The second annual Curbed Boston Cup, our award for the Hub neighborhood of the year, is under way with our original field of 16 whittled down to the Elite Eight. We'll have one match-up a day this week 'til Friday, and voting for each pairing ends after 24 hours. Let the eliminations continue!
Today it's South Boston vs. giant-slayer Downtown Crossing.
No neighborhood entered 2012 with more expectation for irreversible change than South Boston, and that's what proceeded apace. Hundreds of micro-apartments were pitched for the neighborhood. Myriad new developments were announced or broke ground, like Pier 4. And, of course, the fretting. It was enough to handily dispatch Eastie in the first round.
But will it be enough to dispatch Downtown Crossing in the second? The No. 14 seed scored a major upset over No. 3 Beacon Hill in the first round. The upset might be tied to just two words: Millennium Tower. The long-sought something to fill that gaping reminder of urban blight, the old Filene's site, turned out to be the city's tallest residential-tower-to-be. After the announcement of the tower in June, a plethora of optimism poured forth for the neighborhood: thousands of new residents drawn by hundreds of new apartments (and at least 10 new restaurants) would galvanize Downtown Crossing and make it a 24-7 place to be And the seed to beat.
· The Departed: South Boston to Change Forever This Year [Curbed Boston]
· South Boston to Get Hundreds of Manhattan Apartments [Curbed Boston]
· Pier 4: the 50 Innovation Units and Their Pals Just the Beginning [Curbed Boston]
· What the New Starbucks in Southie Would Mean [Curbed Boston]
· Ladies and Gentlemen, the Millennium Tower [Curbed Boston]
· If the South End Can Do It... Downtown Crossing's Changes [Curbed Boston]
· Our Curbed Cup 2012 archive [Curbed Boston]