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Outrage in Cambridge over landlord's plans to pave way for Google expansion by removing rooftop garden
By adamg on Wed, 02/29/2012 - 6:44am
Cambridge Day reports Google's Kendall Square landlord wants to give the search company more room by building atop a parking garage that now features a rooftop garden. Landlord proposed replacing the lost skypark with a new, larger park elsewhere, but Cantabrigians were outraged and the city council put at least a temporary hold on the whole thing.
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Comments
Initial reaction
It's an amazing park
I'm getting the strong impression that most of the commenters haven't ever been to this park. I don't know why it was built--I suspect that it was some sort of public accommodation for building the parking garage--but it's an amazing place. The flowers, the view of the other buildings from four stories up; I can't think of another space like it in Boston.
Take a look at the pictures and reviews on Yelp for "Cambridge Center Roof Garden" if you want to understand why people are furious. The terms "respite" and "escape" come up frequently.
Yeah, it's not the most economical use for a floor of a parking garage, but people can't just sit at a desk all day long and be happy, even if they're programmers. We all need space and air sometimes. Where are people going to find it once the Roof Garden is gone?
Different plans?
The herald (http://tinyurl.com/89ko6al) reports that a walkway, not a building, is to be built on the roof, which should leave part of the garden. It would just make it easier for Googlites to walk between two buildings in all weather. That makes a bit more sense, as building a proper building on the garage would take a lot of window spaces away form the buildings it connects.
I think they have been more surprised than outraged. While the space is nice, most of the world doesn't know it's there. Plus, there are no trees up there, making it too hot to visit in the summer, and of course chilly in the winter - so it's not the best of spaces.
Actually, it might be more useful if they just 'greenhoused' the whole thing. Make it a climate controlled year round garden, and that'll let the googlites walk anywhere they wish...
Not a public space anyway
The first time I tried to use the "park" in question was also the last time. The door from the parking garage stairs onto the roof was locked, and there was no indication given that it was meant to be open at any particular time so people from the food court downstairs could come up and use it. It seemed very much a private, limited use space.
I think if you asked most Googlers, they'd rather keep the current garden as it is, but I know from conversations with people who work at the two Google office in Cambridge that they're under a lot of pressure to move the ITA folks into closer proximity with their Cambridge Center cousins. I think the fear on the part of management is having a bunch of engineers walk around the outside of the block past Meadhall three or four times a day on their way between buildings will produce a bunch of drunk(er) engineers.
For the people who think opposing this will somehow be better for the Kendall Square area and Cambridge in general, I'm curious what you think your ideal endgame looks like. Move ~800 jobs currently in Kendall to $somewhere_else? Somehow persuade Google to accept the status quo beyond a window of a few months or years? Teach those mean Googlers a lesson that you don't mess with Area IV? What?
I'd like to see usage
I'd like to see usage statistics for the rooftop garden.
I suspect most people have no idea it existed. I know it's there, but I've never managed to get up there myself.
Something at street level would be much better.
The 'Greenspace' addiction
I see someone on twitter has broken out the 'Greenspace' buzzword.
It's amazing how blind people get when it comes to these matters. Somehow, 'Greenspace' is always a good thing, no matter what. Nobody stops to think: what is the cost and what is the benefit of this 'Greenspace'?
Fact is, 'Greenspace' is not a gift to the city -- it is a burden. Any such space which is publicly accessible requires people to give it life and vitality. Without that support, it becomes a blight on the surrounding area, a magnet for crime. Our own 'emerald necklace' is a very good example of this. Take a stroll down the Esplanade, or a walk in the Back Bay Fens, at night. Try not to be robbed or assaulted. Central Park is nice by day, mugger friendly by night. Some parks aren't safe even in the sunlight.
Parks can be nice, when people use them and cherish them. They can also be a complete waste of land, a slap in the face to the people living there, a drain on resources. But the funny thing is, the 'Greenspace' advocates never even stop to consider this problem. They just keep on pushing for more and more, thinking that "just one more park" will somehow solve all our problems. That's how we ended up with 75% 'Greenspace' required by law in the Rose Kennedy Green-scar. The result? A dead median strip to a 6-lane at-grade highway. Who exactly are they benefiting, besides their own egos?
Is this a trick question?
Let me take a stab at this:
Anyone who prefers trees, flowers and grass to asphalt and concrete?
False dichotomy
The choice regarding the RKG wasn't grass, flowers, and trees against asphalt. The alternative to the median strip would be buildings with useful purposes residing inside. These would draw far more pedestrians to the area than the "park" manages to do. Also, where did you get the idea that there were any trees to be found in that desolate stretch of grass?
Now that I think of it
What useful purposes do you imagine could fill up that entire stretch of real estate? The overflow retail stores from Downtown Crossing (ha)? More luxury apartment buildings to house the thousands of people who got shut out of the last half-dozen luxury apartment buildings built in Boston?
Assuming it would be possible to place buildings over the tunnel (maybe not, per an earlier comment), I think we'd be seeing a bunch more empty buildings in downtown Boston if that option had been chosen.
Uhhhhhh, no.
This is completely wrong. There is plenty of demand for both residential and commercial space in downtown. Look at the number of proposed apartment projects in and around downtown.
Retail is doing poorly, but more office/residential space would increase, not decrease, demand for retail.
Alternatives for the Green-scar
How about restoring the portions of the North End and the old city grid that were demolished to make way for the Central Artery in the 50s? It wouldn't have to be a perfect restoration, just an extension of what exists now.
Split up the space into small streets, with small blocks, and subdivide parcels, then auction them off to help cover some portion of the costs of the Big Dig. (I would suggest the same for the holes in Downtown Crossing too) There could be room for parks, too, with consideration given to the multitude of uses that they would require to be successful. For example, consider the success of the North End's Prado -- a small mall and park -- vs the Green-scar. It's less 'Greenspace' but it has been long cherished by the surrounding neighborhood.
Surely that would be better than more luxury mega-towers, failed department stores and desolate promenades.
Do they also prefer muggings?
Unless said people are willing to take responsibility for making sure the new 'Greenspace' is not lifeless and dangerous, they are only benefiting their own ego with cheap words, and potentially hurting the city.
Trees, flowers and grass -- as nice as they are -- cannot substitute for the presence of people.
This fundamental unwillingness to recognize that "trees, flowers, and grass" are not always good is the source of our woes with 'Greenspace'.
Guess what?
When the people are all gone, those trees, flowers and grass will still be there. Santorum voter, are you? You know, that whole man has dominion over the Earth nonsense?
When all the people are gone?
Are you expecting the city to disappear anytime soon?
If that does happen, then the question of unwanted, unused parks would be moot.
I'm not sure how you jump to Santorum from this.
Parks are not good in themselves. They need to be supported by the presence of people, at many different times of day, for many different reasons. Deserted parks are a blight. Is this controversial? Or am I touching off the 'Greenspace' nerve?
Oh no! Scary people!
Let's not build any parks anywhere since people sometimes get mugged. I may be wrong about this, but I think people sometimes get mugged on city streets and alleys, too.
Parks are not the only dangerous areas
But they are not good in themselves. What leads to a place being dangerous? Lack of use, lack of interest in it. What brings people to an area of a city? Something of interest. You need multiple reasons to bring multiple different types of people into an area, so that it is not left empty for long stretches of time.
The trouble with parks is that "flowers, trees and grass" are insufficient to bring people into the park at many times of day. There needs to be more than that. This could be done in many ways. It could be the presence of facilities inside the park that does it, or it could be the convenience of traversing the park, or it could be the surrounding amenities.
Without help, it just descends into another place that people avoid. And the same thing can happen to streets and alleys as well. But most people seem to recognize that desolate streets can be dangerous, while they have difficulty coming to the same recognition about parks.
Witness all the responses here.
Parks are not dangerous
Economic blight is dangerous.
The fact that you use Central park is both hilarious and underlines the point. This isn't the 70's and 80's anymore.
A park in south central LA is more dangerous than the Public Garden, but it's not because they're both blights. Causation, correlation, ect.
Downtown Chicago is full of green space and parks, but they are built into the city well. By contrast, the esplanade is a horrible park that is cut of from the city by a 4 lane parkway with limited access.
The RKG, if the RKG foundation can promote roadside development along it, will be a very successful green space. It's biggest problem right now is that for 30 years it was a back ally / side street, and everything was built facing away from it. That needs to change.
TL:DR greenspace for greenspaces' sake is stupid, but so is anything in that mindset. But parks are not a blight.
I think we're in agreement
Agreed. As I've been trying to emphasize all along: parks are not a good thing by themselves. They need people to populate and use them. There has to be some draw, some attraction, a reason for people to be there. Multiple reasons, in fact.
Boston Public Garden is a wonderful success because it is used by many different people all throughout the day. But you could not transplant Boston Public Garden to, as you say, south-central LA and expect it to work there. It may even make things worse.
But the 'Greenspace' crowd does expect that a park would somehow bring life to an area, by itself. It is the blind belief in the power of "trees, flowers and grass" that I am arguing against.
There are some happy places for you
They are called "Lawrence" and "The Bronx".
The Bronx has tons of 'Greenspace'
It happens to be a good example of a area that is lacking the mix of uses to make it fundamentally sound. Much like an unused park.
The Bronx has plenty of 'Greenspace' distributed quite liberally during urban renewal. So much for that utopian ideal!
too bad the park rangers are
too bad the park rangers are useless
Nice try, Yogi...
.
No really, they are
No really, they are
useless point
This is a completely asinine point. It takes resources to maintain vegetation in a non-natural state to meet the expectations and enjoyment of people. Yes. And if you put in infrastructure, you have to maintain that too. Buildings, bridges, even just pavement all need to be maintained. If it's public space it's paid for by the government (or some nonprofit intermediary with govt and charitable funds). If it's a privately held building then it's up to the owner, but then there's no guarantee of public access to the space.
In some areas of the Big Dig I don't think there was the option of building over the tunnels. At least as it was built we can't build over some of it now or the limitations are such that it's really difficult/expensive, so I don't believe the "parks" are preventing the construction of buildings on that space. They're kind of the default if you don't want just another huge surface road in the space (which some would argues it is - "glorified median strip" and all that).
If these kinds of arguments were given credence 120-140 years ago we wouldn't have things like Central Park, the Emerald Necklace and other amenities that are recognized to provide huge economic benefits for real estate developers and the Cities as a whole.
Now whether this rooftop thing is in that class...I have no idea. I didn't even know it existed. I doubt it's a big deal if it is replaced by something else. In the end it's that guy's roof. If the city has some sort of ordinance in place about storm water or heat island offsets or something, then maybe they could push a bit, but I'm not sure there's much for people to be squawking about.
Exactly right!
And nobody would ever get mugged!!!1!1
Curse you, Frederick Law Olmstead!!!!1!!1!
Don't worship Olmstead
He had many successes. But also many failures.
Have you ever heard of Morningside Park?
It's practically the canonical example of a park that was so dangerous and blighted that nobody would dare enter it in the day or night. Ask any older NYC resident about it.
Down in NY City Hall, they used to muse about how lucky the people of Harlem were to have so many parks like this, and also all the 'Greenspace' around the housing projects they built. Downtown, they didn't have to live with the devastation wrought by these unused, unwanted, lifeless 'Greenspaces'. Maybe they passed by in a car once in a while, or looked at it on a map and imagined thoughts of flowers, trees and grass. They didn't have to fear for their life every time they walked from home to work.
Things are much safer nowadays, certainly. There's been an overall general improvement in safety in the last 15 years, everywhere. But it still remains important to consider how a park fits into a neighborhood specifically, and how it will be used, instead of just tossing out 'Greenspace' here and there in order to satisfy some vague legal requirement.
Morningside Park was not a failure ....
...back when it was designed and built. The fact that sociological/demographic changes rendered it dangerous for a number of years doesn't retroactively invalidate its creation.
What drove those changes?
Arguably, the creation of Morningside Park and other Harlem 'Greenspaces' helped snuff out the possibility of city vitality by creating dead space in the middle of what should have been an active neighborhood. Keep in mind that it is very close to Columbia University, a natural draw for residences, commerce and supporting businesses. Could Olmstead have foreseen the changes that would take place after his plan was built? I doubt it. But that doesn't make the problems any less real.
Of course there are many other factors that affect neighborhoods, I would not assert that the presence of Morningside Park was the only problem there. But it certainly didn't help.
Another quibble: to say "a number of years" minimizes a problem which spanned decades -- over a majority of the 20th century, in fact.
This was initially made a park....
... because it was deemed not an especially good place to develop. Too rocky to run streets through (etc).
I think you are fantasizing.
Not a good reason
Most of Manhattan is like that, anyway. And "not being a good place to develop" still doesn't help bring people into the park.
But supposing that Morningside was always doomed to be an empty space, what of all the other 'Greenspaces' in Harlem? The massive urban renewal plans of mid-century led to the wholesale destruction of existing, functioning neighborhoods, in order to build housing projects with 'Greenspaces' such as this one in East Harlem. Much like the demolition of Boston's West End.
The bulldozers, thousands of displaced residents and businesses were no fantasy. Neither was the increase in crime and delinquency in these "renewed" neighborhoods. It was all too real, and continues to impact the city to this day. All in the name of providing more 'Greenspace' without any regard for the actual needs of the existing people and neighborhoods.
I think you don't quite get the distinction...
... between correlation and causation.
In any event. the creation of greenspaces was not the primary problem with these grandiose urban renewal projects. ;~}
There were many problems
Racial and socio-economic segregation comes to mind. Certainly, it's impossible to build a functioning neighborhood when people get kicked out by virtue of making more money. And it's difficult to sort out all the individual causes from the whole morass. But consider this: if all your day-to-day shopping and social needs were removed and replaced by 'Greenspace' and maybe some kind of artificial community center, how would you feel? If the streets around your home were removed and replaced by pathways through a desolate 'Greenspace' with little legitimate activity, would you still want to live there?
It could work in sparsely populated suburb, maybe. But not in a city.
All well and good...
...but not relevant to Morningside Park -- which displaced nothing and made the surrounding living (and commercial) spaces MORE attractive when built -- and for a long time afterwards.
Bringing things back to Boston, poor judgment in massive urban renewal in downtown Boston is now ancient history. The Greenway is not responsible for causing any of the problems that date way back. It may not yet be ameliorating problems caused in the past as well as one might hope, but that is a different sort of complaint. The Greenway (at least in the vicinity of Haymarket) does not cut off the North End from Downtown in any serious fashion.
And yet people abandoned it
And city life fled from Morningside Heights. :/
It is true that the Green-scar couldn't be responsible for problems created 50 years ago. That responsibility lies with the construction of a massive highway through the heart of Boston. Instead, it represents a massive failure of imagination, really.
I find it difficult to believe that the Green-scar could ever ameliorate the problems from the Central Artery, at least in its current form. Christopher Columbus Park seems to be popular, at least. The portion by Hanover Street gets plenty of through traffic thanks to the draw of the many businesses nearby. I even have seen people sunning themselves on that lawn when it is nice out. But go east or west and it gets depressing again. Crossing the Green-scar near Hanover is relatively easy. On the other side of Haymarket, near Valenti, it is another matter; hopping from island to island amidst rushing traffic. The 'Greenspaces' around Valenti probably get more use as a parking lot than a park.
On the other side, the strangely named "Armenian Heritage Park" seems to consist of two highway ramps. But hey, they are surrounded by 'Green'. Further down there's some weird exhibit with LCD screens, at least when I was there about a week or two ago on a warm afternoon. Not sure what that was about, and there wasn't anyone else around to tell.
As I got closer to Dewey Square, I started choking on the fumes from all the cars, so I had to leave. Is this really going to attract people?
You do realize, don't you...
... that a number of interesting things were supposed to go into the "unused" parts of the Greenway -- but that the plans for these fell through (for one reason or another).
http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2011/02/17...
I'll believe it
When I see it.
Until then, it counts towards the 75% 'Greenspace' mandate that was imposed. Which is perverse.
Never going to happen now....
... but when things were being planned, everyone _expected_ these to happen. Unfortunately, things did not turn out as planned.
There is no Greenway near Valenti Way
The empty lawns you may see there are unbuilt development parcels.
The Armenian Heritage Park is fenced off because it is still under construction.
Um, what?
Um, what?
Um, what? I hate to remind you of this, but the green space under discussion replaced an elevated highway, not any kind of shopping/social area.
Mixed up discussion
We were talking about East Harlem then.
East Harlem
Which has nothing at all to do with the Greenway, which has nothing at all to do with this park in Cambridge. Thanks for bringing it up. Any other red herrings you'd like to contribute to the conversation?
Congratulations
This entire thread has been meandering from topic to topic. Michael and I were having a discussion about uptown Manhattan. I don't mind. Why is it suddenly an issue for you?
HA!
The park caused the social and economic arrest! Man, that's good stuff.
By your way of thinking Southie and Charlestown should have been raised years ago from all the troubles it's parks and triple deckers caused. Notwithstanding the fact that today it's becoming a privileged, yuppie, crime free neighborhood.
Man, you really hate parks don't you?
Razing neighborhoods?
That's exactly what I'm trying to oppose.
The 'Greenspace' fanatics want to raze neighborhoods and put parks in their place.
Have I really been that unclear?
Exactly right!
There is a world of difference between a visible and accessible public park system like the Emerald Necklace and a postage stamp, privately owned park in a hidden location. I'm no fan of the RKG, but I do think parks and greenery have their place in the city, so long as it is done well. The RKG has too many problems to deal with here, but the point about this grass roof in question is specifically that it is not the work of an Olmstead.
No Kennedy Greenway? Where would "Occupy" go?
I was once an ardent opponent of the Rose Kennedy Greenway, especially with that name. Since then, the comic relief provided there by the Occupy movement has made me a convert. Betti Warren's boast that she provided "the intellectual foundation" for the group was an added bonus. Long live the RKG.
Do you own the property
No, nor does the city. Your encroaching on this mans rights as a citizen. Maybe he should keep the garden and ban everyone from it!
This is a smallish, private
This is a smallish, private rooftop garden, right? Not protected wetlands or bird habitat? And it's in a business area, not a residential neighborhood? Just checking, because the reaction to Google wanting to build on top of an existing structure, and the offer of Boston Properties to replace a rooftop garden with a 47,000 sq. foot PUBLIC urban park seems...disproportionately negative.
I'm seeing a lot hysterics
I'm seeing a lot hysterics
Histrionics?
Over a Cambridge land use/zoning issue??
Nah, you must be imagining things.