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Showing posts from July, 2007

Snapshots of Boston (and Cambridge)

left: City Hall, designed by I.M. Pei right: Farmers' market on City Hall Plaza (read about Massachusetts Farmers' Markets ) right: Zakim Bridge Haymarket (read about the outdoor market ) Haymarket left: South Station (read about the history of this transportation center ) right: downtown skyline State mental health building Cambridge, MA left: brick sidewalk right: classic triple deckers Cambridge, MA left: a flatiron building, one of my favorite architectural styles right: brick church near Central Square

Greenway or park blocks?

The Central Artery has been removed from the Boston landscape. In its place are a series of park places known as the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway. The use of the term greenway to refer a landscape that once represented physical and social division and environmental degradation is brilliant. Greenway is evocative of Ebenezzer Howard's greenbelt idea: a verdant expanse of countryside surrounding garden cities and green towns ( read about Greenbelt, Maryland). The Kennedy Greenway seems a natural fit in a period during which cities are reimaging themselves as green. Waterfront parcels However, during a recent trip to Boston I walked along the greenway and was surprised to see that the almost 30 acres of new parkland is not a greenway. I imagine a greenway as a connected series of green spaces. Several busy roadways reconnect downtown to the North End and the waterfront but interrupt the continuity of the greenway. I think it would be more appropriate for the new

Scenes from a Hackensack, NJ neighborhood

right: Hackensack River Coles Brook, tributary of the Hackensack River

Music and design activate empty storefronts

In April and May, a concert series played in the empty Fidelity Bank building between Mechanics and Union Banks on Shattuck Avenue. Currently, the Green City Gallery, an exhibition of Bay Area ecological design developed by Bay Localize and Dig Coop, is being held in a former office supply store at the corner of Shattuck and Berkeley Way. The exhibition includes a model residential grey water treatment system ( a full-scale version was installed at the EcoHouse by Dig Coop) and an algal carbon fixation experiment. Algal carbon fixation video clip Previous posts about storefronts They closed?! Oh wow! Filling the gap

Egret: shorebird and stewards

Northern end of main lagoon July 9 marked only my second visit to Aquatic Park. At 32.76 land acres and 67.7 water acres, the park is Berkeley's largest city-owned park . My first visit involved a cursory look at the "middle lagoon" through a car window. I had a more thorough tour of the middle lagoon on Tuesday, guided by Mark Liolios of Aquatic Park Environmental Greening, Restoration, and Education Team (Aquatic Park EGRET). As we walked the perimeter of the middle lagoon, Mark pointed out cultural and ecological features of the park as well as EGRET's current projects. Western edge of main lagoon The road that currently separates the main lagoon from the middle lagoon was once the site of boardwalk from which model sailboat racers would monitor their boats. (I do not know when the boardwalk was removed.) Prior to the development of the site as a park under the Works Progress Administration, the eastern edge of the park was the bay's shoreline. Al

Neighborhood sitting space

Image: Ohlone Greenway in Cedar Rose Park "People tend to sit most where there are places to sit," wrote William H. Whyte in the The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces (1980). Image: #19 AC Transit stop on 6th at Channing Whyte was writing about seating options in public spaces, mostly privately owned plazas in New York City. The provision of seating areas in privately owned spaces like plazas, atria, and malls as well as seating in publicly owned spaces like parks is commonplace. What continues to pleasantly surprise me is the creation of seating, by neighborhood residents, for neighborhood residents. Here are several instances: Image: Eco-House, adjacent to sidewalk (a public-private example) Image: Prince at Fulton (also features a community bulletin board; read Jen's recent post on Walking Berkeley) Image: Zen center, Parker at Fulton Image: Russell Street, near College Avenue Image: Ward between Shattuck and Fulton Image: W