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I think really that’s mostly due to the fact that people don’t want to venture out a little further: I had an absolutely amazing brunch with fantastic cocktails at a place in Hyde Park. Live music and all. Fantastic live music by the way. There’s some other options but people don’t utilize them enough. That being said there should be more liquor licenses- no doubt. I just think a lot of people would still be standing in line at the same 10 places in southie no matter what you do. That’s how it is in many cities:
Definitely agree. But I would never say Boston doesn't have a good and sizeable brunch and day drinking scene. I have a lot of fun hopping around the city on a Saturday. I think Boston has done a good job of leveraging open/underutilized spaces in the core neighborhoods. And when Boston is busy, it's got a good buzz and energy you don't see in a lot of cities (though you do in SF).
But we all know - as we've discussed ad nauseum in the past - it's not a particularly fun or interesting nightlife town. And in order to become that, the nightlife needs to extend out in pockets across the cities neighborhoods. No reason JP or Roslindale couldn't group together 10-15 bars, clubs, and music venues to make themselves destinations within the city. A lot of it starts with liquor licenses (availability and cost), and then tolerance of having those pockets nearby by local residents.
I cant imagine anywhere being worse than here but you could be right.
The metro is not worse, but it's certainly similar.
San Francisco protects it's natural environs for good reason. Nobody is building on Muir Woods or San Bruno or down by Montara. But it does plague San Francisco with massive areas void of residential or commercial building, that would otherwise be very convenient and offer a plethora of new housing to the masses. Good news is, San Francisco area suburbs pack it in and keep modest density in all directions (other than north).
Boston, on the other hand, is harder to understand. Though the interior suburbs are as dense as most cities, once you extend past 95, nearly every town has very strict residential and commercial zoning laws that often have nothing to do with land preservation. In fact, some of these towns demand you have 1+ acre for a new SFH. Meanwhile, the towns and counties are constantly purchasing land for preservation that goes unused. It's just a way of limiting building and keeping the bucolic aesthetic of each individual area.
For what it's worth, it does create an aesthetic. I'm not sure people understand just how bucolic the boston metro can be, specifically NW/W/SW, with it's hills and forests and orchards and rock walls and large colonials on acreage. The most apt comparison would be the Main Line PA or northern Westchester county in NY.
But this is to the detriment of nearly everyone other than those with a lot of money, or that were born into those areas.
Hyde Park has 4 restaurants with liquor licenses within 3 blocks that are all new and within 2-4 blocks of 2 different commuter rail lines…Antonio Bacarros, Rincon Caribeno, Park 54, and Zaz.
They’re Italian, Dominican, Soul Food, and Asian/West Indian Fusion respectively. They throw events especially ZaZ- I’ve been…and they appeal to locals but visitors aren’t going down there. Similar situation exist all around Boston and environs.
The critical mass may not be there but I wonder what it would actually take for anyone to go down there. If not 4, then maybe 14? I guess so and that would probably fundamentally alter the neighborhoods in general. 14 and an electrified commuter rail.
I think it takes enough variety (of all things to do, not just cuisine) to easily pass an afternoon or evening to get people out there from further than the immediate neighborhoods. 4 restaurants with bars is better than none, but unless one of those places is standout great (like James Beard winning), it's not going to be much of a draw. A place like Davis Square draws from all over the place because you can go get pre-dinner drinks at a bunch of bars (from dives to wine bars and craft cocktail places), you have a ton of variety for dinner (fast casual to upscale sit-down), you can go late night bowling, see live music, a comedy show, a play, an indie film, or any combination of those things, get ice cream, and end the night with crappy fried food or greasy pizza slices and a pitcher of even crappier beer. You could easily keep yourself busy there from 5pm through last call and not be able to get to all (or even most) of the places. So if you're walking/taking the T for 45 minutes each way from Southie or Dorchester, it's worth it.
You and I both said it in another thread - the commuter rail in Boston is for commuters. At least in the minds of most locals. It works well in some instances, but most people just don't consider it to be an option (especially for inner-city trips) like they do the Red/Blue/Orange/Green Line. Switch it to rapid transit, and it's probably a different story. It would take me between 45 minutes and an hour to get to Hyde Park via transit (with several connections) which is about the same as to Davis. But when I get to Hyde Park, what can I do once I'm there to make it worth the time it takes to get there? Will 7 or 8 hours pass by fast and easily because there's enough to see/do? I don't think so. And that's the case with most Boston neighborhoods outside of the city center. Add more variety and connect them better, and it's a different story.
Where I am, it's a similar story. We're pretty accessible via transit (one stop on the Blue Line from downtown, Silver Line, buses, ferry, etc.). We have a good and growing number of restaurants/bars and awesome Columbian and Salvadorian food at reasonable prices. But there's not enough to do (aside from drinking all day which you can do closer to home) to really justify the hour trip from Hyde Park to East Boston. We need more variety.
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I’m in Houston now…. it took 45 minutes in the car just to get from IAH to my hotel driving. So it’s at least a little bit perplexing to me how anywhere in Boston can be considered “hard to get to” but folks seem to know very many areas of Los Angeles Houston or New York.
Yeah, Houston's awful on that front. LA's even worse. Boston's comparatively easy, but I think there's a huge mental block with times/distances for people who are from Eastern MA (the cities in particular). It's just a cultural thing, people have a hard time going outside of their bubbles. It definitely adds to the fact that people never get to neighborhoods that aren't really that far. It takes more to draw people out here.
I'm not sure people understand just how bucolic the boston metro can be, specifically NW/W/SW, with it's hills and forests and orchards and rock walls and large colonials on acreage.
Imo, the NE is the most bucolic around Topsfield, Hamilton, Essex, Newbury. Really nothing up there except cute town commons with old white-painted, wood churches.
But this is to the detriment of nearly everyone other than those with a lot of money, or that were born into those areas.
All the more reason for the state to be smarter about how it treats gateway cities which could (and should) serve as easy preexisting "transit oriented development" for Boston. Instead, they're connected to Boston with a commuter rail network that's not super convenient outside of working hours, they're used as dumping grounds for the "undesirables" who are pushed out of Boston to make room for higher end development, and their school systems are allowed to remain among the worst in the state. Some (Worcester, Lowell, Haverhill) are succeeding to various degrees in spite of everything stacked against them, but I'm still floored by how much these places are ignored.
The state has implemented some changes requiring denser residential development around T stations in "MBTA communities," but that's going to take a while to have an impact (and you can bet many places will fight tooth and nail to prevent any of these developments).
Location: RI, MA, VT, WI, IL, CA, IN (that one sucked), KY
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Originally Posted by lrfox
You and I both said it in another thread - the commuter rail in Boston is for commuters. At least in the minds of most locals. .
Never really affected me until I moved to PVD, but its a real bummer. I would love to be able to take it to see a show at Roadrunner, Berkeley, or Boch and come back after. But there isn't time to come back after. It limits the trips to once a week or so.
As I've probably said in this thread previously, I've lived in both places, and other than a high end tech scene and high prices that go along with it, the vibes of the cities are totally different to me. Not worth comparing overly much.
All the more reason for the state to be smarter about how it treats gateway cities which could (and should) serve as easy preexisting "transit oriented development" for Boston. Instead, they're connected to Boston with a commuter rail network that's not super convenient outside of working hours, they're used as dumping grounds for the "undesirables" who are pushed out of Boston to make room for higher end development, and their school systems are allowed to remain among the worst in the state. Some (Worcester, Lowell, Haverhill) are succeeding to various degrees in spite of everything stacked against them, but I'm still floored by how much these places are ignored.
The state has implemented some changes requiring denser residential development around T stations in "MBTA communities," but that's going to take a while to have an impact (and you can bet many places will fight tooth and nail to prevent any of these developments).
The actual issue they’ve found is the commuter rail is really unaffordable to the vast majority of people who live in those gateway cities. They just can’t afford to use it.
As for Lowell and Worcester SJC hills succeeding… sure- if they’re students in missouri but they’re not. And they’re absolutely not well educated enough to compete in Massachusetts and out themselves in position to afford to live in a house that’s halfway decent. And then you have communities that do much worse than them even.
They’re ignored for the same reasons the places I mentioned in Hyde Park are ignored: they’re not places people who move to Massachusetts from other state imagine themselves living and they’re not places that are particularly influential to the state legislatures which are hyper suburban and pretty conservative when it come to issues of vibrancy/change. Priority ties in Mass are things like lab space and private colleges. The gateway cities don’t really “fit” into that:
I think it takes enough variety (of all things to do, not just cuisine) to easily pass an afternoon or evening to get people out there from further than the immediate neighborhoods. 4 restaurants with bars is better than none, but unless one of those places is standout great (like James Beard winning), it's not going to be much of a draw. A place like Davis Square draws from all over the place because you can go get pre-dinner drinks at a bunch of bars (from dives to wine bars and craft cocktail places), you have a ton of variety for dinner (fast casual to upscale sit-down), you can go late night bowling, see live music, a comedy show, a play, an indie film, or any combination of those things, get ice cream, and end the night with crappy fried food or greasy pizza slices and a pitcher of even crappier beer. You could easily keep yourself busy there from 5pm through last call and not be able to get to all (or even most) of the places. So if you're walking/taking the T for 45 minutes each way from Southie or Dorchester, it's worth it.
You and I both said it in another thread - the commuter rail in Boston is for commuters. At least in the minds of most locals. It works well in some instances, but most people just don't consider it to be an option (especially for inner-city trips) like they do the Red/Blue/Orange/Green Line. Switch it to rapid transit, and it's probably a different story. It would take me between 45 minutes and an hour to get to Hyde Park via transit (with several connections) which is about the same as to Davis. But when I get to Hyde Park, what can I do once I'm there to make it worth the time it takes to get there? Will 7 or 8 hours pass by fast and easily because there's enough to see/do? I don't think so. And that's the case with most Boston neighborhoods outside of the city center. Add more variety and connect them better, and it's a different story.
Where I am, it's a similar story. We're pretty accessible via transit (one stop on the Blue Line from downtown, Silver Line, buses, ferry, etc.). We have a good and growing number of restaurants/bars and awesome Columbian and Salvadorian food at reasonable prices. But there's not enough to do (aside from drinking all day which you can do closer to home) to really justify the hour trip from Hyde Park to East Boston. We need more variety.
Yeah, Houston's awful on that front. LA's even worse. Boston's comparatively easy, but I think there's a huge mental block with times/distances for people who are from Eastern MA (the cities in particular). It's just a cultural thing, people have a hard time going outside of their bubbles. It definitely adds to the fact that people never get to neighborhoods that aren't really that far. It takes more to draw people out here.
A couple things. Ron’s bowling and ice cream is about a 50 second walk from Zaz so you could do that- absolutely, there’s also Meigs Field a major historical site in Hyde Park not to far from there. And more greasy pizza slices than I care to count. What it’s lacking really are college students and childless people with disposable incomes. It’s just a more family oriented vibe and it definitely closes earlier because of that so the late night part is dead.
I definitely agree later hours is huge and liquor licenses is huge but Boston as a city has been trying it’s the old time townies who fear crime that don’t want late night and the suburban state legislature that won’t remove or even think about removing a cap on liquor licenses- again fear of crime. Hence the safest big MSA in the USA. Boston does a lot to prevent the possibility of crime to the very obvious detriment of vibrancy.
Recently mayor wu has embarked on hiring a late night czar for Boston and has this to say (about downtown Boston) at least…this is what’s he said to the greater baoton chamber of commerce
She said that in the “coming weeks” the administration will drop a report she prepared with the Boston Consulting Group on the “future of downtown.”
“In this future, our downtown is an inclusive, 24-hour neighborhood full of new homes, diverse shops, world-class public spaces, vibrant nightlife, and a thriving arts and culture scene,” Wu said.
She said some of the resulting elements would focus on housing – “bringing thousands of residents to the heart of our city,” including rezoning to allow for denser development and the redevelopment of city properties – as well as opening up sub- Building City Hall Square as a civic area and investing “millions” in cultural programs and supporting businesses moving downtown.
Wu also said the government will hire a “director of strategic initiatives” for economic development “to recapture the night and make Boston a culturally vibrant city any time of the day.”
And she said the city will launch as a “commercial acquisition program” through the Boston Planning & Development Agency to acquire more real estate “to help artists, small business owners and entrepreneurs take ownership of their spaces.”
But really the way tourist interact with Boston is different. It’s not just residents. Tourist will drive all around LA and Houston but most won’t drive 15-20 minutes south of the common. They won’t go to Chelsea they won’t go to Revere Beach they won’t go to Malcolm Xs house in Roxbury. It’s not just the Eastern MA Bubble but it’s the type of person that visits Boston- and what that demographics interest are. Things are there, but I think the Boston tourist or visitor is not albeit in getting scantily clad and sunburnt on the beach or visiting Malcolm xs house or eating pupusas. It’s a person that want to walk the freedom trail, see high art at the MFA and watch baseball at Fenway. It’s not really all Bostons fault.
Last edited by BostonBornMassMade; 10-05-2022 at 12:45 PM..
Imo, the NE is the most bucolic around Topsfield, Hamilton, Essex, Newbury. Really nothing up there except cute town commons with old white-painted, wood churches.
I mean, i'm not prepared to say those areas are more or less bucolic than places like Concord, Carlisle, Stowe, Dover, Sherborn, Harvard, Lincoln, Groton, Dunstable, etc. I do agree that there are bucolic areas due north, with the pocket you mention extending over to Boxford. It's very picturesque up there, no doubt.
North Shore maintains the highest level of density the furthest from the city, which is why I said NW/W/SW. You have high or modest density all the way up through Beverly (30 miles), which is most certainly not the case most any other direction in Boston.
I've never been to Boston, but as a lifelong Californian, feel obligated to say San Fran (at one time, I thought of it as being Heaven on earth, basically, for the climate if nothing else). It's basically a rich person's paradise, if you can afford it
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