Doing some blog tweaking this weekend

I'm fiddling around with "themes" to update the look of this blog - it's been pretty much the same for 2.5 years now - and also with some plug-ins that might add functionality. Thanks for your patience this weekend if the site suddenly starts looking very different as you're browsing, or temporarily slows down.

If you notice something wrong here, please let me know.

Rutgers Design Competition Stresses Pedestrian Appeal, Community Integration

"Rutgers University on Tuesday unveiled five architectural concepts to remake the heart of its flagship campus on College Avenue in New Brunswick," the Record reports. 

"In inaugurating the design competition, the university said it was looking for ways to make the College Avenue campus more pedestrian friendly and to better connect it with the Raritan River. The campus is cut off from the river by Route 18."

These days, a pedestrian-friendly streetscape and town/gown integration are considered increasingly important in attracting students to college campuses, as I posted last month. And such integration pays dividends to the host community as well -- something that Framingham is sadly lacking despite the presence of a state college.

"Wellesley is [a] beautiful example where the college presence vitalizes downtown," reader Martin commented on this site. "Framingham State, on the other hand, is virtually invisible from the neighboring commercial area along route 9." His entire comment is worth reading (at the bottom of the post).

The entries in Rutgers design compeition, "created by five renowned architectural teams from around the globe, are, at this point, meant to spur discussion, not construction at the cash-strapped university," the article notes.

"Budgetary constraints or not, this university is not going to stop dreaming," President Richard McCormick told the Record.

You can see the concepts online here.

‘Boston’s love/hate for cars?’ Oh, please

Incredibly, author David Kruh compares the soul-less concrete wasteland of City Hall Plaza with the North End's pedestrian-packed Hanover Street. In today's Boston Globe, he writes: "As we look around the city at our experiments with auto-less streets (not just City Hall Plaza, but the mess that is Downtown Crossing) even the most anticar, pro-pedestrian advocate has to wonder if we are, once again, reacting with our gut instead of accepting how Boston actually lives, works, and plays."

Um, no.

Every streetscape,  as well as street, has its own characteristics that make it succeed or fail as a traffic route and pedestrian draw. Comparing poorly designed City Hall Plaza (where an existing neighborhood was razed and hideous "modern" architecture deposited where it didn't belong) with Hanover Street is like comparing Route 9 with Newbury Street and expecting the exact same outcome if cars were banned.

I doubt you could draw many pedestrians to the Golden Triangle even if cars were banned, unless building siting, architectures and facades were substantially changed. On Newbury Street, though, pedestrians would naturally fill in the added space. That's because Newbury Street is already a great walking environment.

Kruh, who has written two books about Scollay Square, is certainly correct that City Hall Plaza was an experiment gone awry. But that's not because it's a chunk of space where cars don't go; it's because of a terrible design. Nearby Boston Commons and the Public Garden work very well as spaces where cars can't drive through.

In fact, Hanover Street is already a major pedestrian draw. I doubt banning cars will make it less so; instead, it would give pedestrians more space to walk and sit outdoors. The idea here isn't to create another City Hall Plaza by wrecking the existing neighborhood!

Given the local climate, walkers probably don't need the extra space from, say, November through February or March, and it's certainly realistic to argue that during the worst New England weather, it might be more beneficial for suburbanites to be able to drive close to their destinations than it would be to keep the street empty for people who won't want to linger outdoors on foot. But once the weather gets nice, a pedestrian plaza on Hanover Street will improve an already great streetscape that's a proven pedestrian magnet.

Lost Opportunity

How can it be that a house once owned by refugees from the Salem Witch trials - people who helped found the town of Framingham - can appear as one of the state's "10 Most Endangered Historic Resources?" How was it allowed to fall into such disrepair that, as the MetroWest Daily News reports, the roof is about to cave in at places and "there are areas of the house where you don't want to walk?"

As Halloween approaches, Salem cheefully exploits its grizzly past of the witch trials. Yet relatively few people know that Framingham became a refuge for innocent people falsely accused of witchcraft - a small positive in an otherwise dark chapter of American history.

The Peter and Sarah Clayes House at 657 Salem End Road could be turned into a museum, and serve as a local place to educate visitors about that part of Massachusetts history. There could be some great events there around Halloween.

Some area residents want to help save the house, and have hired an attorney to help track down ownership of the currently abandoned property, the News notes. They deserve wider community support.

Arcade, cont.

The fate of the Arcade downtown revitalization project "will become a lot clearer in the next six months, or maybe even sooner," according to the MetroWest Daily News, following an extension of its special permit by the Framingham Planning Board until March 2007.

The board first approved the plan in spring 2004, but a variety of delays, including waiting for MassHousing to make a financing decision, have kept the proposal on the drawing board.

"Developers hope to be back before the Planning Board before the end of the year, asking for a demolition permit of 80 Kendall St., which would serve as the staging area for the $56-million building and renovation project," the News notes. "In the meantime, Arcade developers expect to soon ink a deal that will double the space occupied by CVS Pharmacy. That move will be made regardless of the progress on the mixed-use development that will include 290 apartments."

I'm sure many people will be happy at the news that CVS is not only staying in downtown Framingham, but expanding. It's a good sign of the company's faith in downtown revitalization plans. And, having ground-floor retail to serve the local community in the business district's prime commercial center is certainly a good thing - lots better than vacant storefronts or non-retail uses. However, I'm still wondering if the Arcade developers or town officials have a broader vision of what they want downtown Framingham to become and plan to work to make it happen, as opposed to being grateful for anyone who signs a lease.

A large chain drugstore is a useful neighborhood business, but NOT an anchor store for a regional business center. Local residents, commuters and workers will shop there, but it's not a draw that will bring people in from outside the immediate neighborhood (although once people are there, they'd certainly stop in). If people hope to turn downtown into a regional destination with appeal beyond the immediate precincts, there needs to be a lot more thought given to creating an attractive mix of retailers with an appealing sense of place -- one that more than makes up for the fact that a downtown can rarely compete with a strip mall for drive-up convenience. Because strip malls can rarely compete with downtowns for overall experience and ambiance, especially when there are unique local-owned stores and attractive pedestrian streetscapes.