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Why try to force tourists back to Downtown Crossing?
By adamg on Mon, 03/05/2012 - 6:52pm
The Globe writes (free registration required) today that the new mega-Walgreens is a failure before it even opens because Downtown Crossing needs something unique and exciting if we're ever to bring the tourists and shoppers back, and the experience of buying sushi at a drug store just doesn't cut it for the thrill-seeking solons of Morrissey Boulevard:
If Walgreens wants to make the store a destination for residents and tourists alike - and something truly deserving of its prominent location - it needs to up the ante.
Hey, remember the last DTX project that was going to up the ante? It left us with a giant hole and a depressing homage to Christo. And remember the ante-upping project before that? Lafayette Place is so lovely in the springtime, isn't it?
Enough, already. The tourists and the suburbanites have Faneuil Hall and Copley Place; herds of them roam freely across the North End and Newbury Street. Must all of Boston Proper be set aside as a tourist preserve?
Cities and their neighborhoods evolve, and Downtown Crossing is no exception. The transformation along the waterfront of rotting wharves and vacant warehouses into pricey condos and apartments now extends into downtown, where thousands of people live in what used to be similarly gritty offices. It's time to recognize that Downtown Crossing of yesteryear is as dead as Jordan Marsh and Filene's and Woolworth's - and that Downtown Crossing's residents deserve the same sort of basic amenities as residents of every other Boston neighborhood, from supermarkets and, yes, drugstores to, eventually public schools.
And you know what? Over time, Downtown Crossing will become a tourist attraction again - not as a place to get a discount on wedding dresses, but as a unique urban enclave. If, that is, the city lets it, instead of listening to people pining for the 1950s.
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Comments
same bullshit with Hubway
They only put the initial and largest stations where the tourist centers are, instead of providing something for residents to use to get around to the few Approved By The Mumblenator tourist designations. Heaven fucking forbid they want to visit JP or Alston or something other than Charlestown, North End, South End, or Beacon Hill.
Same bullshit with the hollywood freebie 25% bonuses to Mr. Cruise and company at our taxpayer expense - the excuse? Warm fuzzy feelings about how it'll bring more people to Boston to check out those scenes they saw in some crappy movie nobody will give two shits about in a year or two.....like ZooKeeper 5, Revenge of the Wombat.
Wooooooo, that's really going to make people want to come to Boston.
Huh?
There's no hubway stations in Charlestown. There are stations in Roxbury Crossing and Dudley. And of course in Allston and also Brighton near New Balance (a sponsor!). I suppose for JP the tourists will just have to resign themselves to riding the 39 bus. Or the Orange Line.
Agreed about the movie tax breaks. They're pretty silly.
Wrong link
That's about a Roxbury [possible] shooting.
Ugh, sorry
Link fixed.
Adam, you are right
I thought that was a bizarre editorial. Do they expect Manhattan? Nordstrom's? The stores that stay in business in that area sell things that can be carried home on public transportation (books, cameras, clothes, jewelry, cell phones). That's because the daytime population consists of office workers and on the weekends people who take a subway just to hang out or go to a movie or show (yes those theaters do exist).
Happened to be down there Sunday
Fair number of people out and about, actually, even by the Hole. There's potential. I think the city should not be looking for some mega-developer to swoop in and save it.
If it were up to me, I'd cut up the open space with some small streets, divide the remaining space into parcels, then auction them off to raise some cash. This way we're not left in the lurch if one developer decides to play games. I think it would encourage a further proliferation of the kind of small stores that are already successful there, plus I bet some developers would choose to build residences mixed in, if allowed. Beginnings of a neighborhood. Would bring some evening and nighttime uses to complement the already present daytime uses.
I suppose the main criticism of that plan would be that there wouldn't be enough residents to form the backbone of evening and nighttime use. Maybe. But the city is small anyway.
Not that Boston would ever allow this
when I lived in singapore there was a whole collection of small restaurants along the river. we don't have a river there obviously, but we do have a lot of small - fairly seedy storefronts. I'd love to see one of the small side streets dedicated to small restaurants - maybe with some cool ethnic food - althought they would have to grow somewhat organically. I think the problem would be that without about a dozen liquor licenses this would never happen. If you could do this on some kind of a special or shared license - it might be a cool concept - add in some outdoor seating and I think you'd have a destination that a lot of people would find attractive - you'd generate activity in the area and help the local shops and hopefully drive out some of the drug element.
Sounds cool
My only nitpick is that if you promote it as a "dedicated restaurant row" then the Mayor's office will likely go out of its way to stifle it and try to force it into being. Better to just provide the opportunity for the small shops and then let it come up naturally, as you say. Of course, playing hands off is probably the hardest thing imaginable for City Hall.
I think being able to get
I think being able to get sushi at a Walgreens is pretty unique.
Unique /= good
n/t
Tourists are already in Downtown Crossing
They're right across the street from ex-Borders, at the Old South Meeting House on the Freedom Trail.
True, but let's stop trying to force it
There are plenty of tourists following the Freedom Trail - and there are still people who go to Downtown Crossing for shopping. I'm just arguing that in terms of city efforts, it's time to stop insisting we treat it like some giant shopping mall and start treating it like the neighborhood it now is.
Thousands of Office Workers
DTX is a very busy place around lunch time. People don't just sit in their offices - they get out, get lunch, and run shopping errands. Why the Globe seems to forget that we exist, I have no idea.
Uh. Maybe it has something to
Uh. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that you all ride your bicycles back to Slummerville or wherever and leave at 6PM. Unlike the Back Bay, where the district transforms from business to leisure.
Cripes
Slummerville
Was this really needed?
Cripes, Cripes!
Please, could someone tell me
Please, could someone tell me where exactly Lafayette Place is? All I can find is that it is in Downtown Crossing... but WHERE???
Was, you mean
It's basically the building between Macy's and the hotel that used to be Swiss on Avenue de Lafayette.
Now contains Eddie Bauer Outlet and some other stuff
with offices upstairs. It's pretty much unrecognizable from its former incarnation as a (failing) indoor shopping mall and food court.
Most GPS systems don't know
Most GPS systems don't know where it is either. We routinely encounter out-of-town drivers near Lafayette Ave in the North End looking for the Hyatt.
I know who can fix Downtown Crossing
Steve Wynn!