Photo of the Day, Boston Style: Part V (2012)

[Charlie_mta]

Roosevelt Towers housing project in East Cambridge?

[DZH22]

Originally Posted by Charlie_mta

Roosevelt Towers housing project in East Cambridge?

Hmmmm, sounds about right. Here is a zoomed out picture from the same location.

[DZH22]

[JohnAKeith]

Clown Hall.

[Charlie_mta]

"Where are the gas pumps?"

---Quote from a Boston politician upon seeing the design for City Hall, back when the winning design was first unveiled.

[kz1000ps]

What a difference 10-ish weeks makes......here's my home vista from early February:



And here it is at sunrise yesterday:

[shmessy]

Originally Posted by kz1000ps

What a difference 10-ish weeks makes......here's my home vista from early February:



And here it is at sunrise yesterday:

Wow! Check out all those green, leafy cranes that have popped up on the Boston skyline!

[statler]

You should tell your neighbor to knock down their chimney so you can have a better view of the Hancock.

[kz1000ps]

I've had semi-serious thoughts about how big a ladder I'd need to get up there, sledgehammer in hand...

[Boston02124]

[kz1000ps]

More black and whites...



I don't get the love people here have for Exchange Place...it looks good from maybe three angles, at best. It sure doesn't help this shot...

[czsz]

Boston needs a higher ratio of Tudoresque apt. buildings (like the one in Allston above) to triple deckers.

[whighlander]

Originally Posted by czsz

Boston needs a higher ratio of Tudoresque apt. buildings (like the one in Allston above) to triple deckers.

CZ -- I'm not sure -- I kinda like the Napoleon III 2nd Empire look in the Back Bay
there's just something -- je ne sais quoi -- about some future billionaire toiling away writing code in an uncooled garrett apartment in midsummer

[czsz]

Obviously the Back Bay's architecture is beautiful, but it's not really a vernacular that spread (or was ever practicable) in Boston's "outer boroughs", as opposed to the brick apartment buildings in Allston.

I wonder if one of our resident historians can illuminate why Allston seems to have a greater percentage of brick apartment buildings than, say, Dorchester, Roxbury, or Mattapan.

[vanshnookenraggen]

Originally Posted by czsz

Obviously the Back Bay's architecture is beautiful, but it's not really a vernacular that spread (or was ever practicable) in Boston's "outer boroughs", as opposed to the brick apartment buildings in Allston.

I wonder if one of our resident historians can illuminate why Allston seems to have a greater percentage of brick apartment buildings than, say, Dorchester, Roxbury, or Mattapan.

Dorchester and Roxbury have plenty but they were also developed earlier and for different classes.

These types of apartment buildings flourished in the 1910-1920s when streetcar service opened up the (then) suburbs to development. Brick apartment houses were for upper-middle class white collar families while tripple deckers were (and still are) associated with working class families.

You find most of the apartment buildings like this along the major street car lines like Comm Ave, Beacon St, the Fenway (which finally developed at this time), and Blue Hill Ave. But most of them are due west of the Back Bay because that's where the upper-middle classes were moving out to.

I've always been a huge fan of these buildings and think they are really underrated.

[blade_bltz]

Originally Posted by czsz

I wonder if one of our resident historians can illuminate why Allston seems to have a greater percentage of brick apartment buildings than, say, Dorchester, Roxbury, or Mattapan.

The massive swath of housing projects + deadzone from Mass Ave in the South End all the way to Dudley Square used to be brick apartment buildings. In a documentary someone probably posted here, a longtime Roxbury resident mentioned that Cunard St used to be "downtown Roxbury" during its heyday. That's pretty much incomprehensible to me, now.

Obviously this pattern didn't extend down into Dorchester and Mattapan, but one can imagine how differently we would perceive Boston's size if those neighborhoods hadn't been razed.

[Ron Newman]

1920s brick apartment buildings aren't the dominant form in either Cambridge or Somerville but you'll find them scattered around. I live in one.

[datadyne007]

Originally Posted by blade_bltz

The massive swath of housing projects + deadzone from Mass Ave in the South End all the way to Dudley Square used to be brick apartment buildings. In a documentary someone probably posted here, a longtime Roxbury resident mentioned that Cunard St used to be "downtown Roxbury" during its heyday. That's pretty much incomprehensible to me, now.

Obviously this pattern didn't extend down into Dorchester and Mattapan, but one can imagine how differently we would perceive Boston's size if those neighborhoods hadn't been razed.

I thankfully live in one of the remaining original brick buildings spared by the 3 Whitney Redevelopment housing towers. Worthington St is like my own little time warp back to 1940's Boston. (Wigglesworth is the other street that got saved)

For more info about brick architecture and the destroyed street grid in Roxbury, see this post I put together in the Brigham Circle thread: http://www.archboston.org/community/...00&postcount=4

[Ron Newman]

Were those towers built primarily to house medical students and staff for the hospitals?

[Beton Brut]

Originally Posted by JohnAKeith

Clown Hall.

A new annex for the City Council?