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Updated Back Bay station would be gleaming, a place for quiet contemplation without smog or giant ad banners
By adamg on Wed, 03/30/2016 - 10:26am
In addition to showing the new towers it wants to build above Back Bay station, Boston Properties' BRA filing also shows several renderings of what a revamped station would look like.
They show a station that retains the unique wooden arches that hold up the roof. Gone, at least from the rendering, though, is the haze that now often fills the station, in particular, the Amtrak/commuter-rail ticket and waiting area - Boston Properties is promising a fix to the station's diesel-smog problem.
Also missing: The giant ad banners that now obscure the view into the station - and the neon artwork that you often can't fully see because of the banners.
Clean floors gleam in the sunlight and benches let riders gaze up in wonderment, after they're done using what are no doubt airport-grade restrooms.
Gone as well, at least in the renderings: The food and tchotchke pushcarts, replaced by cafes and a newsstand, along with the flower and juice stand on the Dartmouth Street side. Also not shown: Either of the station's two Dunkin' Donuts.
For some reason, the rendering of the new Dartmouth Street front leaves out the towers:
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Comments
better rendering
This one shows more around the revamped station:
No clip and paste tree guy
No clip and paste tree guy needed for this rendering. They'll probably move him to contract help.
Heroin Zombies Are Gone by 2025?
Let's here it for Mortimer Zuckerman for cleaning up the T!
In all fairness, this plan by Boston Properties, who turned around a bad 1960's suburban strip mall with office and apartments (i.e. The Pru), which had all the panache of today's Malden Center, into a shopping, residential, and office destination is pretty good. They have pretty good track record with the public interaction with the private properties that they run here and in NYC.
If any of you can offer a better design than the garage / T station combo there now, please get going on it.
PS - People need parking, there is an exit from the Pike and two on ramps to the Pike below or next to this site. The world of Boston does not end at Harvard Square nor Coolidge Corner. Some people don't want to take the T on a 14 degree Sunday evening, and also, some of us can actually afford to park there. Nyah, Nyah.
Pike
Actually, in the earlier post it was mentioned that Boston Properties is proposing eliminating the ramp to the pike that currently runs under the garage.
I wonder what that would do
I wonder what that would do to the traffic at Dartmouth St. entrance.
Will the front
Still smell like piss and dirty vagabonds?
We can only hope
...
It's immaculate!
Someone please dig up the original renderings of Alewife.
Harry Ellenzweig died last
Harry Ellenzweig died last year. I think this may be an orginal rendering...
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/obituaries/2014/06/22/harry-ellenzweig...
Also take a look at page 10 and 12 in this document
http://www.hks.harvard.edu/index.php/content/download/68710/1247650/vers...
And a fun article from 1980
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1980/9/8/the-red-line-will-the-mbtas/
Updated image with tower
Based on yesterday's discussion I've rendered the station photo to include the proposed gherkin tower. Looks great!
Wait.
LOL
OKay that DID make me "laugh out loud" LOLOL
Please oh please oh please
...let this become the gold standard in all discussions of architectural proposals, on UHub and in life. I'm willing to do my part: there's a neighborhood meeting in JP tonight about a modest development that the local NIMBYs hate because it "ruins the neighborhood character," and now I think I will attend with a counterproposal of a more vlassic--er, classic design. One that's greener. Something we can really sink our teeth into.
So the plan is to keep
So the plan is to keep increasing corporate welfare and cutting corporate and rich people's taxes, meaning our infrastructure suffers. Then the same welfare corporate types will swoop in to fix the infrastructure according to their needs, at least the infrastructure that is important to them.
Huzzah.
I, for one, always enjoyed inhaling the smell of fresh diesel fuel in the morning but it will not be missed. I am intrigued, however, in how they (the developers) will keep those airport quality restrooms airport quality. I believe one still needs a Hazmat suit to enter the ladies rest room. Unless they are going to hire a restroom attendant for each, I foresee not good things to be.
Now if they could only do something about all the horrendous advertising overkill banners at South Station (and don't get me started on the video screens on steroids). Every time I walk in there, I think I am gonna be draped with an ad for Capital One.
Now if they could only do
It's a vicious cycle. No one looks at ads anymore, so they have to keep making them more obnoxious just to get attention. Which only turns people off to even showier, in-your-face advertisements. And on and on it goes.
Looks dated already
This is 90's styling, at best. It's horribly dated and suburban looking. Boston can do better, but it's always afraid to.
Edited to say that I don't mind the tower exteriors. Interior doesn't match.
Or maybe, just maybe
They realize they cant completely shut Back Bay for a ground up renovation like Gov Center. Back Bay is one of the most heavily used transit points on the entire system; Orange, Bus, Commuter Rail and Amtrak as well as a staffed ticket booth and "customer services" window.
I think it's a great improvement!
I am somewhat ambivalent to the new architectural designs
But would it be awful to build something classic that is striking but also fits in Boston. Imagine a station that looks Grand Central in NYC.
You want something built in
You want something built in 1871, go back to 1871.
I wonder if when they built Grand Central station, a bunch of people whined it wouldn't be built to look like something out of the 1720s...
"We can't keep our trains
"We can't keep our trains running but we can sure make the station look pretty while you're stuck there!"
The woman in the rendering
is definitely there for some quiet contemplation. No bag, no coat, just a slip-dress and a winsome head-tilt. "Why am I sitting here? Why can I see the bench through my skirt--do I really exist? Sigh."
Meanwhile the lady sitting in
Meanwhile the lady sitting in the second-to-last rendering is about to develop some neck problems
She is so inspired by the view, she keeps moving around for it
It's hard to tell with the images the size they are on this page, but she's also in the first image, on a bench behind the ghost lady in the white dress (click on the "see it larger" link).
Oof, maybe she already has
Oof, maybe she already has some bad neck problems. If it weren't for these signal problems she could be at MGH by now...
It's Sarina Douglas!
Dr. Crowe, I see...
Dr. Crowe, I see white people.