You're actually comparing Boston and New York?
2. "If you build it, they will come" .... that was a movie about ghosts playing baseball.
3. A new road, subway and bus network. Got it.
 
kmp1284 said:
1. You're actually comparing Boston and New York?
2. "If you build it, they will come" .... that was a movie about ghosts playing baseball.
3. A new road, subway and bus network. Got it.
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1: Okay, whatever, compare it to the dense parts of Boston. You know, the low-demand neighborhoods of... Back Bay, North End and Beacon Hill.
2: What's the actual contention here? That demand isn't there for Boston to grow? If that's the case, then, again, we'd expect falling prices for office space. That's totally wrong (even more so now that spec Class A construction is now happening).
3: One great thing about having lots of new residents and businesses is that property tax goes up accordingly. New Seaport office towers pay $20m/yr in taxes, which pays for lots of additional transit. Also, I just said that most trips would be met by walking, which always has a marginal cost of $0.
 
jass said:
Bostons height problem isnt the lack of sueprtalls, it's the lack of anything higher than 4 floors when you go half a mile out of downtown.

The only exception are college dorms.

Forget Long Island City and Jersey City. Look at the Bronx.

This is what development should look like in Brighton, Roxbury, Quincy, etc.

https://www.google.com/maps/@40.856...ata=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1swkF5I-GQIny1hr13buVKrw!2e0

Except the ugly part. It doesnt have to be ugly.

For reference, that link is a 40 minute subway ride from midtown, or almost 9 miles.

Thats almost the same as South Station to Braintree. Except Braintree is single family detached homes.
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No thanks, I will pass on that. Lets focus on 4-5 story infill/builds on major streets (Washington, Dot Ave, Hyde Park Ave, Centre, Hungtington, Blue Hill Ave, Warren, etc, with mixed use ground floor retail (no setbacks) and 3-4+ floors of housing above, along with further density in the core/downtown neighborhoods.
 
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