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Big Ferris wheel for the Esplanade?
By adamg on Fri, 02/10/2012 - 7:56am
The Globe and the Herald report on a plan for the Esplandade that calls for better access across Storrow Drive, a cafe next to the Hatch Shell, doing more with the Charles River dam and the Muddy River and just generally sprucing up the existing facilities after decades of neglect. Another idea would be a 100-foot-tall Ferris wheel by the Museum of Science. Of course, this would take some money.
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Comments
non-sequitur
The Ferris wheel is just a big diversion. It is a shame they put it in their slides as it diverts attention away from the other better ideas in the plan. Plan is ambitious. Some of the ideas/plans they laid out are more then 10 years and some more then 20 years in the future.
Perhaps the most ambitious idea is to move Storrow Drive over 60 feet after allowing for better Pike access in other parts of the city.
Many of the ideas require a great deal of money and The Esplanade Association is putting at least some money where it's mouth is by hiring a full time major contributor (or is it grants?) manager. We will ee how far that goes.
You can only do so much
As long as Storrow drive exists, the Esplanade is always going to be a nice park along the river, not a nice park in Boston. Maybe a 100 years from now we'll have moved over to public transportation (or, at least cut the number of roadways through the city down to the Pike), and you can build the Esplanade right up to Back Bay. Then, there's no need for access points, and no need to build cafes in the park, people could just wander over after getting something in town.
If it were up to me, I'd just raise money and stash it away some where so that a future generation has the money to truly utilize the space. In the meantime, I'd focus on efforts to get people to drive less, and certainly wouldn't condone any events in the Esplanade that use Storrow as a parking lot.
Storrow Drive
Its tunnel needs hundreds of millions of dollars of repairs. Block that and push for elimination of Storrow today, not in a 100 years. Storrow Drive was never supposed to be built, it was even opposed by the Storrows themselves. Why we should continue to subsidize a neighborhood destroying freeway, I don't know.
Even DCR thinks its OK to close Storrow Drive for 18 months. It's not a big step to ask "Why not permanently?"
Park Obsession
"Maybe a 100 years from now we'll have moved over to public transportation (or, at least cut the number of roadways through the city down to the Pike), and you can build the Esplanade right up to Back Bay."
Why does the Esplanade have to be built right up to Back Bay? What is the absolute obsession with parks in this city? I don't get this "the more and bigger parks we have the better" mentality. We have more than enough already, both real ones and the pseudo ones like the "Greenway". Sometimes it seems people won't be happy until this entire city is one big park.
Highway obsession
I'd be more worried about park obsession if we weren't borrowing and spending dozens of billions of dollars on highway expansion.
The esplanade used to be right up to the Back Bay
That was the original design.
The highway, pushed through after Mrs. Storrow died (she opposed it strongly), was imposed on the park and ripped it up.
Parks
lolwut
Parking at the Museum o Science
They mention the Ferris Wheel as going where the Museum's parking garage is. Any idea where the Museum is moving their parking? I mean it would be great if everyone could take the T to the Museum, but I suspect they will still need parking facilities.
Rebuild?
I went last night.
For what it is worth, what was presented last night were ideas. There are no hard plans in the presentation.
Anyway, they suggested that there would be a way to replace the garage. No details were provided.
What's the problem with
What's the problem with maintaining the park as is with the exception of adding trees and improving landscaping? I guess adding a Ferris wheel by the Museum of Science might be be interesting since the views would be spectacular... however, leave the Storrow Drive side of the Esplanade alone. Enjoying nature's simple beauty is good for the soul.
Not a terrible idea
Now that I read a couple of the proposed details, this doesn't sound like a bad idea at all. To address the question of the museum's garage, it's too small now and too hard to get in and out of, so replacing it with something else could be a big win.
They're going to need parking and infrastructure improvements in that area if they want to add a giant ferris wheel attraction, so presumably the museum's parking could be included as part of that, and if you wanted to get really ambitious, you could give access to Lechmere station as part of the whole structure/complex.
If you could park once (in a large, well-designed facility with easy access, I know, I know, but just imagine for a second that such a thing could be built in Boston) and get to the Green Line, the ferris wheel or the science museum on foot, that would be a big win.
What will probably happen is that they will build some big parking structure in Charlestown or Southie or someplace and run shuttle buses (the bane of a car-free Bostonian's existence), but I can dream, can't I?
There's a parking garage
There's a parking garage under the common that my parents have used forever to drive in - it should really be held up as a model for future parking solutions. Underground is SO much better than taking up shopping/restaurant/residential/green space for parking.
It's also so much more expensive
Not that I don't favor the idea, but realistically, it's not always a viable solution. I tend to think an underground garage in a dam would be an example of a non-viable project. If it were up to me, there would be very little accommodation for cars downtown, so we wouldn't need to bury parking structures, they simply wouldn't exist.
We have enough parking lots
Heck, the one under the Common is close to everything you pointed out.
Since when are shuttle buses the bane of anyone's existence? Except maybe entitled suburbanites who want everything to come with free parking all the time. Parking lots are the bane of cities.
Using a "giant ferris wheel attraction" as an excuse for more roads and more parking lots is just ... ridiculous.
Am I the only one who
Am I the only one who actually LIKES the secluded nature of the esplanade?
lovers, muggers and thieves
I hear they're rather fond of it as well.
(joke)
It's wonderful that the
It's wonderful that the Esplanade always attracts tons of attention, but isn't it a shame no more formal effort or plans have ever come up to address either the amphitheater or the former ICA building that are around the bend on Soldiers Field Road?
Understanding that safety of bridges and roads has an important place, it seems sad that there is no interest on what could be an extraordinary space just a bit of the way up the river...