Cities of the Americas - what's your cities most European-like neighborhood/district?

[SIGSEGV]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

They aren't there because they tend not to do that well, at least the regular supermarkets in other parts of town nearer where most people live (and I suppose that's the difference--people usually buy food near home so it depends if people live downtown). San Francisco actually does have a Trader Joe's in the heart of downtown (4th & Market if you know the city) and it had a Bristol Farms supermarket in the San Francisco Centre urban mall but it closed, presumably for insufficient business. Still, there remain a number of large markets within ½ a mile of Union Square and also the Ferry Building food hall at the end of Market St. which on weekends hosts an outdoor farmers market in addition to the indoor stalls that rivals European marketplaces.

Also I'll give a shout out to Baltimore which, when I was in school there, had 2 really outstanding market halls downtown and I loved to go there just for the smells when I had some time off from school. I think at least one of them is still going strong.

And of course there's Seattle's Pike Place Market. So yeah, many cities don't have these places but a surprising number do. You're near LA--I believe they have one.

I'm nowhere near LA .

Downtown Chicago has a Target with some groceries as well as some fancy Walgreens's with groceries. But just outside Downtown there are quite a few grocery stores (Jewel at Grand/State, Mariano's in Lakeshore East, TJ's and Jewel at Wabash/Roosevelt).

But this is somewhat atypical for American cities since Chicago has a substantial downtown population.

[Shawn]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

QC for the win. At least for US-Canada.

Definitely agreed on this one. I don't think anywhere else comes close.

I think Back Bay in Boston is the closest to London anywhere in NA. The North End and Beacon Hill are superficially "quintessential" Europe in layout, density, and materials - but most of that architecture is the definition of American Federalist style. If anything, the North End feels more like Dublin than London. Back Bay, on the other hand, purposefully drew from Haussmann's renovation of Paris in terms of street layout and width, while directly lifting Late Victorian vernacular from London.

Parts of NYC actually have strong London vibes too, just not where you might expect. Places in the Bronx north of Fordham for example, around the Mosholu Parkway. Or along 8th Ave in Brooklyn, in Park Slope.

[kool maudit]

Originally Posted by Acajack

It's generally more walkable than North America suburbia. In that there is usually a shop, a café, a clinic and other small businesses within walking distance. Plus decent transit service to anywhere else you might want to go.

But the walk down the street itself is not necessarily super pleasant (to my taste anyway), since it's basically like a canyon between either walls, fences or hedges.

And it's actually a very common look in Europe from Italy all the way up into Scandinavia. There are some exceptions - it seems a bit less common in Germany for example.

I... don't mind those streets. They feel village-y to me.

Stockholm -- Copenhagen -- Hamburg


In fact, while I can see the potentially superior urbanity of NA streetcar suburbia (Toronto's Leaside, for example, or Chicago's Oak Park), it really does look kind of OPEN.

I mean, if I'm doing the villa thing I think I'd like a little more privacy on my deck and whatnot. Twisty little roads and walls/hedges provide that. I'd love to live in an area like the Stockholm link one day.

[mrnyc]

welp -- i would say there are a few euro-y feeling and looking areas left scattered in cleveland these days.

i dk, you be the judge i guess:

- maybe the atmosphere of ohio city and tremont neighborhoods,
if not so much the looks
- university circle perhaps
- a one block section of brownstones downtown
- the arcade downtown & west side market areas,
- the revitalized old short vincent/e4th st strip downtown
- and quite a bit of of tudor style homes/high street type business buildings w/ apts over them scattered all around,
from the craze for faux tudor style in the late 1800s-1920s i think,
which would be peak cleveland era,
so yeah they look vaguely euro/british,
somewhat similiar to forest hills, queens.

have a look!




















of course the city did look much more european or at least victorian back in the days when it had its brick buildings.

not the least example of which was once the largest building under one roof, and largest train hall, the massive second union depot on the lakefront (1864-1959).

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by kool maudit

I... don't mind those streets. They feel village-y to me.

Stockholm -- Copenhagen -- Hamburg


In fact, while I can see the potentially superior urbanity of NA streetcar suburbia (Toronto's Leaside, for example, or Chicago's Oak Park), it really does look kind of OPEN.

I mean, if I'm doing the villa thing I think I'd like a little more privacy on my deck and whatnot. Twisty little roads and walls/hedges provide that. I'd love to live in an area like the Stockholm link one day.

Those examples from Scandinavia are somewhat more open than Hipster Duck's examples, though. As per Hipster Duck's links, certainly in countries like France, Italy and Spain the houses are generally much more hidden from view than that.

[Minato Ku]

Originally Posted by sopas ej

Postwar Paris apparently had a lot of parking lots in areas you wouldn't imagine now being parking lots---like their courtyards and squares.

Pre-I.M. Pei's Louvre Pyramids, that courtyard was a parking lot:

Louvre, 1958


La Place de la Concorde, 1958


Notre Dame de Paris, 1960


Place Vendôme, 1961


Place Vendôme, 1968


They paved paradise, put up a parking lot!

Palais-Royal, 1980

Note that those parking spaces haven't really disappear they were put underground.
Today the Louvre, Place de la Concorde, Notre Dame or Place Vendome have more parking capacity than in the past.

There are over 1,000 parkings space under Place Vendome.

Place Vendôme underground parking built in 1970.

Place Vendome parking souterrain by Minato ku, sur Flickr

Grand Louvre project with I.M. Pei's Louvre Pyramids included a big underground car park.

Originally Posted by sopas ej

Oh man, apparently way back in 1928, the Place Vendôme was being used as a parking lot:

Paris had already a pretty heavy car traffic. Its WW2 (and the 1929 crisis before that) that stopped the massive expansion of cars and slowed it until the late 1940s, early 1950s.
Paris dismentled its streetcar network in 1937 (one of the largest in the world). One or two decades before most North American big cities.

The main thing that prevented the City of Paris to be crossed by multiple freeways in 1970s was the cost.
Kind like in Manhattan, San Francisco or Inner London.

Obviously there were also a lot of public opposition but what really killed those projects is the over expensive cost.
Destroying a lot of dense and quite valuable real estate to build nothing but roads is not profitable.
Especially in places that seriously lacked of housing and office spaces.

[badrunner]

Originally Posted by sopas ej

Postwar Paris apparently had a lot of parking lots in areas you wouldn't imagine now being parking lots---like their courtyards and squares.

Pre-I.M. Pei's Louvre Pyramids, that courtyard was a parking lot:

Louvre, 1958

This is an improvement over that pyramid thing. Sadly the streets of Paris are still jam packed with cars. They're just smaller cars now and they found better parking arrangements

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by mrnyc

welp -- i would say there are a few euro-y feeling and looking areas left scattered in cleveland these days.

(...)

Beautiful pics from urban Cleveland! Many people moving in?

[badrunner]

An alternate reality, randomly generated, auto-oriented version of Paris? or? can anyone guess where this is? which neighborhood?


gsv

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by badrunner

An alternate reality, randomly generated, auto-oriented version of Paris? or? can anyone guess where this is? which neighborhood?


gsv

It might look like Paris after a quick stop at the nearest California dispensary.

[badrunner]

Maybe not Paris, the weather's too nice and the foliage too exotic. So maybe an alternate timeline version of some place like this: https://goo.gl/maps/8iGrBughc3Lg3FGC6

[edale]

Rossmore is a beautiful street, and definitely one of my favorites in LA. The handful of old, highly ornamental apartment buildings reminds me of what you find in Pacific Heights in SF. Doesn't feel like Paris or France at all to me, though.

Also, it's always really bummed me out that such a beautiful street ends in this disgusting, auto-centric shitshow: https://www.google.com/maps/@34.0830...7i16384!8i8192

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by edale

Rossmore is a beautiful street, and definitely one of my favorites in LA. The handful of old, highly ornamental apartment buildings reminds me of what you find in Pacific Heights in SF. Doesn't feel like Paris or France at all to me, though.

Also, it's always really bummed me out that such a beautiful street ends in this disgusting, auto-centric shitshow: https://www.google.com/maps/@34.0830...7i16384!8i8192

Wow, that street is literally "transformed" within about 100-200 metres!

[badrunner]

Originally Posted by edale

Rossmore is a beautiful street, and definitely one of my favorites in LA. The handful of old, highly ornamental apartment buildings reminds me of what you find in Pacific Heights in SF. Doesn't feel like Paris or France at all to me, though.

That's why it's an alternate reality version, and visually, it's much more evocative of Europe than the endless procession of drab, soulless rowhouses that have been posted in this thread. Is that really what comes to mind when one thinks of Europe? To me rowhouses are much more American than they are European, and I'll never understand this forum's infatuation with them.

[badrunner]

Originally Posted by Acajack

Wow, that street is literally "transformed" within about 100-200 metres!

That's LA for you. Rossmore is actually the southern half of Vine st, as in "Hollywood & Vine." Over three miles it goes from major city thoroughfare, to quiet tree line residential street with palatial apartment buildings, to single family century-old custom homes, terminating at Wilshire blvd.

[edale]

Originally Posted by badrunner

That's why it's an alternate reality version, and visually, it's much more evocative of Europe than the endless procession of drab, soulless rowhouses that have been posted in this thread. Is that really what comes to mind when one thinks of Europe? To me rowhouses are much more American than they are European, and I'll never understand this forum's infatuation with them.

I think the focus is really on continuous street walls more than the actual rowhouses. European city centers and urban neighborhoods tend to feature few curb cuts or driveways, and buildings feature small (if any) setbacks from neighboring structures. In addition to architectural similarities, that is what people are focusing on in many of these links being shared.

LA doesn't really have any pedestrian centered neighborhoods, so it's hard to find examples to fit the point of this thread. We simply are too built around the car, and our buildings are too spaced out to resemble what most would associate with classically European urban scenes. Even Chicago, which does feature more pedestrian oriented neighborhoods (alleys in the rear, few driveways, etc.) doesn't really work for this thread because the buildings are basically all detached. It's just a different pattern of development reflective of its time.

[badrunner]

Originally Posted by edale

I think the focus is really on continuous street walls more than the actual rowhouses. European city centers and urban neighborhoods tend to feature few curb cuts or driveways, and buildings feature small (if any) setbacks from neighboring structures. In addition to architectural similarities, that is what people are focusing on in many of these links being shared.

LA doesn't really have any pedestrian centered neighborhoods, so it's hard to find examples to fit the point of this thread. We simply are too built around the car, and our buildings are too spaced out to resemble what most would associate with classically European urban scenes. Even Chicago, which does feature more pedestrian oriented neighborhoods (alleys in the rear, few driveways, etc.) doesn't really work for this thread because the buildings are basically all detached. It's just a different pattern of development reflective of its time.

Again, that's why it's an alternate reality version. No one is saying that Rossmore literally looks like Europe. It's more of an aesthetic and architectural comparison (every building in that image features French-derived architecture), that is more interesting and thought provoking than just posting another fifty streetview images of generic American rowhouses. You might as well just post more images of commie blocks because those look even more like Europe.

[edale]

Originally Posted by badrunner

Again, that's why it's an alternate reality version. No one is saying that Rossmore literally looks like Europe. It's more of an aesthetic and architectural comparison (every building in that image features French-derived architecture), that is more interesting and thought provoking than just posting another fifty streetview images of generic American rowhouses. You might as well just post more images of commie blocks because those look even more like Europe.

Cool great, thanks for contributing?

[badrunner]

Originally Posted by edale

Cool great, thanks for contributing?

wasn't talking to you

[homebucket]

This intersection in Oakland has always felt a little European to me:

https://goo.gl/maps/YNt4vzbGoy97xSJ59