TODAY: Fort Point Stroll and FPAC Holiday Sale

This weekend (Fri, Sat, and Sun) is FPAC's annual holiday sale and today is the Fort Point Stroll:

Fort Point Arts Community Holiday Sale
Opening Reception: Friday, December 14th, 5-8pm
Midway Studios, 15 Channel Center Street

Holiday Sale: Saturday and Sunday  11am-4pm

FREE TO THE PUBLIC
FREE PARKING

http://www.fortpointarts.org/open-studios/holiday-sale/

Fort Point Holiday Stroll

Friday, Dec 14th, 4-8pm

 

Neighborhood businesses will be open for a unique evening of shopping, with special offers, discounts, and holiday treats for all.

Stops include:

A Street Frames, 251 A Street
-$25.00 gift certificate for custom framing

Accidental Gallery, 300 Summer Street
-Decorate your own ornament and refreshments by Channel Café

Barlow’s Restaurant, 241 A Street
- Complimentary cup of clam chowder

Barrington Coffee, 346 Congress Street (4-7pm)
- Free small drip coffee or decaf
– Free hot cocoa if you are shorter than the oxcart wheel

Bob’s Your Uncle, 25 Channel Center
 -Susy Pilgrim Waters Opening Reception 

Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum, Congress Street Bridge
- Complimentary hot tea and cookies (one per guest)

Channel Fitness, 303 Congress Street
-Stop by to pick up a free 1 week pass

Flour Bakery and Café, 12 Farnsworth Street
-mini gingerbread cakes

Fort Point Framers, 300 Summer Street
-Bring your digital file for a free high-quality
8×10” print! Refreshments by Channel Café

Fort Point Market, 369 Congress Street
-Wine and Patron tasting

Front, 25 Channel Center
-Discount on select items

Drink, 348 Congress Street
-Hot Beverages

Made in Fort Point, 30 Channel Center
-Made in Fort Point, The FPAC Store: 10% off any one item
-Floral Lab: Free paper white lily in a glass kit ($10 retail value) for the first 10 customers who spend $25 on a Floral Lab item

Menton, 354 Congress Street
-$50 coupon valid from January – end of February

Midway Studios, 15 Channel Center Street
-Opening Reception for “RED PLATFORM” 5-8 p.m.
-Fort Point Arts Community Holiday Sale Preview:
25 artists selling jewelry, paintings, pottery, prints, photography, holiday decorations and cards, and more

Sportello, 348 Congress Street
- free delicious pastries

Tavern Road (New restaurant , 343 Congress Street
-Warm beverages from Tavern Road (while supplies last)

The Barking Crab, 88 Sleeper Street
-Eggnog White Russian featured drink $10

Twelve Chairs, 319 A Street
-Come rock around the 10′ Christmas tree at the holiday party

Reception at Bob's Your Uncle Gallery this Friday

A message from Michele Yeeles:

I hope you can join us this Friday 4-8pm with the talented Susy Pilgrim Waters for her reception at Bob's Your Uncle Gallery. 

It's also Friends of Fort Point's Holiday Stroll and FPAC's Holiday Sale (the holiday sale is also on Saturday and Sunday 11-4. Susy's show and Front will open 11-4 over the weekend too). 

It's a great weekend to shop, sip and stroll around Fort Point. Hope to see you!

Made in Fort Point Re-Opening Party Tonight

 

 Please join us this evening, Thursday, December 6th, to celebrate Made in Fort Point's NEW location, from 5-8pm. 

 

Enjoy complimentary refreshments, including a tasting with new Fort Pointers Trillium Brewing, and samplings of Bow & Sparrow cookies.

 

Meet the makers, mingle, and get a jump on your holiday shopping.

 

30 Channel Center Street

corner of A and Mt. Washington Streets

just past Barlow's Restaurant

 

http://www.fortpointarts.org/posts/made-in-fort-point/

 

 

Ground Floor Retail in Boston

Boston Magazine writer Paul McMorrow has an interesting article on the design of the financial district called The Empty Quarter.  It looks at how the design and planning of the financial district has caused it's recent emptying out.  I think it's relevant to Fort Pointers, given developers here have been pushing to have projects which follow the same pattern McMorrow argues caused the current emptiness of the financial district:

In other words, no one back then was worrying about what it was like to walk the city blocks, or whether there were enough first-floor retail spaces to engage the people who worked above. As a result, Financial District towers have huge empty lobbies and no amenities. Without life at the pedestrian level, these behemoths turn a cold, blank face to the neighboring sidewalks, making the prospect of walking among them a miserable experience. That fact goes a long way toward explaining why chicken-salad shops and falafel stands are the only food offerings here—workers just grab a sandwich and then run back inside.

The banks that built the Financial District abandoned it long ago, taking their lower-level office jobs with them to the suburbs, or even overseas. The knowledge industries that have replaced finance as the city’s main economic driver depend on attracting young, mobile, urban-minded workers. And that has put the Financial District at a competitive disadvantage when companies look for office space in Boston.
...

Why should we care? Cities feed off vibrant downtowns, and cities that matter have downtowns that matter. Downtown rot metastasizes: Whether it’s in Detroit or the blocks around the pit that was once Filene’s, dark, dysfunctional blocks chase pedestrians away, driving businesses out in the process. Blight spreads, while money chases money. That’s why Kevin White poured his energies into raising the Financial District’s office towers, and why the mess on the former Filene’s site on Washington Street generated howls from Charlestown to Mattapan. A city can’t claim to be world class if it’s hollow at the core.

 

Read the full article here:
 http://www.bostonmagazine.com/articles/2012/11/empty-financial-district-boston/