“What architect isn’t interested in housing? I hate the whole blasted idea of it. I think it’s a worthy undertaking – to provide a decent apartment for a man who earns fifteen dollars a week. But not at the expense of other men. Not if it raises the taxes, raises all the other rents and makes the man who earns forty live in a rat hole. That’s what’s happening in New York. Nobody can afford a modern apartment – except the very rich and the paupers.
Have you seen the converted brownstones in which the average self-supporting couple has to live? Have you seen their closet kitchens and their plumbing? They’re forced to live that – because they’re not incompetent enough. They make forty dollars a week and wouldn’t be allowed into a housing project. But they’re the ones who provide the money for the damn project. They pay the taxes. And the taxes raise their own rent. And they have to move from a converted brownstone into an unconverted one and from that into a railroad flat.
I’d have no desire to penalize a man because he’s worth only fifteen dollars a week. But I’ll be damned if I can see why a man worth forty must be penalized – and penalized in favor of the one who’s less competent”.
Boston – “… There seems to be a public image of any given city, which is the overlap of many individual images. Or perhaps there is a series of public images, each held by some significant number of citizens…
… What does the city’s form actually mean to people who live there?!” (Kevin Lynch – The Image of City)
Construction is expected to begin May 1st on the Boston Innovation Center (BIC), which aims to attract startups to the Innovation District in the South Boston waterfront. Designed by local architects Hacin + Associates, the 12,000 square foot facility is part of the 12 acre Seaport Square development by John Hynes’ Boston Global Investors. [Read more…] about An Innovation Center for the Innovation District
