Here Are the Four Ideas for Better Connecting Kendall Square

SECOND ACTS

What It Looks Like to Live In a Converted Boston Brewery

REAL ESTATE JEOPARDY

The Massachusetts City Inscribing Poetry in Its Sidewalks

CURBEDWIRE

Mass+Main Changes in Central; Innovation Hub in Southie

CENTRAL SQUARE—The change could mean a building of up to 195 feet high at the Quest Diagnostics site: "Builders hoping to put up a residential tower at the edge of Central Square have raised their promised commitment of affordable units and middle-income housing to 20 percent of the total 230 units." [Day]
__
SOUTH BOSTON—California firm Autodesk is opening an innovation lab to develop new methods for the construction industry. The sameDrydock Avenue building will also house "the new Building Innovation Learning and Design Space — the BUILD space. It will bring together students, entrepreneurs, and researchers to explore new tools and ways to make design and construction more efficient." [Globe]

12 HOURS AGO

"Thank the good man that we moved to a quiet suburb of L.A. from Boston, there's no comparison, Boston native of 41 years. Boston is a city with people that don't want change, and are stuck with outdated infrastructure and terrible weather. Much easier life out here, it'll be our third year living here, we won't be back." —a reader reacts coldly to winter-weather match-up between La-la land and the Hub

6 COMMENTS

CURBED NATIONAL

Behold, 7 Visually Pleasing Medical Marijuana Dispensaries

Placebo Pharmacy. Photo via Arch Daily

Marijuana legalization has a host of very real consequences for the country: the neutering of a dangerous black market, the slow acknowledgement of alternative medicines, and an influx of jobs, taxes, and merchandise that will shake America's economy to the very core. However, we're too busy swooning over the lush interiors of America's emerging dispensary architecture to care about any of those things. Gone are blacked-out windows and the faint smell of patchouli at your local head shop, the next generation of dispensaries are well-lit, airy, and spacious. These seven interiors—best ogled with a spliff in hand—perfectly forecast an entirely new design typology, coming soon to your neighborhood.

Take a look >>

COMMENTS

13 HOURS AGO

RENTSPOTTER

How Much a Month for a 2-BR in Fenway's Symphony Court?

RentSpotter is Curbed Boston's apartment-rent guessing game. We provide you with some details and pictures from a listing, and you vote for which monthly rent you think it's asking. If you think it's none of the above, tender a more exact guess in the comments or shoot us an email. We reveal the answer on Friday. And, hey, no cheating!

6 IMAGES

What/Where: a 2-BR, 2-BA in the Symphony Court condo complex
Square Footage: 1,205
The Skinny: Symphony Court's 48 luxury condos started trading about this time last year and represented some of the biggest sales ever in Fenway (we're talking nearly $1,000 a square foot). One of them is now up for grabs on the rental market. It allows the tenant access to the complex's amenities, including the gym and the bike storage. Parking is available for rent, too. And we should note before you vote that Fenway has experienced one of the sharpest rises in rents in the Hub in the last quarter-century. So this one's a real corker: pricey condo complex in a neighborhood where the rents are increasingly pricey. Good luck.

More photos and your chance to vote through here >>

SYMPHONY COURT

43 Westland Avenue, Boston, MA

14 HOURS AGO

Here Are the Four Ideas for Better Connecting Kendall Square

The City of Cambridge put out the bat signal for ideas on how to better connect its go-go Kendall Square technology engine; and as of late last week four ideas are up for consideration, all emphasizing pedestrian- and biker-friendliness as well as the connectivity that that can bring. They include among their proposals things such as canals and Charles River bridges and man-made islands on said river and multi-purpose playgrounds for adults. The plans may never actually come to fruition—the city stresses that the competition, called ConnectKendall, is more about vision than execution—but they're certainly a fun framework for thinking about how East Cambridge might change.

Let's take a deeper dive, shall we? >>

15 HOURS AGO

What It Looks Like to Live In a Converted Boston Brewery

10 IMAGES

Boston decades ago hosted many, many breweries, more even than today. Prohibition and the rise of giants such as Anheuser-Busch and MillerCoors put an end to all of them; and the often mammoth buildings that housed them had to find second acts, including as apartments or condos. This was the case with the old American Brewing Co. complex on Heath Street in the Mission Hill-Jamaica Plain borderlands. As you can see through the listing photos for Unit 206, the conversion of the brewery created some pretty airy lofts. This particular number, a 1-BR, 2-BA spread over 793 square feet, recently traded after barely a month on the market.

This way to many more tasty photos and the closing price >>

AMERICAN BREWERY LOFTS

251 Heath Street, Boston, MA

16 HOURS AGO

A Cambridge developer wants to construct what it's calling Thorndike Place in Arlington near the Alewife T stop (via the Minuteman path) and along Route 2. It's slated to include as many as 219 apartments spread over seven acres, although concerns over the ecological effects on the land around it could hold up the groundbreaking. [Day]

ARLINGTON

CAMBRIDGE

COMMENTS

SOUTHIE GENTRIFICATION WATCH

In February, as snow clogged the streets of South Boston, Mayor Marty Walsh declared that some streets would be one-way until April 1, which is this Wednesday. Then a funny thing happened: "[S]ome residents are not ready to say goodbye to one-way streets. There is even talk of angled parking and bike lanes, which would radically transform a neighborhood not known for embracing change." Add another New Somerville to the pile? [Globe]

The Massachusetts City Inscribing Poetry in Its Sidewalks

[Photo by Alison Mickelson via Flickr]
The clue in our latest Real Estate Jeopardy was: This Greater Boston city is holding a contest to select residents' poetry for inscription in its sidewalks.

This way to the answer, which most of you nailed >>

CAMBRIDGE

COMMENTS

19 HOURS AGO

POPULAR

CURBEDWIRE

Boston Among Best for Car-Less; Young People Love Mass.

MASS.-WIDE—And one of the places they're likeliest to move into is our fair commonwealth: "Recession or recovery, young people remain far and away the people most likely to move. Between 2007 and 2012,young adults accounted for about 24 percent of the total population of the U.S., but they made up over 43 percent of all movers." [CityLab]
__
BOSTON—The city is one of the best in the U.S. for getting aroundwithout a car, according to some number-crunching from Thrillist: "Boston took third place, with a score of 74.8, and came in third for walkability, and fifth for bike-friendliness." Of course, this is not taking into account the winter we just had. [Thrillist]

3 COMMENTS

4 DAYS AGO

OPEN HOUSE WEEKEND WARRIORS

Find a Biker's Paradise Across the River in Cambridge

Cambridge is one of the nation's most bike- and pedestrian-friendly cities. Neighborhoods such as Cambridgeport and Area 4 boast bike scores of 99 out of 100, for instance. Such neighborhoods boast a diverse housing stock, too, with newish condo buildings living side by side with stately Victorians. This week's open house tour feature condos in the range of $900K to $525K and offers an eclectic mix of styles, reflective of Cambridge's diversity. Leave your car at home for this one.

And now right this way to the map >>

CAMBRIDGE

1 COMMENT

4 DAYS AGO

EATER TASTINGS

Spring Restaurant Openings; a Bathroom Camera; More!

Let's chow down on some restaurant news with Eater Boston.

[Photo: Select Oyster Bar, coming soon/Instagram]
HUB-WIDE—It's going to be an exciting spring and summer with new Boston-area restaurant openings galore. Here's the rundown of what's coming soon.
__
COOLIDGE CORNER—Yikes. A former Zaftigs Delicatessen employeeallegedly hid a camera in the restroom. This was several months ago — and the restaurant didn't report the incident to authorities when the camera was found, police say.

The "East Coast revival" cuisine coming to East Cambridge >>

COMMENTS

4 DAYS AGO

CURBED BOSTON FLICKR POOL

Contribute to the
Curbed Boston Flickr pool

www.flickr.com

COMMENT OF THE DAY

"Housing, housing, and housing. That is the issue. Focus on that and the city will take off." —a reader's advice to Boston Mayor Marty Walsh

2 COMMENTS

CURBED NATIONAL

Come Join Us for an All-Day Celebration of Mies van der Rohe!

Today is the 129th birthday of Mies van der Rohe, the great 20th century architect whose pioneering work with glass and steel helped define modern architecture as we know it. So obviously we're celebrating. All over the Curbediverse today, we'll be taking a fervent look at Mies and his legacy, a party you can also follow along on Twitter with the hashtag #MiesDay. But first, here are five important, fun, or otherwise intriguing facts about Mies to get the day started:

5. Mies served as the last director of Bauhaus, the famous German school for experimental art and design, before closing it down under Nazi pressure in 1933 and emigrating to the U.S. in 1937.

"Less is more" indeed >>

COMMENTS

4 DAYS AGO

PRICESPOTTER

Big Reveal: the JP Three-Story House with Back Bay Views

And, now, the answer to this week's asking-price guessing game.

11 IMAGES

Address: 3 Cranston Street
Price: $999,999
The Skinny: This was one of our busiest PriceSpotters in a long while. It was also a closely run contest, by and large, with no clear winner. About 35 percent of you voted for $1,184,000 in regard to this 3-BR, 2.5-BA, 2,168-square-foot spread in Jamaica Plain, perhaps smitten with its fenced-in yard and deck. About 30 percent guessed the correct asking. The remainder went off in wildly divergent directions, suggesting that JP remains one of the more inscrutable neighborhoods pricing-wise.

Plenty more shots of the beguiling house in question through here >>