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Gentrification leads to mass evictions at Downtown Crossing
By Arborway on Fri, 07/13/2007 - 1:17pm
thecappy03 reports:
Chacarero, Lambert's, Mediterranneo and every business associated with the old Filene's building was given an early eviction notice earlier this month. They are all to be closed and shuttered by July 31 with no hope of ever returning to the upscale, unaffordable new tower to be completed in 2010 at the earliest. The Pushcart Marketplace which has been an affordable staple in the Crossing will be booted off the premises August 31 according to Anne Meyers of the Downtown Crossing Association.
Another fine example of developers moving into a neighborhood to build something that will eliminate many of the reasons for wanting to live in that neighborhood.
I for one cannot believe I'm going to have to live without Chacarero.
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Comments
Save Chacarero!
Can we start a movement or something?
:-(
http://1smootshort.blogspot.com
Good luck
The city doesn't care about small businesses.
Their vision of Boston is a city of expensive condos, pricey boutiques and colleges. Nothing else really matters, and if a neighborhood is destroyed in the process, who cares? They're trying to draw in new residents from cookie-cutter subdivisions named after what was destroyed to build the subdivision. Being surrounded by sterile homogeny is nothing new to these people. Neither is flattening an area to facilitate that.
Downtown Crossing is going to become a collection of stores where the status-obsessed can pick out their $500 handbags. Anything that doesn't directly appeal to the "hip, edgy and affluent professional" is going to be eliminated.
BTW - They're already kicking out the pushcart vendors.
Chacarero saw it coming and
Chacarero saw it coming and opened up another one on Province St. around the corner (across from more construction of more luxury condos...)
Chacarero
I believe that Chacarero anticipated this a while back when they opened a second location a few blocks away at 26 Province St. Phew!
You do know that Chacarero
You do know that Chacarero has another location (a sit-down location, at that), right nearby at 26 Province Street, right? I'm sure that it will be more crowded with the Downtown Crossing location shut, but the food is the same.
No, I didn't know that,
No, I didn't know that, actually.
2010, huh?
Anyone who thinks the new tower will be completed by 2010 clearly hasn't lived here very long. We're looking at a decade of windblown dirt, surprise detours, and green and orange plastic netting over crooked chain-link fences. Think Ms. Meyers has a prediction about when the Downtown Crossing MBTA station, which lies below the Filene's Building, will first be evacuated?
argh! fuck Boston. I'm
argh! fuck Boston.
I'm really getting sick of this town ruining itself.
Chacarero Isn't Going Anywhere
They already have a new location nearby, at 26 Province Street. It was my understanding that they moved there in anticipation of the building's demise, but were keeping both locations open until they knew for sure what was going to happen. http://www.chacarero.com/contact.html
Not such bad news
Eh. Chacarero is overrated anyway. I won't miss it.
I wasn't aware that you
I wasn't aware that you could gentrify an area that's filled with expensive condo towers and department stores. That's not to say that loosing small businesses is a good thing, but a rebuilt DTX will benefit the entire city, and if one sandwhich place needs to move down the street, that's an unfortunate externality.
Anyone who thinks that
Anyone who thinks that Filene's Basement, in its current discount form, will come back after the "renovation" is extremely naive. If Downtown Crossing becomes yuppified the suits will just open another suburban-style shop. More likely than that is that they'll sell the real estate to out-of-towners who won't notice how decrepid the area is becoming.
Shut up Nimby's. This is a
Shut up Nimby's. This is a city. Towers belong in a city. If you want lamberts go live in westwood. DTX is nothing like it's former self. It used to be 24 hour street life. Boston ruining itself? Give me a break. Boston's ruining itself because Nimby's keep shutting towers down making the housing stock smaller and smaller. What would you rather have? Filene's basement close for a few years, or losing another 1000 jobs to North Carolina?
P.S. I know this tower is luxury housing
i'd rather have the littlest
i'd rather have the littlest bar back
Piehole. Shut. Freakin. Your.
Boston's ruining itself because Nimby's keep shutting towers down making the housing stock smaller and smaller.
Oh, yeah. There's a TERRIBLE drought of luxury condos in the city. Oh my lord! So many yuppies on the street, sitting in doorsteps with cardboard signs reading "LOOKING FOR TRENDY LOFT WITH VIKING KITCHEN APPLIANCES AND DUX BEDS, PLEASE HELP HOWEVER MUCH YOU CAN GOD BLESS." The lines outside the real estate offices stretch around the block every day, with tired, bedraggled professionals waiting hours only to stumble out empty-handed, vainly pleading "Doesn't anybody have a two-bedroom starting in the 500s? ANYBODY?!"
Shut your freakin piehole and look up. There's vertical construction going up everywhere: Lechmere-oops-NorthPoint, the place where the Littlest Bar used to be, and the everyday people are getting shafted each time. The NorthPoint developers reneged on the promise they made to construct a pedestrian walkway once the Lechmere-oops-NorthPoint station is moved to the other side of the McGrath, right in the middle of that horrendous development. Sorry, non-residents! You'll just have to find a way to cross that highway yourself to get to this public station. We were gonna build a walkway for you, but decided you just weren't worth the money.
Neighborhoods are re-named by out of town marketing jerks who don't even call it renaming, they call it "re-branding" (your neighborhood is no longer a neighborhood! It's a brand name!) and longtime institutions are ousted and disbanded in favor of buildings for people who only see street level as an annoyance, something you hurry by just to get to the safety of their home on the higher levels, unless there's a Starbucks or Panera Bread down there. Oh yeah, Boston's being ruined by those you term NIMBYs. If you believe that, I've got a suspension span across the Charles to sell you. It comes with two neat-looking arches and everything.
What would you rather have? Filene's basement close for a few years, or losing another 1000 jobs to North Carolina?
What jobs would those be, hmm? How about the jobs of the hard-working pushcart vendors who've made their living outside Filene's? Here, Jimbo, if you throw a non-sequitur at me, I'll throw one back. Too bad the luxury condo folks don't want to have their clientele endure the sight of all those brown people hanging outside their building selling whatever food it is those brown people eat.
There, Mr. Ad Hoc. You happy? Or are you gonna take another page from the Boston Herald Book of Rhetoric? And given the recent track record of unfulfilled promises, I'm not holding my breath waiting for the Basement to return. If it does, then hooray, we shall all have to go down and celebrate; if not, you will be able to hear the howls of protest echoing through the lonely, empty street canyons from Ex-Lechmere to DUMBO-On-The-Channel.
Oh, and one more thing, Chuckles: You can't call them NIMBYs (no apostrophe, either, you never use an apostrophe for a plural) because there are no more backyards in the city. At least, nothing that could be developed into a high-end parcel, so they don't count for anything anymore.
Too bad about the pushcart vendors being forced out.
They, too, have always added a certain colorful element of their own to Boston and other large citiees.
Pushcart Vendors
Hi there. I happen to be one of those street vendors and there are a few things you should know.
I (and my wife) have owned and operated 3 kiosks in front of Filene's for 15 years. We are both educated, honest, hardworking tax payers. We pay THOUSANDS of dollars every year to the Downtown Crossing Association in rents and fees. They have chosen to stop providing us with pushcarts, a warehousing facility, any support whatsoever and have literally dropped us out there without a net. In my humble opinion one of the major reasons the area looks the way it does is because the DCA has chosen to pocket this money and never reinvest in an area they really don't care about. It isn't my fault the carts are falling apart. I spend a grand a year to fix them up. The DCA and BRA won't approve new carts. In fact the BRA picked out those silly orange tops you see out there now.They won't LET us put up new signage. If it looks like crap blame them. The board of the DCA refuse to meet with us, refuse to make changes and believe it or not has received three rent increases in a row from us. Anne Meyers and her cronies won't even admit the area has been hurt by the departure of Filene's, Barnes and Noble and now the basement. The Mayor easily could have had the marketplace repaired, spruced up and moved across the street for a few years so the "regular" folks can have an inexpensive place to shop, (oh and they do shop there. We wouldn't be there for 15 yrs if they didn't) BUT he didn't because the developers and deep pockets really do rule. They decide what happens. Not you. Ever. They don't mind if the whole area goes bankrupt while they build. They don't care if heroine addicts piss on the walls and street gangs shoot a kid a day. You know why? Because in few short years it will be DISNEYLAND. It will be Beverly Hills, 5th Avenue, South Beach..... The BRA believes this. We all know the truth. The inner city will be the inner city. A diverse, colorful place that can be both dirty and charming and fun all at once.It will never be disneyland. Too bad we let the Ivory Tower group steal it from us all and Screw it all up. At least stop by and say hi while you can. Someday when the tower remains vacant and rents come down maybe we will all come back.
Thank god they're trying to
Thank god they're trying to do something to downtown crossing. Seriously. Look around. It's crack dealers and jewelery stores. If you're lamenting the loss of a sadwich shop or knockoff sunglass pushcart, it's time to move on. Our city's not a mall anymore. It's time for people to move back and make it a living community again.