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How's the Back Bay? It's great!
By adamg on Wed, 10/13/2010 - 10:08am
Over the strenuous objections of the Neighborhood Association of the Back Bay, the American Planning Association has listed the Back Bay as one of America's ten great neighborhoods, the BRA reports:
APA singled out the elegant Back Bay for its Victorian houses - considered by some to be the finest collection of its kind in the country; its successful retail and commercial area with some of the tallest buildings in New England; extensive public open spaces anchored by the Esplanade, the Public Garden and Commonwealth Avenue Mall; and engaged residents, business and corporate leaders, and citizen groups.
The neighborhood group opposed the BRA's application for the honor because it included such ho-hum areas as the Prudential Center as part of the Back Bay and because it was convinced the BRA would use the designation to cram the new Liberty Mutual project down the neighborhood's throat. In fact, the BRA crammed the new Liberty Mutual project down the neighborhood's throat even without the honor.
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Comments
Yeah. And completely
Yeah. And completely unaffordable for all but the wealthiest of Bostonians.
Not true at all
There are still plenty of students living in Back Bay and plenty of tiny and/or ratty, more affordable apartments. If you're up for living in 500 square feet, you can have the Back Bay and the Esplanade right at your doorstep for about what you'd pay for a bigger, nicer apartment elsewhere with parking. And your Back Bay apartment will probably have high ceilings, a fireplace, and a pretty view. For some of us, that's a worthwhile tradeoff. I know many ordinary, middle-class, non-wealthy people who have lived happily here for years in their crappy little apartments.
tiny and nice with a view of an alley
For the most part, only the wealthy can afford a pretty view in the Back Bay. However, if you search and search and search, you can find an 'affordable' tiny yet nice apartment with a view of an alley. If you think little = crappy, then you are right -- Back Bay isn't for you.
noisy too. Real noisy, as in
noisy too. Real noisy, as in 24 hour every day of the year noise. Some of the apartments in Back Bay, especially the ones next to Newbury Street suffer from the unbelievably inconsiderate all night activities of the bars in Back Bay. It isn't all peaches and cream.
And no sunlight in some of these apartments. Ever.
Choices
Plenty of people disagree with you on your negative assessment of living in the Back Bay; as evidenced by the high real estate costs.
You can choose live out in Newton with your big house and yard and your hour-long commute. If that's what you want for yourself, have at it. There's trade offs for everything in life. I'm sorry to hear you have such a grudge about people choosing to live in a place they want.
grudge? where do you see
grudge? where do you see grudge in the above comments?
So I suppose a neighborhood
So I suppose a neighborhood can never become more expensive due to being desirable to live in. Laws of supply and demand be damned!
was this the one...
Was this the award where it was the nabb or some other group that DIDN'T want the award because of coply/the prudential center?
Good memory
Thanks, I'd completely forgotten about that. Will add to the post.
The Prudential Center is not an asset to the Back Bay?
It contains, among many other things, the neighborhood's only supermarket, Shaw's on Huntington Avenue. Would the Back Bay be as desirable to live in if its residents had to go to Allston or Cambridge for groceries?
LOL
That's cute, Ron. You think Back Bay residents get their own groceries. Awwww...
Um, yeah
They do. Who else is walking in and out of there with little carts and such? Then there are the small space dwellers mentioned above, and the people who bought in when it was far more affordable and remain, many now in retirement.
Not everyone who lives in the Back Bay is wealthy. Even wealthy people do their own shopping. It would be easier to get through Trader Joe's if they didn't.
Leave your farm much?
I think the point of the NABB letter was that projects like the Prudential were not well-planned. Yes, they are essential to the neighborhood and provide valuable services. But in many cases they are not pedestrian-friendly — for example. Surely no one would say that the Mandarin's hideous frontage and ugly parking garage driveway are assets to Boylston Street. But it got slammed through. The point is that we don't need any more badly planned areas that we have to live with for decades, so I believe the letter was really a desperate attempt to halt Liberty Mutual.
I can't believe that some of you are so misinformed as to think that everyone in Back Bay has a housekeeper to buy groceries. I've lived here for 30 years and I know loads of people through NABB, the garden club, and from just being neighbors. I don't know anyone who has a housekeeper. I suppose people hire cleaning services, but that's hardly an aristocratic thing to do these days. So we all run into each other at TJs and Shaw's.
I don't know anyone who lives at the Mandarin, if that's why you're all thinking we're all Donald Trumps or, whatever, Marie Antoinettes, here in Back Bay. I don't think anyone really LIVES there. They just pop in when they aren't in Dubai or Florida. (If you're going to be a reverse snob, try to be an informed reverse snob.)
LOL harder
You took me seriously. That's a mighty easy chip to knock off your shoulder.
Oh, honey, that wasn't just
Oh, honey, that wasn't just for you. It's the anonymous posters that get me, writing in on Back Bay stories from New Jersey and Nebraska, I suppose...
I'm no fan of the Mandarin,
I'm no fan of the Mandarin, but how is it not an asset to Boylston? The streetwall, with a normal-width sidewalk, boasts three restaurants, in addition to three other businesses -- the bank, Gucci, and the hotel proper.
I never hear criticism of the actual issues with the building: its execution from drawing to reality (finish materials, especially). It's bewildering to me.
To a casual observer like me,
To a casual observer like me, the Mandarin is a constant reminder that money buys anything in Boston. Among the many oddities about the Mandarin:
- Set back: I thought new construction was supposed to be built away from the street to create wide sidewalks that encourage pedestrian traffic, thus helping to make Boylston Street a wide boulevard. Instead, the Mandarin is built right up to the property line. It's the only building on that stretch of Boylston that has narrow sidewalks which create a "necked-down" effect.
- Shadows: I thought new construction wassn't supposed to cast a new or bigger shadow on adjacent properties, yet the Mandarin darkens many of the properties on that block.
- Appearance: The Mandarin looks utilitarian at best. No style or interesting appearance. Just a big block house that creates as much interior space as possible within the lot.
- Change to the traffic pattern: The Mandarin got a traffic light just for their garage entrance. How can I get a traffic light in front of my place so I can enter and exit at my convenience?
-
- Parking entitlement:
An entire block, from the gaping sphincter to Ring Road, restricted to "valet parking" for those who are very, very special and important. What's up with that, BTD?
Valet parking is for restaurants, no?
Is this a joint effort of all the restaurants on that block?
Four operations
I think both restaurants, the hotel and the residences (I think the Ritz and others may have the same privilege). Personally not that big a deal in my opinion- there isn't much parking on that side of the road from the Hynes all the way to the library - and it doesn't seem to obstruct traffic. As the other things - narrow sidewalk, open garage accessed by an out of place curb cut, ugly architecture, perpetual shadows - this project is a kluge and a monument to what happens when you kowtow to money instead of reason. Apparently many of the residents are not too happy having figured out that their sound proof windows aren't sound proof enough to keep the siren noise out from the fire engines that live a block down the road.
I don't know anyone who has a
I'm imagining these two sentences being typed, one immediately after the other, with a straight face.
Good lord. I suppose that
Good lord. I suppose that EVERYONE you know has a live-in housekeeper? Cleaning services are surprisingly reasonable. I just saw someone advertising for $45 a cleaning. Many not-wealthy people spend that much on crap like cigarettes every week without thinking about it.
Well, not live-in
I don't know anyone with a live-in anything, aside from a few people who have college-student-type nannies who they basically get for free by letting them stay with them.
But I know a LOT of people who have a house cleaner for a few hours a few times per month. Not an extravagant thing if it's infrequent and especially if you barter for it.
Trader Joes, Deluccas
Hmm, I walk from Marlborough to Shaws every week (or TJs... and rarely Delucca's)and I don't get run over by millionaires on diamond encrusted Segways or butlers picking up groceries. Yes, a lot of rich people have chosen the neighborhood for the same reasons I did - it's a beautiful, safe(er), lively place to live. But there are many students and workin' folk like me. Like them, I just accepted that in return for the location/ammenities, I was willing to have a smaller home and not be tied to a car. And I chose the Esplanade and the Public Garden/Common over having my own backyard. How snobby of me ;) It's a lifestyle choice, you can't have it all.
Yes, we do get our own
Yes, we do get our own groceries and most of us WALK to the grocery store. (gasp!) That must be horrifying for you!
The reason the award was opposed
This is exactly why NABB opposed the award (the Back Bay IS an awesome place to live-and Kaz - I do my own shopping ;-)):
...added John F. Palmieri, Director of the Boston Redevelopment Authority. “The Back Bay is home to a dedicated community of participants who work toward the future of this neighborhood while also honoring its historic past.(that part is true- the following is not) It is because of their efforts, in partnership with the professional planners and project managers of the BRA, that the overall quality of the neighborhood is unsurpassed.”
Nobody in the neighborhood considers the BRA partners and while the Back Bay is a phenomenal place to live (at least the historical section which the BRA tried to raze like the West End which is why NABB was started), somewhere between little and none of what is good about the Back Bay has anything to do with BRA planning - the BRA led by Palmieri and Menino are legalized mafiosa that extort somehow legal mitigation fees to sustain their own power and operation and build downtown not because it's needed (there's no shortage of luxo condos or office space, so why are they promoting building more?) but because it generates revenue with little added expense for the machine on City Hall Plaza that employs enough voters to keep the entrenched powers in place.
The Back Bay is a bit tired of being the ATM to the city. Every time the city needs money, they just authorize the construction of another tower at 3-4 times the legal zoning limit likely often violating all kinds of laws resting comfortable in the knowledge that few people have legal standing to sue and fewer have the resources or fortitude to take on such an endeavor. Poof - like magic - another $10 million annually for the city coffers buys the city an extra few months.
Unfortunately it's ultimately a ponzi scheme that will crash taking large swaths of the city with it. That's not an opinion. Without a major change in our no-growth demographics and with the budget still growing at about double the rate of inflation it's a mathematical fact.
The question is not if - it's when. We're in the top of the first inning and my best guess is each year represents a half an inning if we don't make some serious changes - FAST.