Hey, there! Log in / Register
At least we know the glass is pretty tough
By adamg on Thu, 03/12/2015 - 3:44pm
Mike Kix watched workers installing the roof of the revamped Government Center T stop today.
Neighborhoods:
Topics:
Free tagging:
Ad:
Support Universal Hub
Help keep Universal Hub going. If you like what we're up to and want to help out, please consider a (completely non-deductible) contribution.
Comments
Hopefully this glass canopy
Hopefully this glass canopy offers more protection than the crappy one at Kenmore.
Its a roof. The Building is completely enclosed
Or will be when finished.
I can't wait for the ice sheets of death sliding off the roof next winter though.
Hopefully
Heat from the space (if they provide any) will help melt it. Typically there will be supply ducts blowing air across them on the inside.
How often will they clean it?
I give it a month until the pigeons create a masterpiece that would make Jackson Pollock jealous.
Curious
Maybe they sprang for the self-cleaning glass? The kind with either hydrophobic or hydrophilic coatings? Pilkington Glass has a line that may have been called for. This being a public bid they'd have had to find 3 equals ...
Pointless
This giant leftover from Menino is pointless, expensive, and negates any possibility of long-term change of the plaza.
It's not pointless
They're installing an elevator, to make it accessible to People with Disabilities.
Menino?
Did you know that the MBTA is a quasi-independent state agency, that falls under the transportation department? The station rebuild has nothing to do with Menino. Setting that aside, the rebuild serves the important purpose of making the station accessible. The elevator was a big deal from an engineering standpoint, hence the make-over and replacement of the former fall-out shelter bunker style entrance.
Glass roofs do nothing for
Glass roofs do nothing for accessibility.
No, they don't
But then, nobody claimed that they did. The accessibility project required re-doing the entire entrance. Lately, the 'T has favored glass for new station construction. It's an aesthetic choice, certainly, but it's not inferior to brick and concrete. They had to build something, which is the point to make in response to the claim that it was built only to stoke a politician's ego.
Really?
How so? Can you expand on this, please?
Why is this three stories tall
Really. Why. Why is it three stories of empty space to construct a blank, boring glass rectangle? What is the purpose? It also completely obscures the view of the Oriental Tea Company kettle and associated gorgeous buildings.
Elevator
There needs to be space for the machinery for the elevator.
'Fraid that's not it
http://mbta.com/uploadedfiles/Riding_the_T/GovtCtr...
Thanks
That explains much. Might have to do with avoiding the bunker feeling of the old headhouse.
Huge greenhouse to heat the air to 150 degrees in the summer
In the summer this glass house will be boiling hot.
With all the air conditioning condensers on the trains dumping hot air into the tunnels I guess the T is not hot enough in the summer.
Fun times.
It's almost exactly...
...one year since they shut down the station to start the two-year process.
Is it really going to take another full year to get it up and running?
And speaking of public works projects that take way too long to finish -- Huntington/Mass Ave overpass/underpass still dug up since last spring, I believe. It's like they just forgot about the big hole there.
Interesting article
With other renderings:
http://archpaper.com/news/articles.asp?id=7130#.VQLp6fnF9x0
I'm no good at getting images to show up ... gah.
Opposite concepts
vs
I hate the Plaza as much as anybody (the entire thing should be completely torn apart and rebuilt from the ground, nay, underground up) but the Bunker entrance at least fit the style of the plaza, versus his monstrosity of a headhouse which matches....... nothing. You can maybe argue that it conceptually echoes the Kenmore Station busway, but that looks nice and has a function so really the only similarity is "big and made of glass".
I'd be less passionate about this if it didn't obscure the Sears Block/Crescent, the only part of the entire plaza that doesn't make people want to kill themselves.
And
You can also argue that it's a symmetrical, glassed-in version of the North End Greenway trellises.
Except
Except those exist to pay cheeky homage to the elevated highway structural braces that ran over that very spot, while this box had no such design to ape.