On the Wharf
Boston was described to me as the most English of cities. It was one of the first English settlements in North America, dating back to the sixteenth century. Many Bostonians buried in the churchyard lived and died under the Crown, many years before the USA gained its independence. The Marriott Long Wharf is located in the historic port area of Boston. As colonial trade flourished under the protection of the Royal Navy, English merchants enlarged the harbour for shipping creating Long Wharf
It is therefore a winning location for an hotel, right in the heart of the most historic area of Boston, alongside a quay from which most of the tourist boats depart on their trips around the harbour, or across to the Navy Yard. The quay throngs with tourists and the architecture of the hotel echoes the past following the form of an upturned boat. Unfortunately it then turns its back on the quayside, placing bars and restaurants on first floor level, transforming blank brick to face the busy tourist thoroughfares around the hotel.
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The exterior is liner-like in side elevation. Entrance canopy provides a home for sparrows.
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The liner-like sides present blank brick to pedestrians, not allowing the hotel to maximise on its location. Maybe when built in the 1980s the dock area was not so pleasant as it now is?
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Reception desk has no sight lines to the entrance nor the lift lobby
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"the architecture of the hotel echoes the past following the form of an upturned boat"
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The entrance and entrance canopy dominate the top of the Wharf. With entrances on both sides of the building and a Starbucks coffee shop beneath the escalator near reception, this has become a public thoroughfare. It is impossible for the staff to monitor entry to the hotel and the result is that there is a patrol on the corridors. "Are you the sheriff?" I jokingly asked, "No I'm just the deputy" was the smiling response. (For you young folks, 'I shot the Sherriff - but didn't shoot his deputy' was written by Bob Marley and popularised by Eric Clapton in 1974).
Reception on the first floor is positioned away from the top of the escalators and although there is just about a direct view, it is not such that the staff would be able to monitor the entry and exits to the hotel. Access to the lifts is similar in that staff cannot monitor who is using them.Hence the need for a sherriff -the design building in an ongoing cost for the operator.
The public area interior is that of an open well - not a light well as the sloping form of the building ensures that the space is enclosed. Lighting to this well is very dated and bleakly presented. Bedrooms open off the access corridors that line the interior of the atria, and where there is daylight (at the entry point) there are seating areas which command views across the harbour front. The architectural form dictates the interior and it can best be described as from another era.
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Curiously, cruise ship design has evolved to create this kind of internal atrium within ships completing the reference the outside form echos.
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