In the early nineteenth century, Boston increased in size by filling in the marshy area around where Washington Street is today. The city, concerned about crowding in the already established neighborhoods downtown and on Beacon Hill, decided to develop this area into new residential neighborhoods. The population of Boston had increased dramatically in the first half of the nineteenth century from the large number of immigrants and the steady rise of industry in a port city. Between 1850 and 1875, the area south and east of Washington Street (the ocean side) became the South End, which was intended to attract the growing middle class and to persuade them not to move to the suburbs. The pattern and plan of the South End are the main contributors to its architectural unity and also what sets it apart as its own distinct neighborhood. The choices in materiality and organization of space give the South End a visual coherence unlike any other neighborhood in Boston. It is one of the largest remaining Victorian residential neighborhoods in the United States.
To appreciate a row house neighborhood, one must first look at the plan as a whole before looking at the individual blocks and houses. The city’s goal to build a neighborhood that can be seen as a singular unit is made clear in plan, at both a larger scale (the entire urban plan) and a smaller scale (the scheme of the individual houses). Around 1850, the city began to carve out blocks and streets, with the idea of orienting them around squares and small residential parks. This Victorian style plan organized rectangular blocks around rounded gardens and squares that separated the row houses from major streets. The emphasis on public spaces and gardens to provide relief from the ene...
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...Jennings. American Vernacular Design 1870-1940. Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1985.
Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce. "The South End Today." Boston Magazine, October 1965.
Johnson, Amy E. "Crooked and Narrow Streets: Photography and Urban Visual Identities in Early
Twentieth-Century Boston." Winterthur Portfolio. No. 1 (2013): 35-64.
Kilham, Walter H., FAIA. Boston After Bulfinch: An Account of its Architecture 1800-1900. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1946.
Stanwood, Edward. Boston Illustrated. Boston: J.R. Osgood, 1873.
Smith, Margaret Supplee and John C. Moorhouse. “Architecture and the Housing Market: Nineteenth Century Row Housing in Boston’s South End.” Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians No. 2 (1993): 159-178.
Whittlesey, Robert B. The South End Row House and its Rehabilitation for Low-Income Residents. Boston: SECD, 1969.
When people think of Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, they think of crime and violence within the neighborhood. I myself have thought this about Bedford Stuyvesant before I did research and actually visited the neighborhood for myself. Bedford Stuyvesant in my opinion, has two different sides. The side the media portrays to us, the people, and the side people who actually visit/live in the neighborhood see for themselves. My visual representation above shows the two different sides of Bedford Stuyvesant. The first image shows the typical view of what people think of when they think of Bedford Stuyvesant, the projects. When people think of this neighborhood, they think of project buildings housing low income black families. The media portrays Bedford Stuyvesant as a
The Gentilly neighborhood began in the 1900s (Gentilly 1). The developers of the neighborhood were Michael Baccich, Edward E. Lafaye, and R.E. Edgar deMontluzin. They started planning out the neighborhood in 1909. Building drainage pumps was their first step of creating a neighborhood. Most of the homes are made up of craftsman bungalows, tudor cottages, and Mediterranean style homes (The Gentilly Neighborhood 1). Gentilly was built by piling up earth in shallow sections (Gentilly 1). The neighborhood itself sits on some of the highest land feet above sea level.
..., residents. The new residents obtain “affordable”, stylish housing and all of the pricey accommodations of life in a trendy urban neighborhood (coffee shops, bookstores, boutiques, club, etc.). Although long-time residents may benefit initially from safer, cleaner streets and better schools, they are eventually priced out of buying or renting. In addition, as the new residents impose their culture on the neighborhood, lower-income residents become socially and economically marginalized. Even if the economic discrepancies aren't as severe as they may appear, a persistent complaint about gentrification is that it damages the "soul" of a neighborhood. The tough character, eclectic spirit, and ethnic diversity that attracted the initial urban pioneers is overhauled by overpriced brunch menus, iPad-tapping hipsters, chain stores, and stroller parking at the corner bar.
Furthermore, he attempts to dispel the negative aspects of gentrification by pointing out how some of them are nonexistent. To accomplish this, Turman exemplifies how gentrification could positively impact neighborhoods like Third Ward (a ‘dangerous’ neighborhood in Houston, Texas). Throughout the article, Turman provides copious examples of how gentrification can positively change urban communities, expressing that “gentrification can produce desirable effects upon a community such as a reduced crime rate, investment in the infrastructure of an area and increased economic activity in neighborhoods which gentrify”. Furthermore, he opportunistically uses the Third Ward as an example, which he describes as “the 15th most dangerous neighborhood in the country” and “synonymous with crime”, as an example of an area that could “need the change that gentrification provides”.
“A third of new apartments were subsidized public housing”, the city’s plans for urban renewal were at the cost of Paris’s historic buildings and community life. As Charles Rearick writes in his novel Paris Dreams, Paris Memories, “urban planners looked at shabby areas and saw only poverty, wretched housing, public health dangers, criminality, and wasted space” In urban planners minds they saw the creation of these apartments as progress made, providing a “better quality of life” (Rearick 112). However, to the people whose homes were destroyed and social lives ended were forced to reassess their place in Paris. As urban planners started destroying these neighborhoods and building up modern apartments, the process of alienation began. Richard Cobb uses the neighborhood, Marais as an example. Following the displacement of its original occupants to the suburbs, the diversity in the neighborhood and workforce ended, he dramatically says it’s when the neighborhood signed its “death warrant” (Cobb 221). Even though Cobb may be dramatic the results are correct, immigrants and their presence of culture and influence in Paris vanish once they are swept outside the city. The further they are pushed out of their homes, jobs, and schools the more they begin to feel
Hastings County, Social Housing, “Boxed In” April 2005 (pg. 6, 7, 15, 16, 23, 24, 108) Local Sources (pg. 110-114) Retrieved from: http://www.hastingscounty.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=115&Itemid=88
Using Jason Reblando’s contemporary photographs of the communities, the lecture discussed a fascinating chapter of architectural and planning history during a time when the government enacted bold and ambitious plans to protect who Franklin D. Roosevelt called the “Forgotten Man.” New Deal Utopias explores how we continue to grapple with the complex roles of housing, nature, and government in contemporary
I took a 360-degree turn trying to see the entirety of Boston from my position standing in front of a massive statute of our nation’s first president. The skyline of Boston’s financial district sat behind the George Washington statue in the Boston Public Garden. This park is the oldest botanical garden in the America, and it looked historic, but not shabby. The skyscrapers didn’t reflect the light like they did yesterday because the sun hid behind the numerous, gloomy clouds. The buildings seemed taller and newer than the few, and hardly-cloud-touching buildings in downtown Spokane. On my left was the historic neighborhood of Beacon Hill, where my mom, sister, and I had devoured delicious Italian food the night before. On my right was Bay Village, a neighborhood we hadn’t explored yet, but we hoped we could
During the peak of the industrial revolution, with all the new technological advances little to no attention was paid to the visual elements of urban cites. Smoke billowed from factories, dirt sooted the buildings, and the streets were merely symbols of progress. Many problems arose in cities as a result of the industrial revolution . The tenement houses of the time were a substandard multi family dwelling. Usually old and occupied by the poor. With poor sanitation, air and sewage system all contributed to the problems of urban living. These neighborhoods were not only extremely crowded but also dangerous. According to Riis Jr, (1970) “Bodies of young children show up on the rivers, who no one seems to know anything about.” These tenements became a prime location for crime and the alleys became extremely dangerous. The influx of immigrants filled these tenements as many traveled to the United States for work. City planners quickly designed these structures to house them. Cramming entire families into one room apartments and sharing a single bathroom with other families on the floor. These living conditions were described as disgusting and vile and what city Beautiful planners would eventually plan to eliminate.The city Beautiful movement emerged at a time in United States history when the country's urban population
Throughout the novella, descriptions of architecture parallel the inhabitants’ dispositions. Stevenson quickly creates a contrast between the well-kept houses of the middle class and the decrepit houses of the lower class. He depicts a particular street in the city, “...The street shone out in contrast to its dingy neighbourhood, like a fire in a forest; and with its freshly painted shutters, well-polished brasses, and general cleanliness and gaiety of note, instantly caught and pleased the eye of the passenger” (6). The geniality of this particular street suggests that the inhabitants are not only financially stable, but also virtuous, according to the Victorian standard that possessions reflect wealth. On the other hand, the dilapidated surrounding
When thinking about the average American city a portrait of buildings of all shapes and sizes comes to mind. There are shops, houses, restaurants, businesses, parks, schools, and all of the other various amenities that come together to make a city desirable and convenient. This layout that city dwellers most specifically the ones that live in New York City have come to love is greatly indebted to a woman named Jane Jacobs. This woman of short stature was able to fight off wealthy men who wielded great influence in New York with the stroke of her pen, and a sign in her hand. Without Jane Jacobs New York City would be a vastly different landscape made up of ten lane highways, and vast tracts of empty space if men like Robert Moses and Ebenezer Howard had their way.
The field on the corner of our road blew with unmown grass, pale yellow in the midst of summer. It greeted you as you drove up the road, into the suburb with old weatherboard houses converted to shops. On windy days, the grass billowed across the field in mesmerizing patterns, creating a spectacle for those walking past. Sometimes there were black cows scattered amongst it. It sat next to the creek with old gum trees leaning over; a lovely patch of countryside. Five years ago, they dug up the field to build a block of houses. The field became precise lines of concrete and trees planted in straight rows. The houses were made of brick and were placed with no regard for privacy. The drive into the suburb is changed, now the ideal suburban aesthetic
Shumsky, N.L. (1998). Encyclopedia of Urban America, The Cities and Suburbs. (pp.263) Santa Barbara, CA: ABCOCLIO.
Diction: The phrase “ old-fashioned neighborhoods” and the title of the section “One Family’s New York” gives insight into the family life of Colby and their lives in Upper West Side of Manhattan. Prior to this she mentions the other neighborhoods that look like “armed camps or the ruined area of where the camps once stood” and this shows the contrast in what they see outside of their neighborhood and what goes on in the area around them.
Architecture is seen to be a reflection of society for as structures are designed to not only answer functional, but also the social problems of the day. Whist being both a shelter and a representation of the people that occupy it - a home is seen to be one of the most important spaces within one’s life and the way that it has evolved just like our culture is rather more interesting than one would expect. Evans describes this in his article ‘Figures, Doors and Passages’ for that “If anything is described by an Architectural Plan, it is the nature of human relationships” (Evans, 1978, pg73). The planning of domestic spaces in 16th century Italian Villas were designed in a matrix of connected spaces which answered to the social mannerism of the day and this can been seen though the planning of spaces in response to closeness, classes and accidental social encounters with the occupants. This can then be seen to develop over the centuries to the now more conversant corridor model plan also answering to its current society within the context of privacy, distance, connectivity and segregation. How this came about in the 19th century British homes is much more than just trends and style, but a closer insight into the relationship between spatial organisation and social formations.