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Questions of scale in Boston

Tom Menino wants to limit building heights along the Greenway.

Ablarc discusses (with photos) appropriate scale of buildings along Newbury and Boylston streets.

Vanshnookenraggen calls for a new role for the BRA:

... The BRA used to work along the top-down approach. They were the educated elite and their new plans for the city would fix all its problems. As time has proved over and over this is the wrong way to do things. We need a bottom up approach. But can a massive bureaucracy work bottom-up? I think it can and it has to if we are going to seriously start fixing the problems of the city. ...


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Questions of scale, questions of the Greenway, and of Boston's commitment to public space and public investment. That's the subject of Radio Boston this week, Friday and Saturday at one.
We're talking to the ferocious and fearless public art critic Christine Temin who says in brief "It's pathetic."
How's that for starters?

And if you want to follow me on Twitter I'm here.

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Is Temin referring to the Greenway itself, or to " Boston's commitment to public space and public investment" ?

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Actually she's referring to both.
She thinks the Greenway could have been bold, grand, and far more inviting in the way of Millenium Park in Chicago and Las Ramblas in Barcelona, a city that like Boston was also divided by a highway. A longtime art and architecture critic for the Boston Globe and Art New England, Temin says Boston's commitment to public investment in public art and public space largely ended with the era of the Olmsteads and the Emerald Necklace.
She's an important and provocative voice, to be heard on Radio Boston, not this week, but on October 12 and 13.

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One question I have is, should the Greenway be judged by its initial condition, or by what it looks like 5, 10, 15 years out? I see opportunities for a lot of tinkering, small building projects, and so on.

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I was around when Post Office Square became a park over a garage, rather than an eyesore. It was nice then - kind of like the greenway - but the trellis was bare and the trees were small.

Now that I work downtown I am amazed by what 15 years can do. Large shady trees, the trellis is covered in vines and leaves, etc.

Give it time - the greenway will grow up and grow in soon enough, so long as it is tended and watered and cared for like Leventhal's beautiful vision come true.

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I'll certainly listen in, it's an interesting topic and we certainly expected more for our $15 billion, sorry, $22 billion, than what's there now, but ...

There's a lot more to Boston than just downtown, as hard as that might be for some people to believe. Millennium Park (ours, not Chicago's), Pope John Paul II Park, the Mass. Audubon sanctuary in Mattapan, the Harbor Islands, all now provide recreational opportunities for the majority of Bostonians who don't live in million-dollar condos in the North End (and let's not forget the work to restore the Muddy River to Olmsted's original plans). Do they represent an investment in public space? Yes. Has Christine Temin ever been to any of them? I doubt it.

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North Point Park (which won't reach its full potential until the adjoining development occurs), Danehy Park in Cambridge, City Square and Paul Revere parks in Charlestown, the East Boston Greenway, Piers Park in East Boston, Mary O'Malley Park in Chelsea, the Minuteman Bikeway and Somerville Community Path -- all projects built during the last 20 years.

Spectacle Island!

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Is this to perserve the quality of the views from the greenway? For instance, from the north end park there is a spectacular view of the financial district.

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So that tall buildings don't cast permanent shadows on the park.

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