Hall of Shame Nominees

[briv]

Members are encouraged to nominate an existing building, park or piece of infrastructure in the Boston area that they believe diminishes the built environment. These possess attributes that should not be replicated and should serve as a model for what not to do in future projects.

There will be three new inductees.

Last year's inductees:
Tip O'Neill Building
Congress Street Garage
Methunion Manor

[Ron Newman]

Roxbury Community College -- unnecessarily fenced in, set back from the street and doesn't interact with it, walls off the residential neighborhood behind it, AND contains many unneeded surface parking lots where there should be development.

[palindrome]

Park Lane seaport, or whatever building that is that houses LTK on the seaport.

It is atrocious. Precast with a beige color that is just absolutely horrible. Sets a terrible precedent for seaport development.

[kmp1284]

All Boston Housing Authority property, with particular emphasis on the anti-urban Hope VI renovations of recent years.

[Ron Newman]

Boston City Hall

JFK Federal Building

State Services Center (Hurley-Lindemann)

Charles River Park, taken collectively

Madison Park Campus High School, Roxbury

Copley Place, for its blank and uninviting street facades only (it works fine as an interior pedestrian street and is OK next to Southwest Corridor Park)

The ugly modern building across from Copley Square Park with the Citizens Bank in it. Might be unremarkable elsewhere, but here its neighbors are Old South Church, Trinity Church, Copley Plaza Hotel, Boston Public Library, and the old and new Hancock towers.

Nashua Street Jail -- does not belong in this riverfront location, should be converted to a hotel!

Middlesex County Courthouse/Jail, East Cambridge.

[found5dollar]

i said it last year and i will say it again.... Mass Eye and Ear.

[Ron Newman]

The unnecessary closing of Mount Vernon Street to both wheeled and pedestrian traffic where it goes under the State House, between Joy and Bowdoin streets. Why haven't Beacon Hill residents lobbied harder (or at all) to reopen it?

[cden4]

City Hall Plaza

[Shepard]

The Big Dig - a completely auto-centric waste of time.

1) Yes - it's a good thing the central artery came down, although the end-result would have been far better if development of the parcels was used to finance the project. Instead, we get a "greenway" and debt.

2) Completely auto-centric - If one of the tunnels had been a NS connector/mass transit tunnel, and if the Silver Line weren't a joke etc then this project might have benefited Boston in the long run. Instead, it subsidizes car drivers further and encourages more into the city.

[CDubs]

1-2-3 Center Plaza.

[statler]

1-2-3 Center Plaza would have worked so much better on the other side of Cambridge St. It would have enclosed and activated City Hall Plaza as well as that side of Cambridge St.

The John Adams Court House would then be visible from Cambridge St (and with a little finesse, Faneuil Hall.)

The more I think about this, the more it annoys me.

[kennedy]

-Park Lane Seaport
-1-2-3 Center Plaza
-Moakley Courthouse (pretty from the water, sucks in almost every other aspect)
-Mass. Eye and Ear

[DZH22]

Tremont on the common. It's just absolutely disgusting.

[CDubs]

I second Tremont on the Common.

[statler]

THIRD!

[Ron Newman]

Fourth

[unterbau]

the 'Avalon' towers at the Prudential

[Ron Newman]

Where are these? I've never heard of them or seen them.

[unterbau]

those two identical apartment towers next to the Pru

[AmericanFolkLegend]

With the faux brick cladding that looks like plastic.