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Glass replacement starts on still unopened Government Center station
By adamg on Tue, 09/08/2015 - 10:48am
MikeKix has a good view of today's work to replace defective glass panels at the new Government Center station.
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Comments
Calm down folks
Its covered under warranty.
Its still on schedule.
Its still better than the bunker that it replaces.
It's still a stupid design.
The T does not need to be a showcase for vain architects. A confident city builds things where form and function are one. This is the product of an insecure jackass city trying to be world class.
A giraffe may be more charming than a snapping turtle, but it stinks of vanity
Only here is forever temporary....
Story reported here months back brought to (NO) light this issue
Go see plaque in ground in front of Parkman House.....tells how the view of North Church protected forever......oops, until 2015....fro. Unobstructed views!
Yikes
Form and Function?
I believe that was the previous incarnation. AKA the bunker.
The purpose of the glass is to allow natural light into the platforms below. You may see that as a vanity project, but I see that as a worthwhile endeavor.
Govt was a pit. Hopefully it no longer will be.
Except that
the headhouse doesn't need to be nearly as tall as it is to perfom that function - of providing natural light onto the platforms below.
Seems to me this should be one of those things that should be re-evaluated. Now if only the T had, say, an oversight board to deal with such matters.
Well i'm sorry it doesn't meet your standards
I'll send them an email asking your expertise be included on the next project.
Public money without public input?
We're stuck paying for it and using it, it would be nice if the public had a chance at input.
I believe some folks 'round here once made a big stink about taxation without representation. Not really a new thing.
except that it's not
even a worthwhile goal. I work in a building with a glass roofed atrium, and when it's nice and sunny out, it's too bright and too hot with the sun shining in from the roof all afternoon. I kitty the door sod that stands behind the cothere all day with the sun beating down on him, because some Architect Wigan capital A thought natural light from overhead was a good idea and natural light diffused in through windows was too 20th century.
Actually that building was built in the early 90s, but the point is that it looks pretty, but introduces a whole set of headaches it needs have. In the case of the glass house, it also shuts down a busy subway station for two years, and one wonders if the downtime or the cost might have been lower if the headhouse weren't quite so New Money.
You *what*???
"I kitty the door sod that stands behind the cothere all day with the sun beating down on him..."
??
Autocorrect is a plague
But I assume he meant to write "I pity the poor sod who stands behind the counter all day..."
I'm tired of people hating on the bunker style
The old bunker style was designed that way for a reason. They functionally got people in and out and there was protection from the elements. Thought it would be pleasant, T stops do not need to look gorgeous, do not need to be art museums, and do not need to be towering works of overbuilt architecture. I use the Wood Island T stop and since its renovation in the 90s, there is no shelter from the elements whatsoever. Windswept rains pour through and people have to huddle in the one postage size patch where the rain does not reach. In the summer it offers no shade from glaring sunlight, and "natural light" quickly becomes your enemy. It has me longing for the pre-renovation bunker style Wood Island station, dingy though it was.
This is what you get
when people insist on focusing on aesthetics instead of practical function.
do share your perfect vision
Don't be shy - the site supports .jpg
Remember that you have to meet ADA requirements, weatherproofing, etc. AND meet budgetary constraints and time constraints.
Imagine
Imagine if we were doing this. Oh, the horror! ;-)
http://newyork.construction.com/new_york_construction_news/2011/0509_tra...
(If only I were skilled enough to actually make the .jpg show up. Alas...)
bad example
The new PATH station is also very much a vanity project that did not add any new transit service (unlike, say, the very-needed new tunnels under the Hudson).
http://www.wsj.com/articles/world-trade-center-stations-troubles-take-to...
Coincidentally I wrote about this 13 years ago.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/19/opinion/l-downtown-transit-hub-438669....
And yet...
It still is a noted architectural eyesore, blocks historic views of the Sears Crescent and Old North Church leaving only views of the horrible plaza and city hall, takes up a ton of space that serves no purpose (while being almost twice as wide and 125% as tall as renders of the final design), still is a maintenance nightmare, and still isn't done.
Its design and everything it accomplishes is an inferior version of the Dilworth Park headhouse, whose curving design would also be more appropriate at a corner that is the intersection of two notable massive curving buildings:
Yeah but
You left out the other head-house for the same station.
It can be found here.
http://centercityphila.org/dilworth/newsletter/june2014/images/dilworth_...
Still nicer than what we've got.
Their glass part is nicer than the glass stuff we're getting, and the comparatively traditional headhouse you mentioned is definitely better than our new entranceway to the left ("homage to a 1957 Soviet cafeteria") or the unit along the street that will serve as emergency exit for the Blue Line, and otherwise just be an eyesore that takes up space.
I mean, I would kill for City Hall Plaza to look like this:
And I would be happy to compare the Rosa Blanca Café's offerings to whatever nice dining options are going to replace that Dunkin's in our new state-of-the-art station, when it opens promptly on time after two years:
Oh boo-hoo
I'm sorry that you don't get the station or the plaza you think you deserve. Or a City Hall that looks remarkably similar to our old, under capacity City Hall. Or a café that most likely gets put out to bid to the highest bidder, which if wasn't chosen would be hammered in the press for underhanded deals to the mayor's supporters.
I'm sorry that I wish bad stuff was not bad.
Kunstler can't stand it... nice.
Why does every basic functional thing have to be impaired by grandiosity and vanity?
It's mainly nepotistic grifting. Someone at T procurement likes this crappy Rem Koolhaas clone.
I have a feeling Papanek would have despised it too for being a sexy toaster.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Papanek
I wonder what kind of vendors
I wonder what kind of vendors will be at the new Government center once it reopens, there is probably enough room to put a mini mall .
It'll still be finished...
...centuries before the Godfrey Hotel on Washington Street downtown ever even *starts* to look like a new building. What a horrid ugly eyesore that's been in construction for far far too long. (There used to be signs up on the fence that said "Opening Spring 2015." They finally had the good sense to take those down.)
Cool picture
I thought it was a scale model.
Architect Vanity, it's a feature, not a bug.
If you pause and think of the full array of creative media from the performing side to the artifact side, it is a challenge to find a field more pickled in vanity than architects.
They shill grandiose structures that are usually barely within the grasp of the trades people expected to build them. The stakes are huge and your idea remains to plague people for centuries.
Film producers are as close as you can get for grandiose vanity, probably for similar reasons.
"Why do all architects go to hell?"
"Because Jesus was a carpenter."
wow what a great view!
During concerts or celebrations on city hall plaza there will be hundreds of teens perched on the roof.
If you have ever been to a concert at City Hall
You will find the station surrounded by police and barriers.
I haven't seen the thing up
I haven't seen the thing up close, but won't it be 100 degrees inside now and then?