The Victor | 110 Beverly Street | West End

Re: The Victor

fattony, yes. Household size has decreased not only in Boston but nationally.

Average household size in Boston was 3.39 in 1950, 2.26 in 2010. Nationally, average household size was 2.59. Boston is lower because it is disproportionately younger.

Young adults are a higher percentage of the total population in Boston than in any other major city. 35 percent are between the ages of 20 and 34. Some of that is due to the high percentage of students.

I do not know how the Census calculate students living in university residence halls from a household standpoint.
 
Re: The Victor

stellarfun said:
fattony, yes. Household size has decreased not only in Boston but nationally.

Average household size in Boston was 3.39 in 1950, 2.26 in 2010. Nationally, average household size was 2.59. Boston is lower because it is disproportionately younger.

.
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Do you have facts on this? Or are you assuming this?

When you make statements like this you should back-up these statements.
 
Re: The Victor

czsz said:
What's missing here is a comparison to a much more apt case study: NYC, where very little or limited urban renewal took place along the same lines.
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That's really not the case. NYC was the leader in urban renewel. The mayor of St Louis straight up admitted he tore down half downtown to build the Pruitt-Igoe project after touring New York with Robert Moses. Chicago did the same thing with Cabrini-Green. They didn't call Moses The Power Broker for fun.

More like NYC than Detroit, Boston had core neighborhoods that were never in danger of emptying out and were relatively safe.
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You just have to look at the census numbers to know that's not true.
 
Re: The Victor

stellarfun said:
Boston;s population in 2010 was still down 23 percent from its level in 1950. Yet there were 23 percent more housing units in the city than these were in 1950.

# of housing units / population Boston
1950 222000 / 801500
1960 238700 / 697000
2010 272500 / 617500
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50,500 new units built btwn 1950-2010. An annual average of 841.
 
Re: The Victor

More than 50% of households in the South End now consist of one person.
 
Re: The Victor

underground said:
That's really not the case. NYC was the leader in urban renewel. The mayor of St Louis straight up admitted he tore down half downtown to build the Pruitt-Igoe project after touring New York with Robert Moses. Chicago did the same thing with Cabrini-Green. They didn't call Moses The Power Broker for fun.
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NY's urban renewal was much more limited vis a vis its overall urban fabric, though, for the most part was intended to improve housing conditions by "de-slumming" the poor into projects, rather than stoke economic development, and didn't touch nearly any of the city's central, now wealthy gentrified neighborhoods.

The closest analogue to what happened to the West End is the construction of NYU's Washington Square Village and Silver Towers in Greenwich Village, but you'd have to imagine the entire Village being torn down for a much larger development to make the analogy work. And even then, you could hardly make the case that a sequence of Brutalist towers would have been more instrumental in "saving" New York than, say, gentrification or the drop in the crime rate that helped accelerate it.
 
Re: The Victor

CZSZ - There has been a lot of demolishing of buildings in the MPD as well as Midtown West / Far West Side to make way for new multi-buidling developments. Not just limited to NYU.

What would have been nice was if Boston converted the remaining elevated Green Line tracks by North Station and turned it into a High Line type green space.
 
Re: The Victor

Czervik.Construction said:
CZSZ - There has been a lot of demolishing of buildings in the MPD as well as Midtown West / Far West Side to make way for new multi-buidling developments. Not just limited to NYU.
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That kind of development in Midtown West is relatively recent. We're talking about the 1960s.
 
Re: The Victor

I have no idea of what this building wants to be.
 
Re: The Victor

Is something going to be built on that patch of grass in front of the victor? No, I'm not talking about that long strip to the right of it.
 
Re: The Victor

armpitsOFmight said:
Is something going to be built on that patch of grass in front of the victor? No, I'm not talking about that long strip to the right of it.
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That's the site of One Canal, which used to be called Greenway Center. We have a thread for that.
 
Re: The Victor

All the past 2 weeks, everytime the TV showed those fans outside in Maple Leaf Square in Toronto, I just wanted to cry. Now THERE is a vibrant urban streetscape surrounding an arena.
 
Re: The Victor

shmessy said:
All the past 2 weeks, everytime the TV showed those fans outside in Maple Leaf Square in Toronto, I just wanted to cry. Now THERE is a vibrant urban streetscape surrounding an arena.
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I was actually in Toronto in mid-April and took in a Leafs game. That area around their arena is definitely vibrant and has a lot to look at pre-game. However, given the arena's location on the other side of the rail tracks, and sandwich between the Gardiner Expressway, I'm not sure what kind of vitality is going on their during a random weekday at 1 p.m. The street level retail in that area is largely limited to a couple of large sports bars and restaurants. Also, the other side of the arena is still surrounded by a large parking lot. (Both Toronto and MOntreal's arenas seem to have an issue with being build adjacent to large parking lots)

However, like most of Toronto, there is a lot of construction going on in that block, so that may all change in the next couple of years.
 
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Re: The Victor

jdrinboston said:
I was actually in Toronto in mid-April and took in a Leafs game. That area around their arena is definitely vibrant and has a lot to look at pre-game. However, given the arena's location on the other side of the rail tracks, and sandwich betweened the Gardiner Expressway, I'm not sure what kind of vitality is going on their during a random weekday at 1 p.m. The street level retail in that area is largely limited to a couple of large sports bars and restaurants. Also, the other side of the arena is still surrounded by a large parking lot. (Both Toronto and MOntreal's arenas seem to have an issue with being build adjacent to large parking lots)

However, like most of Toronto, there is a lot of construction going on in that block, so that may all change in the next couple of years.
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Thanks for that account. I was struck by this part: "However, given the arena's location on the other side of the rail tracks, and sandwich betweened the Gardiner Expressway......."

.....so even their LEAST likely areas look more urban than North Station. :(
 
Re: The Victor

shmessy said:
Thanks for that account. I was struck by this part: "However, given the arena's location on the other side of the rail tracks, and sandwich betweened the Gardiner Expressway......."

.....so even their LEAST likely areas look more urban than North Station. :(
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I actually wouldn't go that far. The Air Canada Centre is located in a fairly remote section of the downtown - again sandwiched between the Gardiner and the railroad tracks - which has largely been isolated from the main part of downtown. (The Gardiner has become a huge sore spot in Toronto because of its size, age, and its isolating effect between the city proper and the waterfront...sound familiar?) Walking between the subway system and the arena isn't even all that easy.

There has been a lot of construction in recent years, but it has all followed the Toronto construction template of 400 to 600 ft glass condo towers, with some ground floor retail. In this case, most of that retail space seems to be devoted to sports-themed eating/drinking establishments. Again, I didn't spent a lot of time there during non-gameday afternoons, but I wonder how much activity is going on there during these times?

However, what the ACC area of Toronto doesn't have going for it are authentic urban side streets like Canal Street, Friend Street, and Portland Street. The great evil of the old Garden parking lot is it creates a field of desolation between the current Garden, and the adjacent side streets, which I think are very engaging and lively, and much more urban than the "Maple Leaf Square" area around the ACC.

The lynchpin in this area will really be the garden towers. If we get something good on this site - and the promise of a supermarket looks very promising for ground floor retail - we could have an arena neighborhood better than most, including Toronto. Maybe we'll even get a large jumbotron to gather and watch playoff games on when we can't score tickets.....or not. Either way, while it is a work in progress, I think the North Station area is poised to become a very nice section of the city.
 
Re: The Victor

Naivete confession: I don't know what American city is an icon of best practices in infill construction, but it seems to me this aesthetic is just the way buildings look these days. I was in Seattle a few months ago and could not believe how much new construction there was--and how it all looked like the Victor. Suggested style name: Seattle Snooze.
http://ww1.hdnux.com/photos/03/12/55/830300/3/628x471.jpg
And
http://www.seattlemet.com/data/publicola-assets/2010/06/Amazon_HQ-1200.jpg
And
http://www.detecsystems.com/p7lsm_img_2/fullsize/amazonhq_fs.jpg
and
http://cdn1.vtourist.com/4/6332890-View_out_Monorail_Window_Door_at_New_Buildings_Seattle.jpg
 
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