The Kensington | 665 Washington Street | Downtown

Re: Residences at Kensington

Calling Chinatown a slum seems a bit harsh. Its got a true urban vibe for sure, but it's a healthy community by all rights and standards, if a bit run down. Calling it a slum is exactly what got the entire West End wiped out. Like Chinatown, it was a healthy vibrant community full of hard working people living in admittedly tight and run down quarters, but living and taking care of their homes as best they could. It was labeled a slum by the elite and wiped out in the name of progress. While wholesale demolition of that scale will hopefully never be repeated in this city again, it is the mentality that continues to inform decisions to wipe out "blighted" buildings (dainty dot, gaiety, dont forget Shrieve, Crump & Lowe barely escaped the wrecking ball) in the name of progress.

I'm also a bit confused by your distaste for luxury living, yet support for the projects you mentioned, which I believe are all luxury condos. Economics of scale dictate that other then subsidized construction any new tower pretty much is required to be luxury housing, just to pay off construction costs. If you are interested in maintaining or improving the status-quo renovating the existing gaiety building and perhaps building a modest low-rise on the Glass Slipper parcel would have had a greater chance of being affordable to people of more modest means, therefore adding vibrancy while avoiding greater gentrification. For a perfect case study on this, see what happened to Kenmore Square.

My other confusion on that matter is that while yes, the Back Bay and Beacon Hill are mostly enclaves of the uber rich; would you prefer they not live in the city at all, thereby removing their tax dollars and spending habits at the elite restaurants, stores, theaters and cultural institutions? Or should we introduce subsidized housing into these communities instead, basically achieving the same effect over time?

As for theater, if you enjoyed the form there are many, many, many smaller productions whos tickets sell for prices akin to that of the movies, if not cheaper. Sure grand "broadway" style productions and operas are expensive, but they always have been and always will be.

As an aside, if you could find me a sketchy landlord to rent me some space in one of those run-down commercial buildings I would jump into that "slum" both feet first. The coolest housing I have ever seen was at a party down some alley off Essex, up a sketchy back stairway, and into a full floor of an open loft with a bike shop in one corner and bar in the other. It reminded me of the scene in Brooklyn. Honestly chinatown is one of my favorite places, particularly for its collection of grit.
 
Re: Residences at Kensington

davem said:
Honestly chinatown is one of my favorite places, particularly for its collection of grit.
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This is really the crux of my position.

My primary interest is in the building projects that sustain or improve the ethos Chinatown -- a priority over fine aesthetics.
Calling Chinatown a slum seems a bit harsh.
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To me, the word "slum" is not negative, but the mojo that injects soul nto neighborhoods. It is an ingredient that I seek out, and seems inversely related to fad and price.
If you are interested in maintaining or improving the status-quo renovating the existing gaiety building and perhaps building a modest low-rise on the Glass Slipper parcel would have had a greater chance of being affordable to people of more modest means, therefore adding vibrancy while avoiding greater gentrification.
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Your proposal has zero economic support. The concrete being poured today does. End of discussion.

I'm also a bit confused by your distaste for luxury living
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As for luxury living, I wholeheatedly endorse it in all it's forms. My "distaste" for it begins at the point where the public is called upon to support it, when it should only be the other way around.
 
Re: Residences at Kensington

JoeBoston1 said:
There are many things I could respond to. I've already discussed on this board my distaste for how nostalgia pulls Boston back from the future. It being unnecessary and unhealthy.

I stand corrected on the parking lot remark.

But let's focus on the loss of this theater. In my life, I've been in the Wang once, in the Opera House once, and in that tiny Suffolk College theater once. These trips were rare and expensive. My experience with these theaters is mostly of passing by from the outside. The same could be said of the many grand salle's that dot the Back Bay.

Frankly, the grand rooms of Boston do the public zero aesthetic service. They are, of course, revenue and tax resources -- but not for a defunct theater. Your luxurious art form is now economically un-viable because you've catered only the rich. Theater's hard narcissism has killed it at last. Now you expect some public support to save your theater? The same one you tried so hard to hide from the unwashed masses? Go take a hike.

Chickens, home, and roosting, and all that.

You can fight for good public art. That's the good fight. But not for the Gaity. I weep not for thee.
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Very few things on this board truly piss me off, but as the only member of this board that works in theater for a living, and is also shelling out cash to attend grad school for it, I have to state my absolute rage and disgust with this post.

You claim that "Theater's hard narcissism has killed it" is completely baseless and frankly naive. Broadway is raking in just as much money as it ever has and the theater scene in Boston is growing at a steady rate. Just because you do not enjoy an art or entertainment form does not make it worthless. I have never been in the Garden, I've only been in Fenway once, and the State House is just a place that I send hundred of dollars a year in taxes to with out ever stepping in it's doors. By your logic all three of these are untenable since they are expensive, I do not enjoy them, and I only experience them from the outside. Some people do enjoy them and who am I to declare that all sports facilities are catering to the rich since I can't afford to buy redsox tickets, which are way more expensive than theater tickets anyway.

Good theater today is not "luxurious." It is one of the few places left that raw human emotion can be conveyed. Good theater goes way beyond what any other form of entertainment can since it can react to and inform the audience in ways other media can not. True storytelling will never go out of style in the eyes of "the rich" or the "unwashed masses," but it will in the eyes of those too preoccupied to care about it like yourself.

You call my chosen profession, one which I chose most certainly not for the money as last year I technically could have applied for food stamps, that it is narcissistic, luxurious, and catering to the rich, then tell me to "Go take a hike." I respond, in kind, with a hearty:

Go fuck yourself.
 
Re: Residences at Kensington

Broadway is raking in just as much money as it ever has and the theater scene in Boston is growing at a steady rate. Just because you do not enjoy an art or entertainment form does not make it worthless.
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Let's slow down here. The Gaiety is dead because it lost economic viability. That theater was indeed "worthless." The only commercially viable option was to destroy it and build the residential tower we see today.

I doubt it was artistically "worthless," as I value art and culture in all it's forms. But most people don't.
I have never been in the Garden, I've only been in Fenway once

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By your logic all three of these are untenable since they are expensive, I do not enjoy them, and I only experience them from the outside.
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The first two places bring in an ungodly amount of money to Boston. They are economically viable. If they sat abandoned and dilapidated for ten years, I'd be the first in line to help tear them down.

I take issue when institutions appeal for public support, not the other way around.

The State House is only the most visible symbol of a vast apparatus of social services and public resources, exactly the type of institution I deem worthy of public, communal donation.
Good theater today is not "luxurious."

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Good theater goes way beyond what any other form of entertainment can since it can react to and inform the audience in ways other media can not.

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You claim that "Theater's hard narcissism has killed it" is completely baseless and frankly naive.
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This attitude is pervasive in the theater. As one theater lover to another, I'll say that it endangers the art form.
 
Re: Residences at Kensington

Long time, no post. Anyways, I was staying on Tremont St. because I was in town to donate bone marrow at Dana-Farber (gorgeous building, by the way). Took a few pictures from the intersection of Stuart and Tremont.

Flickr Photostream
 
Re: Residences at Kensington

Hmm... I was just researching Mexico City's towers and discovered that their tallest, the Torre Mayor, has a similar identity crisis to the Kensington. I'd argue the Torre is more sucessful because the glass and solid parts are two separate masses in tension with each other, compared to the Kensington's which are part of the same mass and very 2-dimensional.

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Re: Residences at Kensington

Look at that bad boy SOAR! It's like our own Burj tower.
 
Re: Residences at Kensington

Im likely the only person on here who thinks this but the building looks pretty good. Does it stand out? Not really, but it's hidden anyway.
 
Re: Residences at Kensington

^ I have nothing against it either.
 
Re: Residences at Kensington

bblancha said:
The 4 of you need to get out more.
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Would you mind being respectful. Your comment is unnecessary and just because you do not agree with them does not mean you have to insult them.
This building may not look amazing but it is not terrible looking and it is rather hidden behind other taller buildings so you should be thankful for that.
I think that its two dimensional look makes it unique and interesting.
 
Re: Residences at Kensington

It's an econo-box with splotchy skin. Not the worst thing ever but it could encourage other developers to follow the same low standards.
 
Re: Residences at Kensington

Yep, it's ArchBoston's low standards that dictate the look and feel of architecture in the city. If only people here were more critical, developers would instantly turn Boston into a design mecca.
 
Re: Residences at Kensington

Those low standards are all that are economically viable in Boston. This is a small city with a fairly stagnant population. Combine those factors with the costly permitting process, high labor costs and the freebies foisted upon developers such as affordable housing and 'community space' it's a wonder anyone even bothers. As we've seen, not many outside of the institutional realm do anymore.
 
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