This is not Kendall Square

By adamg on Fri., 11/20/2015 - 10:25 am

If you still needed convincing that Boston's Financial District is becoming more of Boston's Tech District, David Harris presents this photo of a guy tooling down the street on one of those new micro-Segwayish things this morning.

Topics:

Business

Neighborhoods:

Downtown

Free tagging:

Financial District

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Comments

"tool" is right

By Malcolm Tucker
Fri, 11/20/2015 - 10:32am

He is gonna go ass over teakettle the instant he hits so much as a pebble. Examine the stability of these things:

COMPUTER. Find me a 4 second Aesop fable https://t.co/ks62jyxKJ0

— Josh Nalven (@JNalv) October 12, 2015

[do turn on the sound, because it gets funnier every time]

Looks more like ...

By SwirlyGrrl
Fri, 11/20/2015 - 10:40am

Teakettle over ass.

My sons say they are pretty easy to "get" if you are familiar with snow boards, though.

Kind of sad for a young person

By fefu
Fri, 11/20/2015 - 10:33am

He's not doing his heart any favors by refusing to walk and smoking a cigarette.

Naw.

By whyaduck
Fri, 11/20/2015 - 10:42am

Youth = invincibility.

Exactly

By Mikelikes
Fri, 11/20/2015 - 10:42am

The cigarette is first thing I noticed. As a 20something, I got why people over 40 started to smoke, but under 30 will never even get sympathy from your mom

.....and smoking a cigarette.

By Daffy Duck
Fri, 11/20/2015 - 10:43am

.....and smoking a cigarette.....which will have a 90% chance of being in tossed in the street after smoked. (Based on my observations around the city & at my building)

Ever see Wall-E?

By section77
Fri, 11/20/2015 - 10:45am

Just another signpost on our way to mobile recliners with cup holders for Big Gulps.

Only needs about 300lb more lbs

By Eve
Fri, 11/20/2015 - 10:54am

to be in the cast of WALL-E but point well taken.

Not just his heart but his

By Murphy1983
Fri, 11/20/2015 - 10:47am

Not just his heart but his entire body... cancer sticks and general laziness do not discriminate

and headphones....

By Shaw
Fri, 11/20/2015 - 10:55am

it shocks me to see how many people ride bikes and drive with headphones on....

What, me worry?

By FootPad
Fri, 11/20/2015 - 10:58am

[img]http://media.dcentertainment.com/sites/default/fil...

Has he picked out a cemetery

By section77
Fri, 11/20/2015 - 10:43am

Has he picked out a cemetery plot yet?

So new and scary

By SwirlyGrrl
Fri, 11/20/2015 - 10:56am

It simply must be immediately lethal, because I wouldn't ever use it!

Whther it's "fear of the new" or not...

By anon
Fri, 11/20/2015 - 11:55am

You gotta admit the headphones and cigarette are dumb behavior. That intersection can be pretty crazy and even as a pedestrian I remove my headphones before crossing there.

Nope, keep guessing.

By section77
Fri, 11/20/2015 - 11:03am

Nope, keep guessing.

sure takes care of that nasty chore...

By teric
Fri, 11/20/2015 - 10:43am

...called walking.

Blue Sands!

By anon
Fri, 11/20/2015 - 10:52am

This photo was taken at pretty much at the location where the Blue Sands used to be.

No chardonnay there for sure.

By kvn
Sat, 11/21/2015 - 2:27pm

No chardonnay there for sure . and Joe & Nemo's just up the street........

I saw a guy at DTX the other

By Downtownian
Fri, 11/20/2015 - 10:57am

I saw a guy at DTX the other day on a mobile-ball thingy - like this thing but feet on either side of the ball. Didn't look terribly stable when he almost collided with some oblivious pedestrians who were gawking in the "splendour" of Primark.

I wonder

By cybah
Fri, 11/20/2015 - 11:19am

I wonder if it was from someone from my office (the picture above was taken right in front of my office on Summer Street). We have like 3 of these.. Even our CEO has used one (of course he rides it like grandma driving on Sunday).

The guys zip around our office on them. Once you get the hang of it, it's pretty easy to use. I can't use it, I don't have good enough balance.. I end up falling off.

I imagine I would hurt myself

By Downtownian
Fri, 11/20/2015 - 11:40am

I imagine I would hurt myself or others. I can barely avoid walking into walls. The thing I saw was where Winter and Summer intersect with Washington.

If these were automated, I could see these driving mail-carts around the office.

Heelies

By itchy
Fri, 11/20/2015 - 12:17pm

These things are like heelies - great for sending kids on errands in big box stores, etc.

Peds are entitled to be oblivious.

By section77
Fri, 11/20/2015 - 11:42am

I'm not against these things we don't need idiots trying to ride them through DTX while complaining about peds. (What are all these people doing here? I can't go max speed!)

What's the name of the device?...

By theszak
Fri, 11/20/2015 - 12:02pm

What's the name of the device?...

Hovertrax

By Felicity
Fri, 11/20/2015 - 2:01pm

Hovertrax or Self-balancing Scooter

http://techcrunch.com/2015/01/13/slide-into-your-d...

this dude

By mikex617x
Fri, 11/20/2015 - 1:17pm

i see him pretty regularly, always with headphones on, ripping a cig. he blows through red lights obliviously. i obviously don't want this to happen, but he is going to cause an accident one of these days and someone will get really hurt. Congress Street isn't some little side road, cars drive fast and wild on it.

#crashnotaccident

By kisumxes
Fri, 11/20/2015 - 2:07pm

http://crashnotaccident.com/

Where are they "supposed" to travel?

By Felicity
Fri, 11/20/2015 - 1:56pm

Where are they "supposed" to travel?

Street or sidewalk?

outside Inman Square ....

By Sharon
Fri, 11/20/2015 - 4:45pm

in the morning, I've seen two. One boy plopped it in the bike lane on Cambridge Street and (presumably) went off to school; the other guy was riding it on the sidewalk.

Welcome to 2006

By Sammy
Fri, 11/20/2015 - 4:54pm

Uhm, I know you are trying to be cute or clever, but it comes off as

A) Lame
B) Misinformed
C) A reminder you're some sort od Drupal hobbyist who has too much time on his hands

People use this in various spots - if I took a photo of the dude doing it in the South End, would you say that is the new tech district?

Tech companies are all over the place - there are clusters in the DTX / Financial section, and have been for over 10 years. Plus you have the innovation / seaport district AKA cheap rents for big brick buildings (up until 2013) 3 blocks away.

I see that guy twice a week, and I am pretty sure he works at Gamestop, which is a few blocks down.

Now if you want a photo of a real douche, how about the guy who used to whip across city hall plaza in Khakis 2005-2007 - no tech dude, just a putz portfolio manager at Putnam.

Try a little harder next time, like an article how Mattapan isn't dangerous, or the awesome Vietnamese food in Savin Hill makes up for it being crime ridden.

We're zip tripping to Savin Hill! (with a heavily armed Mark Okerbloom)

Hey, just because you're scared of Savin Hill

By adamg
Fri, 11/20/2015 - 5:04pm

Doesn't mean we all are. And given that you've likely never been to Mattapan, you can be forgiven for not knowing that large parts of it are, in fact, perfectly safe.

In any case, to answer your question: You sound like you've been around Boston long enough to remember when the Financial District was the land of serious looking people in expensive suits doing serious looking financial type things. People who work in the mutual-funds industry do not go zipping around on motorized scooters. Yes, 2005.

But now that downtown rents are cheaper than those in Kendal Square or the Innovation District (or so I've read, please correct me if wrong) and you see actual startups there, yeah, you're starting to get a different vibe to the place, a place where somebody might, in fact commute or get coffee or whatever he's doing on an LED-lit wheeled hoverboard. No, it's not an earth-shattering observation, but it is a reflection of a changing downtown.

No, wrong again. Sorry.

By Sammy
Sat, 11/21/2015 - 11:37am

No, wrong again. Sorry.

If you actually worked down there, you'd know this. Some douche on a fancy skateboard is not a sign of the changing area -if you wanted to represent that, take a photo of all the poor black people being pushed further down the street to beg for change.

Maybe that is why he is on his board - he can make a faster get away without being asked for a dollar for 'food' -

*goes out to buy one*

True, I don't work there

By adamg
Sat, 11/21/2015 - 11:47am

But I walk through there often enough - after hearings at City Hall, I usually walk to Back Bay (after sitting for a couple hours, I need a walk), most of the time through the Financial District, Downtown Crossing and Chinatown. So, yeah, I see people begging for change. They don't tend to scare me, though; maybe that's the difference between us.

Those scooters look painful to me

By anon
Fri, 11/20/2015 - 5:09pm

My feet would be killing me in 5 minutes. So much pressure on my feet in a single position, with no relief.

Walking is much easier because it gives my feet a chance to stretch and be relieved repeatedly.

I don't understand why someone would want to stand on one of those scooters instead of just walking.

Is standing in one position really so much easier than walking for other people?

The way I've seen these used is pretty obnoxious, but...

By ladycommentariat
Fri, 11/20/2015 - 6:30pm

Might be very helpful for certain types of health issues. I've got very bad asthma and while I walk as much as I can, hauling groceries for a mile uphill isn't kind to it and requires medication. I have no idea how these things perform with additional loads, but I've thought about getting an electrical-assist bicycle; I could see this serving a similar need if used responsibly.

This is not Kendall Square

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