Butt-ugly Cambridge

MIT Green Building -- I once had an office looking out at one of the windowless concrete faces of this tower. -- http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3053/2529051777_f84...

MIT Simmons Hall -- AKA "The Borg Dorm." A creative monstrosity. -- http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/6b/Simm... http://www.archnewsnow.com/features/images/Feature...

Harvard Holyoke Center -- Ugly and dated. -- http://www.hres.harvard.edu/UC/UCWEB/Contact_Us.html

Simmons Hall, I can't

By ShadyMilkMan
Thu, 02/19/2009 - 9:27pm

Simmons Hall, I can't believe anyone ever thought that would be appreciated.

Space Waffle!

By SwirlyGrrl
Thu, 02/19/2009 - 10:11pm

Actually, Simmons Hall works well inside from what I've heard from an inhabitant.

You can't say it made that stretch of Vassar look any worse!

I think simmons hall is

By pierce
Fri, 02/20/2009 - 8:45am

I think simmons hall is beautiful, well suited for both MIT and the weird extended rail R.O.W. that is its site... especially at night.

"Well-suited for MIT" reminded me of something...

By neilv
Fri, 02/20/2009 - 9:48am

There is a certain piece of functional design in one of the fancy MIT buildings. I once remarked to someone that it seemed cold, hard, uninviting -- exactly the opposite of what I'd assume is its intended purpose. The person actually knew of the provenance of this feature, and said it was a commissioned piece by an artist, not by the building's architect, and that the artist had *intended* it to be that way. The person said the artist stated "MIT people have no soul" and wanted the piece to reflect that.

I was bothered that someone would compromise in this sense: I assume this was first and foremost a commissioned work for a client, with certain requirements/goals to be satisfied, not a free-reign playground for the artist's self-expression. I was also very amused by this hack on MIT, still silently paying insult dividends after all these years, with MIT people unawares.

Or perhaps the person was pulling my leg. They were in a position to know such things, but they themselves weren't too fond of MIT people, so the story has one quality of urban myth.

It's also fun to imagine that some of the worst offenses of architecture were intentional insults, :) though I think "seemed like a good idea at the time" is the more likely explanation.

what's so bad about Holyoke Center?

By Ron Newman
Thu, 02/19/2009 - 10:44pm

The Au Bon Pain and the plaza outside are quite popular in good weather. How many other places can you see people outside playing chess?

Only that it's ugly

By neilv
Fri, 02/20/2009 - 7:24am

Functionally, I like what I use of the Holyoke Center building. And I do think the ABP patio looks nice, especially when the trees are green. And I know the building has some architectural merits. But I have always thought that it is ugly.

exactly, its a wonderful

By ShadyMilkMan
Fri, 02/20/2009 - 7:38am

exactly, its a wonderful building if you dont look up...

For the full sore-thumb effect...

By neilv
Thu, 02/19/2009 - 7:58pm

You have to see the courthouse from a few stories up in Kendall Square -- protruding from the skyline, red stripe, and all.

Yes, these are ugly, but...

By Jiffywoob
Thu, 02/19/2009 - 8:41pm

...the article seemed to focus mainly (with two exceptions) on buildings that something could be/should have been actually done about (torn down/rebuilt/finished, etc.). The ones listed in the above comments are, sad to say, probably here for the long haul (and, given the current economic environment, so likely are the ones listed in the article). I actually personally like Simmons Hall, albeit in a sick sort of way.

The courthouse, well, that's another story. And if you think it's bugly on the outside (cool angle in Ron's photo BTW), try stepping inside. Ack. I felt like I got diseases extinct since the 50's by going in there.

Not my photo, actually

By Ron Newman
Thu, 02/19/2009 - 10:43pm

Found it via Google Image Search on [url=http://www.bu.edu/phpbin/news-cms/news/?dept=1368&... BU journalism project page[/url].

May it soon be imploded!

By Violet
Fri, 02/20/2009 - 11:12am

May it soon be imploded! (But where is the outrage that Cambridge no longer has a district court? Are people unaware that the court has been moved to Medford (not even in the jurisdiction) in a location where it isn't even reachable by public transportation (a good mile or so from Wellington Station on the orange line, requiring a walk across Wellington Circle)?

May it soon be imploded!

By violetly
Fri, 02/20/2009 - 11:19am

May it soon be imploded! But where is the outrage that Cambridge no longer has a district court - do people know it has been moved to Medford, which is not even in the jurisdiction? Or that the closest public transportation is Wellington Station, on the orange line (and getting to the new court requires crossing Wellington Circle on foot)? Bus service from Wellington is promised by late March, so getting there from Cambridge will only require two trains and a bus, even worse from Arlington...

Today's Globe

By pigFoot
Fri, 02/20/2009 - 8:32am

It sure looks like this just got re-written (without attribution) for a piece in today's 'g'.

oh no he ditent!

By Harris
Fri, 02/20/2009 - 11:24am

They both start with Faces, too.

Geoff Edgers's latest stint as a fluff reporter isn't going so well. Won't they let him just write about the ahts?

Not "re-written"

By neilv
Fri, 02/20/2009 - 3:22pm

I'd say that, at most, the Edgers piece was inspired by the Klinger blog post, UH chatter, or a memetic common ancestor.

Then he makes urban decay his theme, and does a little investigation.

Seems hastily slapped together, but even if it was inspired by a blog, I wouldn't say a link/mention is called for.

Think of it like a reporter overhearing people chatting in pubs about something and deciding to go investigate and do a journalistic treatment of the concerns of the day. Although, in this case, the job was so-so.

Going back to the general topic of papers in the age of the Internet: if the Globe piece were a blog post, it would be noteworthy in that the poster expended some shoe leather, but it's not particularly interesting or useful, and I wouldn't bother to link to it.

What Neil says

By adamg
Fri, 02/20/2009 - 3:26pm

Plus, if it's in g, it probably required some lead time.

Yeah, cause I dont think

By ShadyMilkMan
Fri, 02/20/2009 - 3:44pm

Yeah, cause I dont think they hold the presses for g if they are waiting on a story from someone.

Hey maybe the blogger stole it from the g writers blog/early copy of the story...

The blog entry was posted a

By NotWhitey
Fri, 02/20/2009 - 4:07pm

The blog entry was posted a week ago. If you think the idea for the article and the use of the Faces building as an example is a coincidence, good luck to you.

When a writer for the Jamaica Plain Gazette used one of my blog posts as the seed for a story, he acknowledged me at the end of the article. That's all it takes. As long as they don't lift text, it's hard to criticize a reworking of a blog entry - ideas have to come from somewhere. In this case, it is highly likely that the idea came from the blog, and an acknowledgement after the end of the article wouldn't kill.

And by the way - they don't "hold the presses" any more. Everything is done on computers now, so they can add content up to the last second. This was a week in coming.

I dunno

By adamg
Fri, 02/20/2009 - 4:17pm

Yeah, could be possible he saw her post, then decided to do one on ugly buildings across the river, but it's still original reporting (well, original, at any rate), or as original as one can get with the topic of "the ugliest buildings in X" (Sometime in the late 1980s, I wrote a story about the ugliest buildings in Natick - and dammit, I stand by my assertion that the VFW post on 135 was the single ugliest building in town, no matter how many veterans accused me of hating America).

As for holding the presses, yes, you're right. However, I bet you g is laid out at least a couple days in advance - with the feature stories planned out even earlier than that. It's basically a magazine, not a newspaper, and there's really no reason to rip it up at the last minute short of some major error.

g still has an earlier deadline than the rest of the paper

By Ron Newman
Fri, 02/20/2009 - 4:18pm

which is why some late concert and theatre reviews still appear on the broadsheet Names page rather than in the g section.

Even in the computer age, some parts of the paper still need to be printed before other parts.

Yes! Of course I did not

By ShadyMilkMan
Fri, 02/20/2009 - 4:56pm

Yes! Of course I did not mean to imply that they literally had presses that were laid out by hand (ala Citizen Kane.) Producing a paper is still a mighty big endeavor, and to the extent possible they do try to hammer out the non essential news in advance. Reformatting is essentially similar to stopping the presses as you would have to move everything around. Add to that the time it takes to write the piece, get it into editing, get it into the section, have the section printed its possible that he was running on this story before the blogger was or at least at the same time.

If it were as easy to deliver a paper every day (with bigger sections on weekends) as people make it out to seem we would not have a press problem in this country because I would be able to roll out the Boston Globe from my garage.

Co-inky-dink

By Kaz
Fri, 02/20/2009 - 3:29pm

Unless Karen Klinger is also a UPS driver, I'm just going to chalk this one up to weird coincidence.

Butt-ugly Cambridge

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