We're down to the Final Four in the fifth-annual Curbed Cup to decide the Hub's best neighborhood of the year. Squaring off now are the tournament's two giant-slayers: Fenway, which dispatched No. 1 seed Savin Hill in the last round, and the Seaport District, the lowest-ranked seed to make it this far. Polls open 24 hours. Go.
There is so much going on in Fenway, it's absurd. When the Red Sox played the first home game of their latest season this past April at the identically named ballpark, there were at least six projects planned or underway in the surrounding neighborhood. Some, such as the Van Ness with its $3K-plus-a-month studios, opened later in the year, while even fresher developments, including the 30-story Pierce Boston, with its 109 condos and 240 apartments, quickly moved in to take their places on Fenway's roster. We're talking thousands of new apartments and condos, and many times more residents.
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Boston's Seaport District, home of the bulk of the city's Innovation District, also saw some major development this year as well as some major debuts. For one thing, Twenty Two Liberty, the first new residential development in the neighborhood to go on sale, dropped—and dropped big, with multiple multi-million-dollar trades. Construction also started in the neighborhood on Boston's first-ever Yotel and on what could possibly be the most cleverly designed new office tower in the city (see above). Finally, sea steps! Yes, 2015 was the year that the Seaport took great strides toward becoming something beyond simply becoming something, if you catch our drift.
· Mapping the Construction Around Fenway Park on Opening Day [Curbed Boston]
· Fenway's Van Ness and Its $3,500 Studios Officially Open [Curbed Boston]
· Fenway's Pierce Boston Picks Date for Official Groundbreaking [Curbed Boston]
· Twenty Two Liberty Sales: Gobsmacking As Everyone Thought [Curbed Boston]
· Here Is the First Rendering of the Future Seaport Yotel [Curbed Boston]
· Let's All Cheer the Seaport's Super-Elliptical Office Tower [Curbed Boston]
· Here's a Closer Look at the Future Sea Steps of Pier 4 [Curbed Boston]
· Our Curbed Cup 2015 archive [Curbed Boston]