A Tale of Three Sisters

The Clarendon, The W, and 45 Province

It’s no secret that 45 Province*, like The Clarendon and The W, its two sister-projects (by way of demographics, pricing and, of course as evidenced here, association by anyone writing about any of the three), has struggled.  It’s also no secret that all three buildings came on the market at the exact wrong time, right around the time the financial world and the residential real estate market collapsed in 2008.  That said, the similarities end there for me.  Most people find The Clarendon to be the best located of the three and, in my opinion, it’s a reasonable piece of background architecture whose only flaw is the unresolved top of the building which looks like it’s missing…its top.  The W is both an uninspired piece of architecture and is situated in an area that best can be described as neither here nor there, but relatively close to areas that are both here and there.  I wish both buildings well as the economy begins to recover.

The book on 45 Province is that its Downtown Crossing location provides its biggest challenge just as the architecture of the building provides one of its strongest and most unique selling propositions.  I tend to disagree with the book in this particular instance. The unfortunately named and tepidly branded Downtown Crossing, especially in and around the blocks surrounding 45 Province, is the closest that Boston comes to a real Manhattan neighborhood.

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