Worst New Development of 2009

[briv]

All members are encouraged to nominate a Boston area project* completed in 2009 that they believe is deserving of special recognition for its negative impact on the built environment.

Last Year's Winner: The Rose Kennedy Greenway (http://www.archboston.org/community/showthread.php?t=2778)
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y99/briv1/greenway_acopy.jpg

*includes all project types, i.e., building, park, infrastructure project, etc.

[Shepard]

Korean Church in Brookline Village
http://www.wickedlocal.com/brookline/archive/x1701874966/g1a91907651c96362a43276e7f6fdad979b606548ef434c.jp g
http://www.wickedlocal.com/brookline/archive/x1876201099/g1a91901faf19dcf437ec4058673b784f3632b1723c304f.jp g

[Shepard]

Also, the Louis Boston pavilion-in-a-field on Fan Pier

[Ron Newman]

Doesn't qualify because not "completed in 2009".

[cden4]

Korean Church in Brookline

[kennedy]

Will it be finished in time? I nominated it on the Worst New Proposal thread.

How about Mandarin Oriental? Or maybe One Marina Park at Fan Pier? I guess that's not finished either.

You know it's a bad year when you struggle to think of the worst developments.

[unterbau]

If there aren't any specifically bad developments completed this year, maybe there should be a poll option for 'None'

[DZH22]

I think the greenway has been getting kind of a bad rap. It really won last year? There are a ton of new trees on it, and give those 5-10 years to grow and fill in a little and it should bring much more of a park feel to it. Different parts of it are also getting a lot of usage. The dancing fountains near the aquarium are incredibly popular in the summer time, and the large plaza by south station and in front of the federal reserve is packed with vendors during lunch time. The bigger problem is whether the city will allow future projects surrounding the greenway to be up to par with the standards we have on this website. I would say early projections are inconclusive, although I'd say overall it will be somewhat of a disappointment. Judging now (or LAST YEAR in this case) is not fair because it is not exactly a finished product out there. Once the recession ends we will see if any of the better projects are allowed to be built because they will determine the full impact of the greenway as much as the park itself. I must say I was driving it at night, coming from Fanueil Hall towards South Station, and the glassy sheens of the Intercontinental and Atlantic Wharf looked very cool/impressive with the Federal Reserve and 1 Financial looming behind them.

For this year I will go with the black wall of 45 Province, the crown of the Clarendon, or the value engineered side of the W. All 3 of these are crap and we were mislead by the renderings.

This is a little off topic but does anybody know what the deal is with the new trend for buildings to have nice looking sides and value engineered crap sides? Why are mishmashed facades becoming the status quo?

[AmericanFolkLegend]

does anybody know what the deal is with the new trend for buildings to have nice looking sides and value engineered crap sides?

One side faces the Back Bay or Beacon Hill and the other (value-engineered) side faces Roxbury? That's kind of the case with the W.

[czsz]

I think the greenway has been getting kind of a bad rap. It really won last year? There are a ton of new trees on it, and give those 5-10 years to grow and fill in a little and it should bring much more of a park feel to it. Different parts of it are also getting a lot of usage. The dancing fountains near the aquarium are incredibly popular in the summer time, and the large plaza by south station and in front of the federal reserve is packed with vendors during lunch time. The bigger problem is whether the city will allow future projects surrounding the greenway to be up to par with the standards we have on this website. I would say early projections are inconclusive, although I'd say overall it will be somewhat of a disappointment. Judging now (or LAST YEAR in this case) is not fair because it is not exactly a finished product out there. Once the recession ends we will see if any of the better projects are allowed to be built because they will determine the full impact of the greenway as much as the park itself. I must say I was driving it at night, coming from Fanueil Hall towards South Station, and the glassy sheens of the Intercontinental and Atlantic Wharf looked very cool/impressive with the Federal Reserve and 1 Financial looming behind them.

For this year I will go with the black wall of 45 Province, the crown of the Clarendon, or the value engineered side of the W. All 3 of these are crap and we were mislead by the renderings.

This is a little off topic but does anybody know what the deal is with the new trend for buildings to have nice looking sides and value engineered crap sides? Why are mishmashed facades becoming the status quo?

Has anyone ever defended the Greenway without using the "trees will grow" argument?

Sorry, every time I cross over to the North End in winter and the wind whips across the Greenway I curse it to hell. And this is supposedly the most successful part of it! We have parks in this city that work in winter because they're charming destinations by day and avoidable by night, but the Greenway was supposed to stitch the city back together and has wound up being an even more regrettable scar than what it replaced.

So I nominate the Greenway again. It is an ongoing failure. All attempts to make it better this year have failed.

[kz1000ps]

Is Fan Pier's first building going to be done this year? If so, I wholeheartedly nominate that piece of stinking shit.

[BarbaricManchurian]

The Clarendon

[briv]

This one is easy: One Marina Park Drive.

Alas, the Boston Stump has reached its ultimate nadir. One Marina Park Dr is like the shark of Boston Stumps -- evolutionarily perfect, incapable of being improved upon. It's as if Fallon gathered the world's most brilliant mathematicians together and asked them to come up with the fattest, stumpiest, fat stump geometrically possible and this is what they came up with. Awe-inspiring.

[czsz]

^ I think that one is in a whole other category: "Most Implosion-worthy"

[blade_bltz]

^^ Fallon's Golden Ratio. With an emphasis on golden.