Tall building construction debated on campus

Tall buildings have invaded the Fenway and Northeastern areas, including 1330 Boylston St., a mixed-use high-rise building currently in construction, West Village H and International Village. At a forum called “Can Height Make Right” sponsored by the Fenway Community Development Corporation June 10 two architects, an urban designer and a state representative presented their views on tall buildings and allowed Fenway community members to share their concerns.
“I don’t know if height can make it right, but height is not automatically wrong,” said architect Alex Kreiger of Chan Kreiger Sieniewicz and Harvard Graduate School of Design, a panel member.
Boston Redevelopment Authority Deputy Director of Urban Design Prataap Patrose said no other American city is as constrained as Boston. Longwood Medical Area has 20 institutions on a mere 200 acres.
Boston is “shoe-horned into an old city fabric,” Patrose said, and struggles between its desire to hold historic areas historic and have an economy strong enough to sustain the city.
The panel tried to placate the audience of about 50 middle-aged to elderly frustrated Fenway residents.
“Tall buildings shouldn’t be viewed as a choice, they should be viewed as a responsibility,” said panelist David Dixon, an architect and urban designer for design firm Goody Clancy. “There will be tall buildings.”
But Bostonians have historically resisted the construction of tall buildings. After the addition of the Fanueil Hall tower to Boston’s Custom House in 1837, Bostonians saw the new building as a “bastardization”  of the city, Kreiger said.
The panel discussed the advantages and disadvantages a community encounters after constructing tall buildings.
“I like to look at them,” State Representative and panelist Byron Rushing said, “but it’s better to look at them from far away.”
Richard Orareo, a Fenway resident and member of the Fenway Community Development Corporation said he felt the community needed to defend itself from development.
“Institutional expansion is devouring our neighborhood building by building and reduces the quality of life,” he said. He cited Northeastern’s expansion as another spine on Huntington Avenue and called West Village H “a lego block wrapped in green cellophane.”
One community member, Warren Edward Newman II, vocally decried all institutions of higher education in Boston and called Northeastern “Arson University,” blaming it for the detriment of the entire community. Newman said he has no college degree, but said he taught culinary arts at Northeastern years ago.
Northeastern did not have a representative on the panel.
“Before the student loan, there was no such thing as homelessness in Boston,” Newman said. “They occupy what is our Boston, not theirs.”
Ultimately, the panel encouraged the people in Boston’s neighborhoods to be stewards and active partners in building negotiations.
“No city belongs solely to the people who live in it at this very moment,” Krieger said.
Suzanne Comtois of Fenway, once avidly against tall buildings, said she now understood the need for them.
“We must allow taller buildings because it is the way of the future, we are just a passing through,” she said. “Being in the negotiation is our way of keeping our neighborhoods intact.”

12 comments

gp

Thu Jul 2 2009 01:04

cpatel,

you make a logical error here. you complain that the 'community' groups all of the college students together as if they are all bad people, after you suggest that 'the community' is afraid of change. The fenway is a complicated and diverse place. Even the neighborhood groups fight with each other about their priorities. This was a meeting attended by 50 middle-aged and elderly fenway residents. There are many long-term residents who were not at this meeting expressing concerns. Most neighbors won't want the charm of the core of the neighborhood (gainsboro street for example) replaced with highrises, but don't mind the vibrancy created by the new buildings on boylston street.

cpatel

Mon Jun 29 2009 20:49

Meant to put a comma after described. Kind of changes the meaning of the sentence there lol.

cpatel

Mon Jun 29 2009 20:47

Its simple. The community that we are supposedly replacing is afraid of change. If you really hate college students and University expansion that much, then don't live next to them/it. Now if they were mentioning things like how SOME college students (note, not all. Just those typical drunk obnoxious ones) can be loud at times, then I would see their concern. But what I see here is a group of people who can't stand progress around them, and stereotyping the "typical college student" that I described as all of us.

John Allen

Thu Jun 25 2009 19:48

Fox is like Carter and Obama and is too weak to issue any statement.

CCJ '09

Wed Jun 24 2009 14:27

The community members would be here on this message board, bashing and trashing us... if they were even the slightest bit literate

Your name

Tue Jun 23 2009 19:51

I request a declaration of war signed by SGA President Ryan Fox and Commander-In-Chief Joseph Aoun. Second anyone?

Your name

Tue Jun 23 2009 13:41

Manifest Destiny, its our divine right to expand across Huntinton Ave!

KA

Sat Jun 20 2009 18:15

hahahaha man, all I can do is laugh. That homelessness quote is just priceless. And State Representative Byron Rushing clearly needs to move out to the suburbs so he can look at all the skyscrapers from a distance he wants. What does he expect? The NIMBYs in this city are unbelievably irrational and stupid.

Your name

Thu Jun 18 2009 12:55

arson university, hehe not bad

Marcus

Thu Jun 18 2009 09:24

I look forward to the day that Northeastern students push the remaining residents out of Mission Hill/Fenway and end it once and for all.

I hate this community. Hate it. And it's their fault. They, for some reason, think that college students are worse for the community than the gang members and high school dropouts, previously the only residents of the NU area. LOOK at the crime statistics. LOOK how much additional safety and stability Northeastern has brought to the community.

Or, like most members of this awful community, ignore those statistics and make baseless claims about homelessness. Meanwhile, we'll be driving up property values and improving quality of life in the surrounding neighborhoods.

J

Wed Jun 17 2009 12:54

“Before the student loan, there was no such thing as homelessness in Boston,” Newman said. “They occupy what is our Boston, not theirs.”

If tution didn't keep rising at an ungodly rate, we wouldn't have such high student loans. Also, if you look at the homeless, they are not young, college students.

What??

Wed Jun 17 2009 09:05

One community member, Warren Edward Newman II, vocally decried all institutions of higher education in Boston and called Northeastern “Arson University,” blaming it for the detriment of the entire community. Newman said he has no college degree, but said he taught culinary arts at Northeastern years ago.

Really? What an idoit. The colleges in and around Boston power the local economy. They help to bring in the high tech companies. This man clearly does not understand the need for change. Especially since when those buildings are constructed all the jobs go to local construction workers and the buildings are maintained by people in the local area.

Add comment


I am not posting spam. I understand posting spam or other comments that are unrelated to this article will cause my comment to be flagged for deletion and possibly cause my IP address to be permanently banned from this server.

Enter the characters in the image above:

log out