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I think one thing to point out in Boston’s favor with this comparison, is that Boston has the north end, along with a couple of other areas, that have the densely packed rows of 5-story tenement buildings, that you really don’t find outside of New York. The one thing that somewhat kills the comparison for me however is the triple-deckers, I think it has the same effect as the three-flats in Chicago. Still very dense, but that lack of rowhouse housing so common in NYC makes some of the actual architectural comparison somewhat difficult.
Yeah North End is similar but tiny tiny, it's so tiny that your brain can't associate it with NYC just on sheer size difference. It's more like having a NYC-themed subdivision.
The triple deckers are way more representative of urban residential Boston/Cambridge/Somerville than the North End. And those look nothing like anything in NYC.
Yeah North End is similar but tiny tiny, it's so tiny that your brain can't associate it with NYC just on sheer size difference. It's more like having a NYC-themed subdivision.
The triple deckers are way more representative of urban residential Boston/Cambridge/Somerville than the North End. And those look nothing like anything in NYC.
Exactly. Honestly a vast majority of Philadelphia. You close your eyes in the predominate Rowhome neighborhoods and you would not know if you were in NYC or Philadelphia.
I think one thing to point out in Boston’s favor with this comparison, is that Boston has the north end, along with a couple of other areas, that have the densely packed rows of 5-story tenement buildings, that you really don’t find outside of New York. The one thing that somewhat kills the comparison for me however is the triple-deckers, I think it has the same effect as the three-flats in Chicago. Still very dense, but that lack of rowhouse housing so common in NYC makes some of the actual architectural comparison somewhat difficult.
Boston has many places in South End that feel like Fort Greene or Park slope.
Boston’s Chinatown is the next most authentic in the east coast long with NYC.
Quite a few rowhomes sin Roxbury Dorchester And the South End. Dare I say a lot? of them especially in side street in North Dorchester and Lower Roxbury. Wooden ones in Southfield.
Yeah North End is similar but tiny tiny, it's so tiny that your brain can't associate it with NYC just on sheer size difference. It's more like having a NYC-themed subdivision.
The triple deckers are way more representative of urban residential Boston/Cambridge/Somerville than the North End. And those look nothing like anything in NYC.
You’re totally disregarding all the rowhomes and brownstone type building and as well as all the pre him 4 story tenements. These are very numerous. It may not define Boston but you find more of those than 99/100 places. Some times many blocks in a row especially along Blue Hilm Avenue and Columbia Road as well as Allston.
Furthermore Boston has a few traditional old school high rise housing projects (fewer of them now) does that exist in Philly Chicago or SF?
Though for this thread it still is Chicago for its core/north shore. It never sought to be NYC in look.
None of these cities have the Tenement-style of solid blocks of 5 to 7-story buildings in levels remotely close to NYC. Philly yes is titled our Row-Home city and they are 2-3 stories. Chicago eventually basically banned that style like NYC gained and had them exposed more as fire-traps and immigrants pilled into the buildings coming to light on NYC media expose's.
A women named Jane Addam's in the Chicago Tribune helped seal the deal of no avoiding tenement-styles in Chicago written in 1901 of the Chicago Tribune. A 1902 ordinance then was born to prevent a mass building or any but for Alderman allowing exceptions for $$$ sometimes.
She wrote to PREVENT a replication and becoming a reflection of NYC with its - airless, cheerless, hedged-in areas and DEMANDS Air and other degrees of comfort for tenants and prevent the INVASION of Chicago this for its poor and laboring classes.
- Chicago's tenements were not like those made famous by Jacob Riis in New York City -- 6 or 7-story walk-up apartments, occupying almost all of their lots and built next to other structures of the same nature.
- Chicago's sprawling growth and decentralized employment magnets such as the stockyards and the steel mills meant that low-income housing districts were scattered.
- Fear of epidemics and the specter of “New York conditions” fed Chicago's movement for tenement reform. - After 1880, the city's health department had authority to inspect and to approve construction plans for tenements and workshops.
- Population growth and the proliferation of tenements overwhelmed official monitoring.
Replacing old tenements with innovative low-income housing became a new goal.
- In the late 1920s, Sears magnate Julius Rosenwald and the Marshall Field family sponsored two large privately subsidized apartment projects, replacing demolished tenements on the North and South Sides.
- Chicago housing reformers praised these efforts but pointed out the limitations of private action in dealing with the huge number of tenements.
The Chicago Court-Yard Apartment building was born. THE 1902 TENEMENT HOUSING CODE WAS BORN to prevent NYC Style Tenements. Window to exteriors were required for rooms and a venting interior upward widow was not.
At the beginning of the 20th century Chicago had a lot of flat empty land, unlike New York, and wasn't menaced by earthquakes unlike San Francisco.
- We also had an opportunity to rebuild with a plan following the Great Fire.
- New streets were laid out in a grid pattern with identical lot sizes.
- Nearly every block had an alley.
- We also were dealing with a population explosion. There was a strong need for a lot of new housing, and quickly.
- But the city was worried that all of this new housing would be of subpar quality and wanted to avoid problems with slum tenements that had faced cities out east.
In order to prevent the creation of overcrowded slum housing, in 1902 the city issued a Tenement ordinance that.
- prevented new buildings from taking up more than 65% of a lot.
- This combined with the obsession with fresh air led to the evolution of what we now know as the Chicago courtyard building.
- City already had the six-flat, a three story structure with six apartments branching off of a single common entry stairwell.
- To make a courtyard, an architect snapped together five of these six-flat buildings and bent them into the shape of a U and L.
Boston has many places in South End that feel like Fort Greene or Park slope.
Boston’s Chinatown is the next most authentic in the east coast long with NYC.
Quite a few rowhomes sin Roxbury Dorchester And the South End. Dare I say a lot? of them especially in side street in North Dorchester and Lower Roxbury. Wooden ones in Southfield.
Parts of Allston can feel like Queens.
Boston has a solid Chinatown. I think Tufts really takes away from it though. It completely disrupts the core of Chinatown in Boston. Boston's chinatown is actually gentrifying quite quickly with new luxury apartments rising in its core.
The same thing happened in DC, and sadly DC's chinatown is pretty much nonexistent.
Philadelphia has a very strong and large chinatown as well. I would say it is actually much larger tbh and a bit more authentic than Boston's.
Boston is at number 7 for the USA. And number 3 for the East Coast.
Philadelphia is at number 5 for the USA. And number 2 for the East Coast. After NYC.
So your above assessment is a little off.
Philadelphia also has a Koreatown in its Only neighborhood. And a large Brazilian population in the Oxford Circle neighborhood, and a very large Russian population.
Several Russian grocery store chains from NYC are actually located in Philadelphia, called Netcost Market.
I think this one is hard. It would be a combined answer of Chicago and Philadelphia.
Chicago it feels like it in the regards to scale. No, Chicago does not feel anywhere remotely the same size as NYC, however, specifically when in downtown, you really feel like you are in the massive city that a place like Philadelphia doesn't give you. But that is as far as I would say Chicago goes with it. Once you get to the street level, local culture of the city, it really does not feel like NYC at all. That is where Philadelphia comes into play because at street level and local culture it's the closesest thing to NYC.
Take Chicago's scale and downtown combine that with how Philly feels at the local level and you have a true mini NYC.
But once you leave the loop it just kind of falls off, and Chicago definitely carries that Midwestern charm/architecture.
Philadelphia and Boston share that East Coast architecture, with its tight knit neighborhoods.
I would say Philadelphia and Brooklyn basically look the same.
Yup. I agree with this. I think in the Loop, where you get that canyon feel with the buildings and a few other parts of the downtown area around Michigan Ave (Gold Coast) where there are lots of cabs, big department shopping stores, hustle and bustle, etc. is where it feels the most like Manhattan, but after you get outside of the core, the similarities drop off. The North Side and parts of the Near West Side, you still have a lot of greystones/brownstones, row homes, and high rises that have somewhat of an east coast resemblance. But not to the extent of Philly or Boston. The South Side of Chicago and parts of the West Side are classical Midwestern, with homes with full lawns, etc.
I would say overall, Philly and Boston are probably the cities that look and feel most similar to New York.
Boston has a solid Chinatown. I think Tufts really takes away from it though. It completely disrupts the core of Chinatown in Boston. Boston's chinatown is actually gentrifying quite quickly with new luxury apartments rising in its core.
The same thing happened in DC, and sadly DC's chinatown is pretty much nonexistent.
Philadelphia has a very strong and large chinatown as well. I would say it is actually much larger tbh and a bit more authentic than Boston's.
Boston is at number 7 for the USA. And number 3 for the East Coast.
Philadelphia is at number 5 for the USA. And number 2 for the East Coast. After NYC.
So your above assessment is a little off.
Philadelphia also has a Koreatown in its Only neighborhood. And a large Brazilian population in Oxford Circle neighborhood.
Tufts on the absolute western edge of Chinatown. Not at all the core, see for yourself: Chinatown
Boston, MA https://goo.gl/maps/hgxtMcxzHPUc6mGm9 .
It borders the Theatre District. Physically Boston’s Chinatown is very authentic. I wouldn’t say the area doesn’t feel authentic, whatever that means
Boston’s Little Saigon is in Fields Corner. I’ve never been to Phillys Chinatown but fwiw Boston is a lot more Chinese than Philly in general.
DCs Chinatown doesn’t even count-honestly it’s not even kind of Chinese aside from son Chinese characters on a bank or two. Boston’s Chinatown is absolutely nowhere near that as most of the residents are still Chinese poor and ELL. And mom and pop stores predominate. Much of Chinatown in Boston is undesirable to me and I wouldn’t live in many of those apartments-they look unsafe/under-inspected
Thai being said I think Philly is more similar physically to NYC . It’s San Fran I laugh at.
Tufts is in the southwest edge of Chinatown. Physically Boston’s Chinatown is very authentic. I wouldn’t say the area doesn’t feel authentic, whatever that means
Boston’s Little Saigon is in Fields Corner. I’ve never been to Phillys Chinatown but fwiw Boston is a lot more Chinese than Philly in general.
DCs Chinatown doesn’t even count-honestly it’s not even kind of Chinese aside from son Chinese characters on a bank or two. Boston’s Chinatown is absolutely nowhere near that as most of the residents are still Chinese poor and ELL. And mom and pop stores predominate. Much of Chinatown in Boston is undesirable to me and I wouldn’t live in many of those apartments-they look unsafe/under-inspected
You killed it for me, because you said you've never been to Philadelphia's chinatown.
Boston has a solid chinatown. Not saying it doesn't. But Philadelphia's is more authentic. You do not have those gentrifying forces within it.
Boston is building luxury apartments on top of its Chinatown. That is not happening in Philadelphia.
Check out the street views of Philadelphia's chinatown below. Pre Covid it honestly was my favorite part of Philadelphia to eat and visit, because it is so authentic.
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Though for this thread it still is Chicago for its core/north shore. It never sought to be NYC in look.
