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Hey, you! Yeah, you!
By adamg on Tue, 05/17/2011 - 11:03am
Jed Hresko noticed one of the city's spiffy new Downtown Crossing trash-compactor cans, but wondered what slogans the city considered for them, then rejected:
HEY kids, go to school!
HEY Fidelity, hire some teens!
No word if the equally new DTX "ambassadors" are using them for what Hresko says seems to be their main mission: Confiscating homeless people's blankets and stuff.
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Comments
why does menino have to put
why does menino have to put his name on everything paid for by the taxpayers?
Because
... it is a privilege of office in Massachusetts to use taxpayer money and property to advertise yourself.
1. I'm surprised Mumbles'
1. I'm surprised Mumbles' name is so small on the box.
2. What in the world would Fidelity do with teens?
Teens?
They make good gofers and couriers, for starters. They can be easily trained to make copies and mail stuff out, too.
awesome
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJB0CzlzSwY
Nice!
Consider, however, that one way to learn that you don't want a crap job is to do one for a while.
In my experience, teens make
In my experience, teens make good television watchers, video game players, texters, etc. Courier work is contracted out. And I assume Fidelity already has a staffed mail room. Are you going to hire teens to watch other people work?
Hmmm ...
If that is your "opinion" of teens you are either a lousy parent who had no/little expectations of your kid, will be a lousy parent, or never have had daily contact with teens.
Downtown Crossing Association needs to focus on real estate
and by that I don't mean the Filene's hole, I mean all of the still-standing and vacant commercial rental property up and down Washington Street. Starting with the former Barnes & Noble. Just yesterday I biked through there and noticed that Wendy's and Aldo Shoes had gone out of business.
Refill these storefronts with viable retail and/or restaurant tenants, and all of DTX's other problems will fix themselves.
Wendy's at DTX
Still open, dude.
Wendy's
Really? When I passed by 349 Washington St. yesterday, the sign said it was closing for good on May 13. The store is no longer listed on Wendy's website.
Wendy's
My apologies, Ron, you are right; that Wendy's is closed.
That Wendy's had been there for years. I remember in the early 80's the Bruins had a promotion on Saturday afternoon; if they scored 4 goals or more, you could redeem your ticket for a free chili. I used to go there after the games.
Landlords are a big problem
Many of those storefronts contained viable businesses that were put out by huge rent hikes despite the down market. Landlords would rather sit on vacant property rather than cut leases at lower rent levels.
Given the strain that vacant storefronts put on city services and the blight they cause, I think Boston should have a vacancy tax similar to those in many older cities.
Why can't the landlords do short-term or month-to-month leases?
That way they can collect lower rent (instead of zero rent) during the down period, and still have the option to raise rents when conditions improve.
Who wants to pay high rent in
Who wants to pay high rent in a run down building where half your potential customers are going to be hassled by panhandlers or rowdy school kids playing hooky? It doesn't help that half the storefronts are empty, making it harder to have a critical mass of potential customers, or that the general area is really filthy either.
These problems have been there since BEFORE the Filene's hole. It's been downhill since the late 70s, when all the anchor department stores started going out of business and the smaller shops faded away. There's no real destination shopping there anymore. Anything in DTX can be bought elsewhere in a nicer environment. The Prudential Mall, Cambridgeside Galleria, and South Bay have supplanted downtown. Unless SEVERAL anchor stores, currently absent from Boston, move into DTX, like Walmart, Kohls, Nordstrom, or L.L. Bean, there's never going to be a compelling reason to shop there again.
As it is now, Macy's a pitiful tiny joke of a store compared to when Jordan Marsh actually used the entire complex and had annexes.
Really filthy?
Last Friday morning, around 7:45a, I walked through Downtown Crossing and was impressed with how clean it looked. The street and sidewalk really looked nice. Yes, there have been many times where it was less than clean, and I am not sure when you walked through recently, but as of late last week, it look damn good.
Kudos to the city, I say.
How many landlords are we
How many landlords are we talking about here? It strikes me as strange that there is always such a high amount of vacant storefronts right over the busiest stop in the whole transportation hub. Can no single landlord work out a lease with a national chain that would love to have that kind of visibility? Thousands of people move through DTX, they just need a reason to stop. The Barnes and Noble seems like it's been closed for 10 years now - who is the landlord and why is he sitting on it for so long? Why isn't it a Trader Joe's by now, so I can buy somewhat better pasta on the way home than the Beefaroni at CVS? As far as teens and panhandlers go, I bet there's the same amount in Times Square or Union Square in San Francisco, but it's not as obvious because those places attract other people as well. There's something strange at work here. The city should publish a list of these landlords, they're really starting to piss me off.
Teens and panhandlers have
Teens and panhandlers have always been in DTX to some degree. It was when the number of shoppers dropped off enough to keep the nuisance from being diluted, that the problem exponentially chased off the remaining shoppers.
That lack of unique retail options providing a critical mass of customers is killing the area more than anything.