Winthrop Center | 115 Winthrop Square | Financial District

That's pretty good with the step ups. But we also need a peak that punches through to create a more definitive Downtown crown.... That site is monstrous. So, maybe 2 >700' towers. How about the taller twin w/ a 40 Wall Tower-esqe spire pushing to the 810' FAA limit.

Some have said they don't like the Courthouse on the opposite side of the superblock. Visitors will assume it's old? I rather much like it.
 
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odurandina said:
That's pretty good with the step ups. But we also need a peak that punches through to create a more definitive Downtown crown.... That site is monstrous. So, maybe 2 >700' towers. How about the taller twin w/ a 40 Wall Tower-esqe spire pushing to the 810' FAA limit.

Some have said they don't like the Courthouse on the opposite side of the superblock. Visitors will assume it's old? I like rather much it.
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That makes sense also. I didn't know the FAA limits here, so I was trying to be optimistic but reasonable. Also taking into consideration - this is Boston after all.
 
BCDC this week:

http://www.bostonplans.org/document...-winthrop-square-bcdc-presentation-2019-03-26

Still a very gray square. Who looks at a location a block from Post Office Square and says "hey, you know what this needs? Lots of paving, and the pattern of a ripple! Yeah, nothing says Financial District (or colonial governor John Winthrop) like a ripple hitting a pond!" That theming has been boring anywheresville almost to the point of satire since they announced it. This is the same attention you'd give a plaza outside of a spec office building in Marlborough.

I'm sure it will be nice enough, but we have a beautiful, green privately-owned park right around the corner from here. How is Millennium screwing this up?
 
Equilibria said:
BCDC this week:

http://www.bostonplans.org/document...-winthrop-square-bcdc-presentation-2019-03-26

Still a very gray square. Who looks at a location a block from Post Office Square and says "hey, you know what this needs? Lots of paving, and the pattern of a ripple! Yeah, nothing says Financial District (or colonial governor John Winthrop) like a ripple hitting a pond!" That theming has been boring anywheresville almost to the point of satire since they announced it. This is the same attention you'd give a plaza outside of a spec office building in Marlborough.

I'm sure it will be nice enough, but we have a beautiful, green privately-owned park right around the corner from here. How is Millennium screwing this up?
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I wish they'd just fix it up in its current form. I know Boston does red brick to death, but the brick is a nice contrast to the buildings around it. The new proposal looks way too sterile. It looks like a generic office tower plaza you'd find in Dallas or Houston.
 
Equilibria said:
BCDC this week:

http://www.bostonplans.org/document...-winthrop-square-bcdc-presentation-2019-03-26

I'm sure it will be nice enough, but we have a beautiful, green privately-owned park right around the corner from here. How is Millennium screwing this up?
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Its because there is a privately-owned park right around the corner that there is no onus on them to add additional green space. They probably feel they've ponied up enough - and rightfully so. I do agree that it needs more than this poorly (read lazily) conceived theme and concrete. The goal should be to tie into PO Square - to extend it, so to speak.
 
Looking at the renders again - I agree with you even more now. It just feels cold and corporate. I know a space needs to be planned and thus it will feel planned. But there is nothing about it that makes it feel organic. It feels like it was dropped out of a template - a-la Sim City. It's TOO perfect and doesn't have any warmth.
 
i was shocked when i saw that park render yesterday.

How could they be so obtuse?
 
cadetcarl said:
Amazing to me how many times a day the way I view myself along the populist-elitist axis changes. Sometimes from thread to thread on this site alone over the course of a single morning.

Rover and JSic, I see your point: the people want what they want, and if we can trust our government to be a broad representation of what we want (I might debate this but not in this venue) then it's clear that there's very little public appetite for these sorts of buildings. Or maybe not the government, but at least the comments section of the Globe and Reddit. The GSC and City Hall have lost the battle of public opinion.

On the other hand, have you SEEN the kind of stuff that people like? I don't actually know that a layperson can tell the difference between good architecture and a ham sandwich. Maybe this is too noblesse oblige but I also do believe that it is possible to know better, to have a more developed sense of what merits preservation. It is not without some peril to just give the people what they want all the time. People also want to drive pickup trucks when they live and work in the city. They also smoke cigarettes which are certain to take time off of their life expectancies.

All I'm saying is, an appeal to the will of the people is not always a slam dunk.
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Nobody's is saying to have blind faith in your elected officials. However it is a viable mechanism for producing the city that you'd like to see. NIMBY's tend to wonder why the masses aren't out with pitchforks and torches because 115Winthrop Square is causing a shadow in the park in January, not realizing that they are a vocal but tiny minority. Most people could see that the benefits far outweighed any of their complaints.

I'm also real skeptical of self appointed experts (not directed at you but at the professional NIMBY class in this city). A great example was the discussion out here over the Gaeity when it was getting torn down. One of the posters was a huge advocate of preservation, even attending a protest. But, as another poster replied to him, the theatre was beyond repair, last was used to show porn flicks in the 70's and had been abandoned for 30 years. Then the question was posed, when does preservation start becoming a religion? If the place is derelict for 30 years? 50? 100? At some point some awful buildings need to go if there's a viable project in place to replace them, even if two people still have an attachment to them.
 
“The city asked developers interested in the parcel to include an observation deck in their plans. Instead, Millennium offered up the Great Hall, a 12,000-square-foot space with huge doors that would often be open, connecting Devonshire and Federal streets at the tower’s base. The company pledged that the hall would mean more to Boston than any observation deck ever could.”

...
 
odurandina said:
Globe; Developer rethinks tower’s public space: ‘Great Hall’ will be ‘the Connector’

https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2019/04/01/hall/Ymu84WBfCENL7mT7liF2HO/story.html
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This is so obvious it hurts to see people falling for the clear bait and switch.

The Great Room concept was grand. This, as described by the Globe, is a 'long, high ceilinged lobby with chairs that can be moved for events'.

Of course, it would be nice to see renders of the two iterations and compare. The Globe reporter and the editors certainly gave cover to the developers in not showing it. If tonight's meeting shows what this article is intimating - - then Millenium should have their approvals revoked. This would be a SECOND renegotiate down from what they originally were tasked to do and it would be blatant abuse of the city. They might as well just pin signs on Marty Walsh's back that say "kick me".

If it is the same as the renders from the 3/26/19 link earlier - then shame on Millenium.

More to the point, anyone with a passing knowledge of linguistics can plainly see what is going on.

"Great Room" = 'Come in from outside and stay awhile, experience this public space'

"The Connector" = 'Move along!'

Seriously, how OBVIOUS does this get?


But that is a street-level, humanoid matter,. Nothing that Leggo-Set Houston-envy people like "Tosh 33" (nice ass-kissing in the comments section there, Odurandina) care about.
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Connector is so unecessary...building next door with Starbucks already connects federal and Devonshire.
 
Czervik.Construction said:
Was this Great Hall supposed to be like The Shed at Hudson Yards, a sort of performance space?
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I find it funny how every post of yours compares something in Boston to something in NYC, as if you couldn't fathom an understanding of either city without the other.
 
shmessy said:
This is so obvious it hurts to see people falling for the clear bait and switch.

The Great Room concept was grand. This, as described by the Globe, is a 'long, high ceilinged lobby with chairs that can be moved for events'.

Of course, it would be nice to see renders of the two iterations and compare. The Globe reporter and the editors certainly gave cover to the developers in not showing it. If tonight's meeting shows what this article is intimating - - then Millenium should have their approvals revoked. This would be a SECOND renegotiate down from what they originally were tasked to do and it would be blatant abuse of the city. They might as well just pin signs on Marty Walsh's back that say "kick me".

If it is the same as the renders from the 3/26/19 link earlier - then shame on Millenium.

More to the point, anyone with a passing knowledge of linguistics can plainly see what is going on.

"Great Room" = 'Come in from outside and stay awhile, experience this public space'

"The Connector" = 'Move along!'

Seriously, how OBVIOUS does this get?


But that is a street-level, humanoid matter,. Nothing that Leggo-Set Houston-envy people like "Tosh 33" (nice ass-kissing in the comments section there, Odurandina) care about.
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Big time bait and switch. The new rendering looks like any other tower lobby with two entrances. Perhaps my reading comprehension is off, but I did not see, or understand the rationale ("it wasn't resonating"???? with whom?) as to why changes were necessary, but it's probably due to the Globe being the Globe.
 
I guess it's a bait and switch, but from the beginning how could anyone have been naive enough to think this was going to be anything other than a corporate lobby?

It's not like they offered up something concrete like a theater, or a museum, or even FFS a gourmet food court. They offered a "Great Hall" which, behind revolving doors, is a big lobby.
 
You's meanies are going at this all wrong. We lost the Athenæum, but we gained the Grand Passage.... and even though nothing says Bosssston better than a claustrophobic tunnel under the Gahdin.... we're getting a piano virtuoso beltin' out show tunes while we gaze at posters of Yaz, Papi, Teddy Ballgame, Russel, Havlecek & Larry, Bobby Orr airborne, Tom Brady and Gronk, i even put in a request for some iconic studio shots of Gahbo and Greer Garson.... They even agreed to play Greer's 1942-all time record [5 minute, 31 second] Oscar acceptance speech for her role in Mrs Miniver to quash any would-be whining, sardonic haters....

and aren't you all forgetting.....
It's all about the twin towers!!

btw, i say we name the East Tower, Garson, and the West Tower, Garbo--but that's just me.


 
Shepard said:
I guess it's a bait and switch, but from the beginning how could anyone have been naive enough to think this was going to be anything other than a corporate lobby?

It's not like they offered up something concrete like a theater, or a museum, or even FFS a gourmet food court. They offered a "Great Hall" which, behind revolving doors, is a big lobby.
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Yup, and really who cares? Not our architecture fetish crowd out here of course, who do serve a vital purpose, but for the public at large. Did anybody really plan on hanging out in the "Great Hall"? I know I didn't and I work next door. The project replaced a condemned garage downtown and coughed up hundreds of millions of dollars in funds for parks and other priorities. Frankly, that's enough in my book.

Oh and tosh, its a little early in the day to be drinking.
 
odurandina said:
You's meanies are going at this all wrong.... We lost the Athenæum, but we gained the Grand Passage.... and even though nothing says Bosssston better than a claustrophobic tunnel under the Gahdin.... we're getting a piano virtuoso beltin' out show tunes while we gaze at posters of Yaz, Papi, Teddy Ballgame, Russel, Havlecek & Larry, Bobby Orr airborne, Tom Brady and Gronk, i even put in a request for some iconic studio shots of Gahbo and Greer Garson.... They even agreed to play Greer's 1942-all time record [5 minute, 31 second] Oscar acceptance speech for her role in Mrs Miniver to quash any would-be whining, sardonic haters....



btw, i say we name the East Tower, Garson, and the West Tower, Garbo--but that's just me.
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Nice deflection. Good luck with your generic vertical Leggo-set trying to turn Boston into an empty Houston.

Those of us who are HUMANOIDS would like to experience a vibrant city.

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