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Government Center station takes shape
By adamg on Fri, 05/15/2015 - 4:45pm
Mike gives us a visual update on the giant glasshouse rising above City Hall Plaza.
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The Ⓣ Insists Upon Building These Grandiose Stations ...
... but it cares very little about maintaining them, so they quickly become rundown.
It's like buying a spoiled child expensive toys that they don't appreciate; carelessly discarded, left out in the rain, deliberately broken, or just left to ruin; after a brief moment of enthusiasm, it soon goes all to waste.
I wish the Ⓣ would spend less money on fancy architecture and furnishings, and more money on basics, such as keeping all stations clean and well-maintained for the long run.
That's a lot of Windex
It does make me wonder how they plan to keep all that glass clean.
Cue the...
Cue the Windex advertisements on large billboards in front of the building.
Sadly
Joking aside, the large flat section will soon be covered with a 4 story advertisement (see: MGH, South Station) which will add yet another insult to the area. As ugly as City Hall might be I'd much rather see it then some enormous billboard.
What's wrong with billboards?
What's wrong with billboards? They give you something to look at. If it's the principle of being sold to, we live in for better or worse a capitalist society, tons of things are designed with the intent of persuade you to give them money, billboards are just more showy about it than, say, the facade of a Burger King or something.
Yes as a matter of principle I think there needs to be some sort of restrictions on just throwing billboards all over the place, but too often people are just being luddites about it. If you look at photos of old-timey Boston there were billboards all over the fucking place, but people tend to think that was charming.
How they plan to keep glass clean?
They'll probably take the same approach as at Science Park station, photo taken last night:
The new GC headhouse will likely be permanently filthy before it opens to the public, so enjoy it now.
I give it a year before it
I give it a year before it leaks and is covered in pigeon poo.
Why did they have to design such a tall glass tower that no one will easily be able to clean it or repair the sealant to stop leaks?
Yes Yes Yes
Look at Alewife. The place is a labyrinth. The white truss is rusting and dirty. It would cost a ton to repaint it. The windows are likewise -- so cloudy you can't see through them. The brick floors of the station collect condensation and become slippery. The place is always dark and damp. The bus area is even worse. The early 1980s design might have looked good new but now it's an eyesore and is a drag on the T.
But do they learn? No.
The new Government Center will be the same way in ~10-15 years. The Kenmore bus stop is going that way.
Big stations are great -- if done right. But done right is in the classic sense -- South Station and Worcester as they were when built and of course the original Penn and Grand Central stations in NYC. Not this glass and truss design which will look dated and dirty within a decade.
Good stories about Alewife...
Remember when they had to put up a sign at the Alewife restroom, asking people to take the subway to Davis to take a leak?
I went to use that restroom a
I went to use that restroom a couple weeks ago.
The restroom was open.
I went in.
I wish that sign had still been there.
/never again
I don't understand how the T
I don't understand how the T manages to fail so spectacularly at just keeping the restrooms clean.
I do understand
It's all about being a public toilet and allowing access thereto.
Trust me, if your local shopping center only had staff cleaning up the toilets once a day, they'd look like T toilets.
They don't have the resources to keep rolling stock and track in good working order. Cleaning 2 restrooms times the number of stations that have facilities several times a day is a large undertaking. As it is, it seems they've stopped staffing a lot of the stations at all.
Kenmore
Didn't they spend millions and several years building a huge bus shelter... only to install those crappy plexiglass shelters inside the fancy pants awning - as their new toy didn't actually protect anyone from anything?
Also, you gotta love the new brightly colored tiles that instantly looked dirtier than the unrenovated parts of the station, along with those weird bits where it looks like they ran out of new ceiling and floor material halfway through the pedestrian tunnels.
That's what I don't get about Charles.
Fancy new station that fails to protect anyone from rain.
Thinly-veiled attack on modernist architecture
John Hancock is a 40 year old "glass and truss" design, and yet still looks great after four decades.
Yes but
the Hancock Tower is a well designed beautiful building that related to the city at a big scale (less successful at the ground). This is just big.
I am waiting for the first billboard size advertising signs to go up. I suspect we won't see much glass just advertising wraps.
Giant is right
When I first saw it go up I thought it three times as long and twice as tall as it needed to be. Now it looks like it'll also be three times wider than necessary. Why so huge?
Sears Crescent
The blocking of views of the gorgeous Sears Crescent is a travesty. It's easily the best-looking part of that entire square (mainly due to it predating the garbage that exists currently).
It would be wonderful if the possibility existed of, upon reflection of how horrible an eyesore it is, reducing the height of that headhouse to 1/4 of its current size, but I think we're stuck with it long-term. Sad.
Also blocks historic view of old north church.
There is a plaque on the ground on Tremont street directing freedom trail walkers to look up and not the steeple of the church. This largely obscures that.
Monstrosity
This thing is a monstrosity, completely out of proportion to it's surroundings. I don't know why the T continues to do erect these overbuilt station/mazes.
.
What a monstrosity
This should have been part of a comprehensive plan
You might think that a huge modification to Government Center might be part of an overall... plan... to renovate and repurpose the space to ensure it meshed with whatever else might be changed or added to the plaza.
Hahaha, who am I kidding?
Plan
I lived in Kenmore Square when they were repaving for the new bus station. At one corner, they put in a new street with shiny new lines, only to have NSTAR come along a week later and leave it covered in patches and spray paint. Last I was there it still was scarred. The new road lasted a week.
But this one comes in glass!
A jarring, ugly, oversized, out-of-place-looking, soon-to-be-dated building in the middle of Government Center? You don't say.
Oh, you mean a new one?
Heating bill?
I imagine the station will be losing lots of heat to the upper reaches of that high ceiling.
Yup. I'm glad that Government Center station will re-open, but,
I agree that the design isn't a very sound design, and there probably will be a lot of heat lost,
particularly in the dead of winter, moreso, if we end up having as hellish a winter next year as we did this time around.
Ⓣ Stations Don't Have Heating Or Air Conditioning ...
... except maybe for the attendant offices and elevator rooms.
This new station looks like a greenhouse. What will it be like around noontime on a hot and sunny summer day?
Hmmm
I'm not a fan of the design.. It's alright. I'm more interested in the interior improvements.
I do agree that the T doesn't have a good track record of maintenance, but keep in mind that last winter is a prime example of how they really have no maintenance money for anything. Not even to keep the trains running!
As far as the bird poo, I think it's been discussed here (and on ArchBoston) that the design actually will prevent that due to no real place for birds to 'perch', since the supports are inside. But we'll see. I'd like to hope since it's in a prime location it'll get a little more attention than most (then again, look at Kenmore's busway)
But to the nay sayers... we can always go back to the bunker, if you felt like that was better. This is far better than the bunker.
One final thought, someone mentioned about 'costs'. Keep in mind much of this was the Fed and the state, and like many T projects you can't 'redirect' money to something else, it has to be spent on that specific project. And typically has to be spent to the penny, otherwise when you ask for more money you may not get it (because you didn't spend it all the last time).
Also, the glass headhouse is probably the cheapest part of this project. Come on.. glass? Steel? it's cheap compared to the rest of the work being done on the station. Please, they had most of that up in weeks. (the only reason it's not finished is because the actual entrance isn't done yet, but I'm sure as soon as the roof goes on, the glass part will be finished within a day.)
Fed money still comes from us
Fed money still comes from us paying taxes. Having a station design which looks ok and can be maintained is better than one that is grand for five minutes and then becomes a run down money pit.
The headhouse should have been a copy of the newer ones at Arlington, Copley, and the Aquarium. Short glass that looks ok and is taken care of.
The old bunker
I'm tired of hearing that the old "bunker" was so bad. Aside from lack of accessibility for the handicapped (which admittedly was a big problem), what exactly was wrong with it? It was functional. It got people in and out efficiently. And, for better or worse, it blended into the surroundings, make what you will of them. This new behemoth looks like it's in two sections, the long low section and the tower section. Where in there does one descend to the station? It appears that, like the new Charles/MGH, there will be a lot of wandering around in empty space and turning of corners before one descends.
It's A Subway Station, Everything Important Happens Below Ground
The Ⓣ is trying to impress people who never use the system. The platform areas could be totally rebuilt, but people driving by in their cars would never see the improvements. A totally underground station doesn't provide enough photo-ops for political string pullers, management rung climbers, etc., etc..
It would be more useful to have basic unadorned entrances, but more of them so that passengers don't have to walk as far in bad weather, or cross as many busy streets to get inside.
Wherever possible, stations should have direct connections to adjacent buildings; that's the way it's done in "world class" cities.
Were There Necessarily Only Two Choices?
Of course, it's too late for this station, but my point is about the Ⓣ's general priorities where form is more important than function. I wish that would change, and instead make it a better functioning system.
In fact
during the design phase, the T seems to have created several renders for a radically different, lower-profile headhouse, so this was by far not the only possible outcome:
glass roof
I'm wondering about how the glass roof will shed ice and snow on the surrounding area?
Quite well, I'd imagine!
.
Charles/MGH all over again
This looks like it is shaping up to be a repeat of the Charles/MGH station mess with all kinds of confusing entrances, twists, turns and vast wasted space.
It's glass! It's modern!
It's glass! It's modern!
Or it was before many of you were born. Now I'm off to Symphony Hall to listen to some of that hot twelve-tone music.
Adorable!
Adorable!
City Hall at Government Center too far from your neighborhood?
Can't get to the City Hall at Government Center for the Public Meeting of Boston City Council?... the Stenograph Record is available at
http://www.reddit.com/r/openbostoncitycouncil/comments/36aycr/13_may_201...
videos
https://www.youtube.com/user/BostonCityCouncil/videos
Notes by Councilor Wu
https://www.facebook.com/michelleforboston/notes
Agenda. Minutes
http://www.cityofboston.gov/cityclerk/citycouncil/meetings.asp
Mailing list, Distribution email list. Publications
http://www.cityofboston.gov/citycouncil/citycouncilpub.asp
How about Public Meetings of Boston City Council in neighborhoods around the City!?
You know where I think they should hold the meetings?
Cambridge.