I saw three (presumably) homeless people openly smoking crack in an alcove right near that intersection at about 8am on Thursday. Does that make us more or less like NYC? Hopefully the daily visible hard drug use (or evidence thereof) won't impede the sale of the $37.5 million Millennium Place penthouse right near there.

It depends

By Sock_Puppet on Sun, 10/04/2015 - 4:29pm.

If they pissed on the wall afterwards or not

Hopefully the daily visible

By anon on Sun, 10/04/2015 - 6:55pm.

Hopefully the daily visible hard drug use (or evidence thereof) won't impede the sale of the $37.5 million Millennium Place penthouse right near there.

You haven't been to San Francisco lately, have you? People getting into bidding wars to pay tens of thousands of dollars for the Lap of Luxury, where strung out addicts knife-fight and poop on the front steps.

winter street is already

By mikex617x on Mon, 10/05/2015 - 1:49pm.

winter street is already being cleaned up. my predicition? the rain that travis bickle predicted will be hitting dtx by April of next year. the days of the junkie lean and puddles of homeless piss/puke will be ending once millennium tower gets closer to opening.

Stores, Clubs, And Restaurants Open Late At Night? …

By Elmer on Sun, 10/04/2015 - 4:52pm.

^{… and, of course, a rapid-transit system that runs 'round the clock?}

That's the good part

By Michael on Sun, 10/04/2015 - 5:04pm.

I don't want it if it comes with one, let alone two, crappy basketball teams.

#gag

By anon on Sun, 10/04/2015 - 4:59pm.

#barf

"Mid Town"

By Neighbor2 on Sun, 10/04/2015 - 5:17pm.

They keep pushing that name.

Guarantee nobody not on a board or commission or realtor's office has ever used it.

One thing about the Olympics planning process I was looking forward to was watching the realtors developing down-town crossing argue with the Olympic Czars over a name nobody in Boston uses.

Bleh.

Different Midtown

By adamg on Sun, 10/04/2015 - 5:52pm.

One of the things that grated about the Olympic "Midtown" was that there already was a Boston Midtown, nowhere near what they were talking about. Granted, one that few knew about or referred to, but what started out as the Midtown Cultural District has morphed into the name of the residents association for the downtownish area (my mind is going, so I can't remember the exact name, but it's something like XYZ/Midtown Residents Council, where XYZ is some actual word).

Right...

By Neighbor2 on Sun, 10/04/2015 - 6:04pm.

I was kind of looking forward to the "battle of commissions and committees" as Boston2024 and "XYZ/Midtown Residents Council, where XYZ is some actual word" wrestled over the name.

I actually suspect that the "XYZ/Midtown Residents Council, where XYZ is some actual word" will keep putting up signs, keep promoting the name, and over the years, it will creep into actual usage. Meanwhile, "older" Bostonians will still call the area, "Down Town Crossing", "The Combat Zone", "The area between China Town and Down Town Crossing", "The old Combat Zone", or some combination of the above.

Meanwhile, "older" Bostonians

By anon on Sun, 10/04/2015 - 7:38pm.

Meanwhile, "older" Bostonians will still call the area, "Down Town Crossing"

And older "older" Bostonians like me will still call it Washington Street, like it was before it was "Downtown Crossing". :-)

That's the transit station name

By SwirlyGrrl on Sun, 10/04/2015 - 9:43pm.

Most older folks simply call it "downtown".

Cue Petula Clark ...

yeah well...

By John-W on Sun, 10/04/2015 - 10:43pm.

...if you've ridden the T you know that there's a number of folks NOT taking her advice on transit somnia.

No, most native Bostonoians

By Misfitz on Mon, 10/05/2015 - 1:08pm.

No, most native Bostonoians call it" in Town". I used to shop at Filenes Basement in Town.

In town, downtown...

By Sally on Mon, 10/05/2015 - 4:28pm.

The thing is--to have a Midtown, you need an Uptown and we do not have one. I think of Copley/Newbury/Pru as the other perennial shopping "end" of Boston but it is not Up- or Mid-. To call anything between dtx and the financial district mid/anything is ridiculous.

Must be a couple of names then

By SwirlyGrrl on Mon, 10/05/2015 - 5:31pm.

My reference points were my MIL (born in Boston in the early 1930s) and her mother (1912-2012) who worked 20+ years for the phone company "downtown".

Maybe it had to do with what neighborhood you came from? Not that these things ever vary by neighborhood in Boston ;-) .

Zactly

By JohnAKeith on Sun, 10/04/2015 - 11:19pm.

Yes!!! Downtown Crossing - like, who named it that? Some realtard? Some marketing firm? Some high-end developer?

Interesting, that's what it

By anon on Sun, 10/04/2015 - 7:48pm.

Interesting, that's what it refers to? I've heard out-of-towners pretend to be local and sneak in Midtown, but I never knew what they were referring to. Google always pointed be towards the Midtown hotel near the Pru, so I just assumed it was the Back Bay-ish area. Guess not?

http://www.mcdra.org/

By Carty on Mon, 10/05/2015 - 2:59pm.

http://www.mcdra.org/

"The Midtown Cultural District Residents’ Association (MCDRA) is an independent organization that was formed in 2014 by residents of Boston’s Midtown / Downtown Crossing neighborhood. The organization, run exclusively by volunteers residing in the neighborhood, facilitates community building and ensures that residents are informed and have a voice in key decisions that stand to impact Midtown / Downtown Crossing."

Although I suspect they (we) had anything to do with the sign.

The BRA's zoning maps

By Doug on Mon, 10/05/2015 - 10:30am.

The BRA's zoning maps identify Downtown Crossing as being part of the "Midtown Cultural Center - Zone 1A," dated March 1989. I've only been working with these maps for a few years, but it seems to me that for better or worse, the midtown label has been around for some time.

"Midtown" zoning was intended to preserve old theatres

By Ron Newman on Mon, 10/05/2015 - 10:43am.

It had some successes (Paramount, Opera House, Modern, Majestic) and some failures (Gaiety/Publix, PIlgrim).

The Cinerama is still there.

By =( on Mon, 10/05/2015 - 3:03pm.

The Cinerama is still there. If anyone would just pay attention to it or any part of the formerly the Siegel's Department Store building better known as the Essex-Washington Building now.

Our DUMBO is the SOBO yuppie

By anon on Sun, 10/04/2015 - 5:29pm.

Natch.

You called?

By SoBo-Yuppie on Sun, 10/04/2015 - 11:21pm.

sign is pretty cool to me!

- The Original SoBo Yuppie

Needs a little...

By BostonDog on Sun, 10/04/2015 - 7:20pm.

NOT ART

Where would an actual "midtown" be?

By anon on Sun, 10/04/2015 - 7:49pm.

The criteria for this area being "midtown" is that it's parameters are the financial district and the Common? Those seem like arbitrary parameters. Technically speaking, if there was to be a "midtown" wouldn't it be more around where Copley Square is?

Traditionally, the area now known as Downtown Crossing, even when it wasn't officially called that, has always been referred to as "downtown" or "downtown Boston" by people from the neighborhoods of Boston such as Charlestown, Dorchester, East Boston, South Boston, etc. But the new transplants and the developers from elsewhere have no such allegiance, so they are free to dream up commercial sounding names.

in New York, that's where

By anon on Sun, 10/04/2015 - 10:15pm.

It makes no sense except to dipshit real estate agents selling to dipshit new yorkers.

And under the sign

By adamg on Sun, 10/04/2015 - 8:50pm.

.@universalhub This security tag ripped off some stolen thing was right under the TRIBECA sign in DTX. #GentrifyThis pic.twitter.com/FZDOo0tw05

— Craig Caplan © (@CappyinBoston) October 4, 2015

This area of Boston has been

By Relt on Sun, 10/04/2015 - 9:42pm.

This area of Boston has been on the shit list for 50 years, was not safe to be at day or night, area was known for muggers, people getting mugged left and right.
Now, it's home to College 's , high end merchants, expensive hotels and high end residencies. I would like to know what is going to happen in that area in the next 5 years, will there be more newer hotels (like Boston does not have enough of them) how about a community college they should set up shop there, bunker hill or Roxbury community College, enough with the hotels....and fancy restaurants..

Not so - it was gritty and

By anon on Mon, 10/05/2015 - 4:54am.

Not so - it was gritty and dirty but we would go there for chinese and fabric (used to be full of all the fabric stores ) and also for the odd shop or buy drugs and get served liquor while under age. You just had to have your city wits about you. I am a female. There wasn't so much violence with guns as there is now and it was very busy lots of people around. Now it's just a more moneyed set of people though still some grit left - and i am talking old combat zone area of washington st NOT the Filenes side.

Is that why there's no good

By anon on Mon, 10/05/2015 - 7:49am.

Is that why there's no good fabric stores in the city anymore? I will say that's one thing NYC manages to do 1000000% better than Boston -- if you want to go fabric shopping here, you have to get a zip car and make a whole day of it including driving out to the suburbs.

New York developers are

By kevin on Thu, 10/08/2015 - 12:42pm.

New York developers are changing the Boston landscape one hotel one skyscraper at a time. Washington street Downtown crossing area is being redone by New York developers.Boston could of been doing this sort of development 30 or 40 years ago, but Corruption from the city of Boston to the state level mainly Irish politicians slowed Boston's growth!

Is there nothing that can stop our Manhattanization?

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