backstory to the horror show at Beech St. & Mass Ave?

[an-art-worker.livejournal.com]

Does anyone know the backstory (or have a link to another source) for the funeral home/ice box condo conversion at Beech & Mass Ave? I sit at that traffic light at least a few times a week and wonder about the law suits and zoning citations it must have stirred up.

Comments

[ron_newman]

there's an ongoing lawsuit between the Porter Square neighbors and the city and developer, claiming that the city issued a permit improperly. I don't know the whole saga, but it's a popular topic on the Porter Square Neighborhood Association mailing list.

[ron_newman]

(by the way, there's also a porter_square LJ community, though it's not one-tenth as busy as ours)

[hrafn.livejournal.com]

I was browsing a local architecture firm's website, admiring their projects (they did some cool stuff with Big Dig discards), and then I discovered that they had designed this . . . thing. (http://www.singlespeeddesign.com/works/residential/mixed-use/) I still haven't recovered.

[clevernonsense.livejournal.com]

I kinda like it by itself, but I am upset because I really liked the original building.

Plus, "Long Funeral Services" is the best name ever :)

Anyhow, I hope more funky mixed-used buildings like this pop up along mass ave. All these brick condo complexes depress me a hell of a lot more.

[an-art-worker.livejournal.com]

I guess when I am sitting at the traffic light looking at it what I see is a "working the loopholes" type of development. They retained a rather ugly (and broken) brick boundary wall along with some utterly insignificant architectural elements of the original building and then just rolled this big ice box in on top of it. The end result seems an ugly and cynical piece of architecture. I don't mind the 'ice box' (and wonder about the double height room on the top floor) but it would have been better to be honest and just level the site and build the ice box (but of course they would not have received zoning approval).

Between this development and the horrendous "zebra" "park" up the street Porter is taking some seriously ugly hits.

"Zebra park"

[sissychrissy1.livejournal.com]

Porter Square is where crosswalks come to die.

[hrafn.livejournal.com]

The thing that bugs me about that building is that it's just -this close- to actually being attractive. It's so close. But it misses, and winds up completely hideous. And considering that the other buildings the firm did look pretty good (at least in the photos on their site), I'm really baffled how this one turned out so wrong. (And that's setting aside for the moment the mind-numbing incorporation of bits of the previous building, and the neighborhood disgruntlement and etc.)

[ron_newman]

This week's New Yorker has an admiring profile of that firm (Single Speed Design), by architecture critic Paul Goldberger:

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/skyline/2007/03/19/070319crsk_skyline_goldberger

[dominika-kretek.livejournal.com]

Because triple-deckers are so much better? I mean, I can understand that that particular building isn't everyone's cup of tea, but Somerville and North Cambridge are full of triple-deckers that are ugly inside and out, some of them covered with vinyl siding or even (shudder) wrought iron. If anything needs to be zoned out of existence, it's those.

[heliopsis.livejournal.com]

Boy do I agree with you. I'd love to see some of these wretched, broken-down old buildings replaced with beautiful, modern design. I'm fed up with gables everywhere. While I mourn the loss of Long Funeral Service (I always thought it would be good business to open a competing funeral parlor across the street, called Brief, but Heartfelt Funeral Service), I welcome an experiment.

[turil.livejournal.com]

The family who owned that funeral home was the family who was trying to get the death penalty reinstated in Massachusetts, I believe. Kind of interesting...

[tt02144.livejournal.com]

Perhaps if you find the architecture in Somerville and Cambridge so distasteful, it's time to move on.