My friends Anne Marie Stein and Tatjana Meschede came up with a very unusual pastime to see them through the lockdown.
Anne Marie is a photographer and I think it all began as a photography project. She thought it would be an interesting visual project to photograph houses just before they were knocked down and then come back and take photos of what gets built in their place. Once they started, they got a bit carried away which is always a sign of a good project. Before long they had moved beyond their immediate neighborhood and started checking the city web site to find properties that had just been issued demolition permits.
They combined this with an urge to get out of the house and get some exercise. They’ve spent the last nine months trudging on foot to the far corners of the city to take photos of the doomed houses. Along the way they’ve probably walked a 1000 miles in Newton and have amassed quite a comprehensive collection of soon-to-be-demolished-building photos.
The further along they went, the more knowledgeable they became on building demolition.
At some point they will no doubt put together the photo exhibit, i.e. the idea that started it all. In the meantime though they have compiled this amazing map. It’s an interactive Google map that lets you selectively display the location of all of the houses that have been knocked down in the city over the last ten years …. or in any individual year(s).
They’re very interested to hear what you make of it.
I may demand royalties for this idea…lol
https://backsideofamerica.blogspot.com/2011/03/anatomy-of-teardown.html
Very cool to see that others have documented this. In the interest of full disclosure, my husband and I are homeowners and tore down and rebuilt the house we live in as a two family. Our project is what got me started, since we are an unusual case statistically in terms of what is happening. Our goal was to be able to live in clean space, build something as close to net zero as possible, and financially, building a two family was what could make it possible for us.
The map shows raw data of teardowns. We are working on data points that will help to give a better picture of it all.
Oh, and Jerry, Anne is spelled with an e :-).
Three on my adjacent street (Maynard) and now one on Morrill and another on Pratt Dr. These are Campanelli ranches (think Oak Hill). All were torn down and McMansions – literally one on Maynard is being resold for over $1.8 million.
$1.8 million! That is just how it should be. It is good to see folks appropriately benefitting from their investments. Hopefully the other two properties will also be sold for their market worth.
@Anne Marie Stein – oops, fixed it
Very good project, where I live on the east side of Crafts St.
between West Newton and Nonantum. There are many more tear downs than your map records.
I really do not understand the push to reform our zoning ordinances. Slowly, the entire city is rebuilding itself.
The map shows the last ten years. There are more before that, but it has the location points of everything that is on the Newton City website for permits. If there are others that aren’t on the list during that time that would be interesting.
MA state law just passed. Any town/city with MBTA stop must have multifamily zoning by right within 0.5 mile.
Newton will now squabble if that going to be the T stop (practical choice) or screw over the poor chumps north of the pike (commuter rail with its unpractical schedule)
Would love any councilors to chime in
This is interesting and was clearly a fun project but it tells an incomplete story and much more data is required to make this useful and see what we can learn from it. It’s just a beginning. I just randomly picked a bunch in different areas of Newton and of those I randomly picked, the new homes were clearly now multi-dwelling, allowing more housing. So to be more meaningful, somebody would have to pick a significant number at randomm and in different villages, and see what they were originally and how the property is currently configured.
Agreed. This is a start. It is the data of all the permits. It includes 2 families and some larger projects as well. It doesn’t give any contextual information. We are working on that.
Another project would be pictures of extra lots, meaning lawn and trees, being replaced by a new house. Three on my street: Windsor Rd.
Garden City? Tree canopy slowing the warming of the planet? Not so much.
Similarly interesting is the Home Energy Rating System® score for the re-developed buildings. Newton has been reporting that, as it is required to do on every new construction project since 2010. The data are included in the MapGeo presentation of the Assessors’ Database as the “HERS” Theme
Tearing down and building multi-family homes that have small to mid-size condos and are moderately priced would be good, but that never seems to be the case. Instead it’s oversized buildings squeezed into small lots with costly condos.