The Victor | 110 Beverly Street | West End

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CIMG3299 by timsox6, on Flickr

Cannot wait for them to get those cycle tracks and streetscape improvements on the pedestrian hellscape that is Causeway St.
 
Corey what a great pic, and like someone previously stated you really need to spend more time in Boston!
 
From last weekend (also a worse version of Corey's pic above)

 
timsox6 said:

CIMG3299 by timsox6, on Flickr

Cannot wait for them to get those cycle tracks and streetscape improvements on the pedestrian hellscape that is Causeway St.
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At least do something other than those hideous bollards in front of the federal building.
 
DZH22 said:
From last weekend (also a worse version of Corey's pic above)

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compare this pix with one taken ten years from now, if all planned projects get built this may be the most changed landscape in Boston.
 
That photo does an amazing job of showing how removing the Central Artery and promptly replacing it with a new Surface Artery really didn't help knit the city back together at all.
 
I think it is a vast improvement over the looming Central Artery. However, it does highlight the need for decking over that on-ramp parcel. Sadly, it doesn't seem like anyone has the financial wherewithal to make it feasible.
 
Arborway said:
That photo does an amazing job of showing how removing the Central Artery and promptly replacing it with a new Surface Artery really didn't help knit the city back together at all.
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To be fair, the northern portion is the worst of it.
 
The exit ramps at Haymarket are pretty bad, but the North End in general is one of the best examples of what a great project the Big Dig was and a great example of why you'd do a project like that in any city. So not really sure how you could say it's not really knitted back into the rest of the city.
 
underground said:
The exit ramps at Haymarket are pretty bad, but the North End in general is one of the best examples of what a great project the Big Dig was and a great example of why you'd do a project like that in any city. So not really sure how you could say it's not really knitted back into the rest of the city.
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I'm with you. But maybe the distinction is that the Bullfinch triangle section is doing very well - and it's because this is where we've actually put buildings on top of the thing, and put (kept) small streets on the surface. As we all know, buildings and small streets are what we mean when we say 'knitting the city together".

The north end section is different. The parks are very pleasant and well used, but if building and small streets are what do knitting, parks and big streets (and parking lots) are what do unknitting. The chasm between haymarket / blackstone and the north end is still a chasm, even if it's a vastly more pleasant chasm. To be sure a pleasant chasm can be a nice thing to have, but a lot of that depends on whether it has good knitting all around it.

That's why the north end ramp parcels are such a disappointment. The root cause here though is in the structure of the parcel. With surface streets touching the parcel boundaries on all sides, there's no terra firm for a core, and no interface space for loading & unloading people and goods (let along staging construction). This is why its too expensive to build there.

Its the same problem as with the Pike. Columbus center almost made it work with those small spandrels on the side of the pike, but ultimately it wasn't enough. If the city wants to get buildings in those places, its going to have to change the parceling and realign the street grid.

For the north end, doing this would have to mean taking a portion of the small block under the garage, realigning the through traffic to congress, and making the current street space and the bus area at haymarket part of a single parcel with the ramps. For the pike, it probably means building a new boulevard centered on (and cantilevered from) columns in pike mediuan, putting building cores on the current surface roads, and then cantilevering part of the buildings over a couple lanes of traffic - a hybrid deck, in effect, that combines street surface and building structure. Much cheaper in the long run than trying to construct an entire building suspended 10 feet in the air, and then trying to keep it there and service it for 100 years. (And i recognize that we discussed and mapped this prospect extensively a few months ago)
 
How does decking work for on- and off-ramps? I can see decking the pike, but how will vehicles get in and out from 93 if there is decking here... I suppose it's just more covered than now, but not completely covered?
 
timsox6 said:
How does decking work for on- and off-ramps? I can see decking the pike, but how will vehicles get in and out from 93 if there is decking here... I suppose it's just more covered than now, but not completely covered?
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You really can't deck it any more than it already is because of the clearance requirements. Because of the way the ramp parcel was designed, you can only build something in that tiny little triangle piece at the intersection.
 
You really can't deck it any more than it already is because of the clearance requirements. Because of the way the ramp parcel was designed, you can only build something in that tiny little triangle piece at the intersection.
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Put a statue of Menino or something there and be done with it then. With that little space I don't think anything can ever be built there.
 
They could, of course, study the feasibility of closing a set of ramps. That would be controversial, but could boost discussion about what we can do with those parcels. It would be a shame if they have to remain as they are.
 
Build the elevator core and a lobby on the parcel and then build out over the ramp, with the first 'full' floor cantilevered out above the necessary clearance.

It would be a slightly awkward looking building, but done cleverly enough, it could be cool.
 
I always thought that set of ramps would be a great spot to build a London Eye-like Ferris Wheel. It's just the right size that you could deck over the ramps and have a pedestrian bridge over to the new Haymarket Station/Gov't Center Garage redevelopment and further activate the Greenway. A nice 500-foot wheel there would offer quite the views, and you wouldn't hear as much bitching about shadows from it because the wheels generally let lots of light pass through them.
 
1) Close Cross Street from Endicott Street to North Washington Street.
2) Reconfigure Surface Road and the Haymarket busway from Hanover St to North Washington to support a lane of northbound traffic and move it a bit further away from the ramps.
3) Sell the ramp parcel along with "Endicott Triangle", the parking lot triangle at the intersection of Cross and Cooper St, and the small section of Stillman Street from Endicott St to Cross St as one big parcel.
4) Success!
 
Is there enough clearence to build a deck wide enough for a looby at the end facing the north end park? Beyond that it seems like emergency exits might be a problem. Street level wouldn't be great because it would be mostly ramp entrances and blank walls. Maybe the blank walls would be a good place for some digital advertising, at least on the Haymarket busway side. I don't think they'd be happy with that on the north end side.

How about a park something like the Irish Hunger Memorial Park in Battery Park City? It would start at street level facing the north end park and slope up to accomidate the ramps.
 
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