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Comments
I love it
A tower that's not a boring box? YES PLEASE
Boy, we are boring
Even the Globe's caption of the photo in print says it all - "unusually dramatic concept for Boston"
Buildings that look great shouldn't be called 'unusual' in a city - they should be the norm.
Looks like the building
Looks like the building belongs in a far east country.
If "great" buildings were the norm,
they no longer would stand out as great. The truth is, most buildings should be more typical, and basically just blend in, leaving an occasional gem for the skyline's explanation point.
Not a boring box? "Looks" awful...
Glad the garage might get replaced but this looks like some shiny toy that was designed for show.
The building "paints" a picture with lots of people and few cars. Is this going to come close to reality? Looking at the rendering, why would anyone want to be near that outside of rush hour? It appears to lack of ground level uses just like every other large tower in the area.
Shiny, but soulless. I hope they reconsider the human factor, especially at the street/eye level.
This is why we can't have
This is why we can't have nice things. Propose a project, and along comes everyone to tear it apart because it doesn't conform to their specific interests, needs, and tastes. Its unreal how self-centered people are.
That's it exactly. Nothing to
That's it exactly. Nothing to do with institutionalized corruption and incompetence, it's those internet commenters who are messing everything up!
If you've never been to a
If you've never been to a community meeting, or an oversight meeting, or a city council meeting, or any of the meetings where Boston development decisions get made, just say so.
The same could be said of Government Center in the 60s..
I sort of agree with you! However, at one point Government Center was award winning architecture (a nice thing!). Today it's American Brutalism (less nice). Sure this project looks nice, but is it?
I want to have places worth going to and be around ("human element?"). I would also argue this is probably in the developers (and investors) interest as well.
We have made these mistakes in the past, do you really think we should repeat them? Is that really in anyone's best interest?
Needs more red brick
Needs more red brick, of course!
Not that Boston will ever have a Gherkin or Torre Agbar.
Ground level
Check out the master plan for the site, it has tons of street level retail that will bring in plenty of pedestrian activity. I think this is actually the only building on the plan without it, so it's not really a big deal.
fair enough...
That is pretty awesome to hear then. Ill have to dig into it when I have more time! :)
Agree with Bluenu Frankie.
Agree with Bluenu Frankie. While yes, it does look shiny and pretty to the easily impressed, has any thought gone into the fact that this area is already congested enough? Add an obnoxiously tall tower to an area like this and welcome hundreds more cars to the area. Where are they going to park? This area is already stop and go at rush hour... it just doesn't make any sense. Oh right, I forgot, Boston has transformed into a utopia where everyone takes public transportation and/or bikes to work. Vehicular traffic is merely a figment of my imagination! Use your brains people! Do you want a cookie-cutter city like anywhere Midwest USA or do you want to retain the still barely human-scale historical charm of Boston which is what makes Boston such a desirable place to live, work and visit?
Cars
Attempting to design our Downtown to be accessible to thousands of people in cars is what would make Boston like a cookie cutter midwestern City. There is no solid reason that Boston should be frozen in time. Modern architecture and more development is absolutely something we should have, so long as we don't destroy our history to do it. That ugly behemoth of a garage is not our history, it's something that we should pretend never happened in the first place.
Yes!
As a resident of downtown Boston, I am disgusted with this. I don't want a new building, with the possibility of new residents, new businesses, new taxes collected by the City. I'm more concerned with how people are going to commute!
Transit Rich District
Everything from trains to buses to rail is a short distance away.
The Orange and Red lines are close by, with Blue and Green right there, as is North Station.
I think you need to tune up
I think you need to tune up your sarcasm detector, Swirls.
I know he was all snark
But the person above? Sheesh!
Of course I was...
That's about as close to the heart of downtown Boston as you can get...and he's worried about where people are going to park? If you're worried about Boston looking like a midwest city, you should be in favor of towers like this and against 6 story building with attached above-grade parking structures.
Midwest
I don't know. I hear Gary, Indiana has solved the careful balance of density and parking. See?
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/large/12985780.jpg
No one should ever build or
No one should ever build or do anything that doesn't cater exactly to my specific tastes.
Tommy, you had your turn.
Its somebody elses time to play.
Now play nice or go home to Hyde Park.
TOO ICONIC!
TOO ICONIC!
great
Great curves. Will give the heroin junkies that hang out at the bus way a place to sleep under!
Seriously though, love how the plans IGNORE the MBTA portion of the building. Once the garage comes down, there will be no more shelter since most of it comes from the garage. Who cares about commuters getting wet.
"Who cares about commuters getting wet"
You could always live in a bubble if you're that scared about water.
That's right. Nothing to be
That's right. Nothing to be scared about when you're waiting 15 minutes for a bus during a rainstorm in November. Fucking pussies.
Remove head from butt, look
Remove head from butt, look at the actual plan, and then comment. Someone even posted the pdf below for you.
Isn't your walk longer than that?
Seriously - what do you do when you are getting to the bus pick up area? Don't you need to walk in uncovered areas in umbrella-eating winds?
When the weather is cold or really nasty is when I don't bike. That means that I have a 10 minute walk to the 325 and 326 express buses on Congress Street, which are varyingly on time (not to mention another 10-15 minutes on the other end). There is a small overhang there, but it is wide open and is frequently crowded with tobacco huffers.
The solution to this problem: I use appropriate outerwear!
City sports is a great resource for rain gear - check out the basement for bargains. Never underestimate the comfort factor of putting on rain pants to keep you warm and dry. Switch to boots and keep your nice shoes in the office. That sort of thing.
(I hope nobody recommends bus tracking apps - they do not work for first stops of the run!)
OK, I understand
Because rain gear exists, no bus shelters are needed anywhere. Thanks for clearing that up.
Don't be daft
They work where they are - sort of. They aren't going to help you when you need to walk to and from the bus stop. We live in a city - not a habitrail!
I don't see where it says on that drawing that there won't be overhead coverage anyway - this is a schematic!
You know, if you do want to live in a mall, I think there is some space in that Natick development ... you can live entirely indoors there. Otherwise, plan to be outside for at least a half hour, and dress accordingly.
Buy an umbrella
Are they going to melt?
Its a little more than that
The Haymarket Busway serves the crazy busy 111 (which can have seas of people at times), along with four north shore buses (and the 92 and 93). Its a major hub for regional buses.
I'd expect something a little more than just a standard bus shelter at such a busy busway.
I know, right? Fuck all those
I know, right? Fuck all those losers waiting for the bus in the rain. Let them buy a car if they don't like it. Losers.
Are you
A Bus monitor?
No, but I've ridden the bus
No, but I've ridden the bus in all four seasons, unlike some commenters around here, apparently.
There's this thing around tall buildings
called wind shear. It's not conducive with the proper use of umbrellas. I understand the people who design and approve the design of such buildings (and who occupy corner suites) just go down to the basement garage and drive away, but many, many people do have to walk by these buildings, through their windswept 'public amenity' green space plazas, and even wait for *clutch the pearls* buses. Then there's the nodding heroin addicts. Won't somebody please think of the nodding heroin addicts?!
I'm sure can just add some
I'm sure can just add some clashing bus shelters to the sidewalk a couple years after it's done...
MBTA not ignored
If I'm not mistaken, this building will be on the opposite side of Congress St from the MBTA. The developer's plans do include a busway:
Thanks
I was just going to post a link to the Draft Project Impact Report. The developers talked to the T and hope their plans will mean an improvement to the busway.
No, Thank you.
Thank you! The Globe's page had nothing about it.
and now
that I've looked.
Wow what a piece of garbage. The commuters are getting the shaft again. We're getting LESS space than what is there now.
"Hotel and Condo drop off area" yeah these hotel folks are gonna love the homeless people who will hang out there.
And they removed a busway lane out of the busway. There's two INCLUDING the one for the greenway now, its down to one + the greenway travel lane. (Trust me, we need both and possibly a THIRD due to the over crowding that happens between people and buses)
And who's bright idea is it to put loading docks on the side of thoroughfare (new Chardon Street). Yeah traffic will love the "please wait while this tractor trailer backs into its loading dock(s)"
These building people don't care. they just want to sell their over priced condos and hotel rooms. Screw everyone else who has to live and work around the building.
PS - I make such a stink about this busway because I go thru the Haymarket Busway almost daily (as do a few other fellow Uhubbers).
The only people who support
The only people who support asinine projects like this are people who neither live nor work in Boston.
this building..
seems to be sitting on the other side of Congress at the entrance ramps to the garage now.
I'm sure any development on the other side (perhaps the retail arcade) will include new facilities for the T.
Unbelievable
A really cool looking tall building - in an area where height is appropriate. Somebody wake me up! Toto and I can't be in Boston anymore.
Seriously
I'm not wild about the design, as I think it will end up looking rather bland in the end, but if there ever was a place for a project of this scale, this seems like it.
Now, can the Commonwealth upgrade public transportation to above a 3rd-world standard so that people can actually get to this building?
Nooo, not the beautiful Government Center garage!
Pretty soon, the only building we'll have left that evokes a backwater capital of a lesser 1970s Soviet Socialist Republic will be Government Center itself.
Hey our local government
Hey our local government evokes a backwater of a lesser 1970s Soviet Socialist Republic. It's only fitting their offices match that character!
I think it's perhaps time
we deep six the very phrase 'Government Center'.
But you do realize Boston City Hall is actually considered one of the world's best examples of the Brutalist school of modern architecture? It's actually a masterpiece.
A "masterpiece"
A masterpiece of an example of how disconnected architects are from the general populace, I suppose.
It looks great to people looking at glossy photographs of it!
...
...is what they said about the Apple Store.
Sorry, I mean the award-winning design of the Apple Store.
Nobody walks by it and calls it an eyesore. I bet if you scan the papers from back in the day, the Pru was considered a disconnection from what the general populace wanted, etc.
Please, Nicole, tell us all
Please, Nicole, tell us all how you would have designed it so that we can make sure all future proposals conform to your self-centered opinion.
Opinion, opinion
Is "self-centered" supposed to be a pun? Good one.
I agree with Nicole, so that's at least 2 of us
.
My understanding and experience with that building is that it is also
not a pleasant place to work in or navigate. Something less "brutal"
would be very welcome.
Remember Former Mayor Mumbles proposed moving City Hall
to the waterfront? I wonder what kind of building would have resulted from that.
A submerged one
In a few years, at least.
Probably not the best place to put a building that should probably be available in times of disaster.
The giant concrete fortress on the hill may leak in a hard rain, but it probably isn't going anywhere, including underwater.
Concentrated gain, diffused pain
It's only a masterpiece to academics and modern architects, who LOVE the damn building. To laymen and women, it's an ugly hulk, that sits on the ruins of formerly establish (however seedy) neighborhood, but we're all pretty resigned to its unfortunate existence by now.
Odd that all the famous modernists, KMK, Cobb, Pei, and Rudolph all had a hand in various areas of GS and all have proven pointless and abject failures. Bring back the Scollay, Bowdoin, and Haymarket!
Kind of like saying that Albert Speer was the nicest Nazi
Still a Nazi. And City Hall is still u-g-l-y.
I know nothing about architecture but...
That is one sexy tower.
How long until it gets bargained down to a concrete mid-rise?
Beacon Hill Civic Society
Will find a reason to complain about it, even though it is not in Beacon Hill.
Then it will end up as a 3 story row house.
Probably
not very long.
But would it be....
innovative?!
Didn't you read the part about
The zig zag elevators and the worlds tallest slide?
Ugly
Really ugly.
Would you
care to enlighten us on your preferred design aesthetics?
Offsetting the ugly
I like it.
It would certainly offset the drab concrete soviet style federal building and city hall.
It wouldn't offset the
It wouldn't offset the brutalism of city hall, it would shine a bright harsh light on it by contrast.
Yes!
Curved glass buildings can look great, just as long as they don't end up like a giant glass
dildogherkin.Or melt cars.
Or melt cars.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-23930675
(Shouldn't be a problem with a convex design like this.)
Parking
When the govt center garage comes down, where will people park for events at the Garden - Bruins, Celtics, Concerts, etc?
Still there
They are not tearing down the entire structure. There will be parking for over 1000 cars when done
sub·jec·tive
I suspect most people that comment here understand the concept. Why not just say "I think the plans for the building look cool" or "I think Paul Rudolph is Satan."
When you try to state such things definitively we all know it's not, makes you sound a little ridiculous.
-Saving-the-Internet-One-Forum-at-a-Time
Oh. I like it.
Oh. I like it.