If you haven’t stopped by the old Filene’s Basement area in Downtown Crossing, you’re going to be quite surprised to see what has been happening. To set the stage, the below photo was taking at the end of January 2008, just before the Filene’s lettering was removed from the side of the “basement” in preparation for demolition.
Construction crews are making way for the preservation of, and renovation to, the existing eight-story Filene’s building at the corner of Washington and Summer Streets, and the nine-story building at the corner of Hawley and Franklin Streets, combing to form a new mixed-use development called the One Franklin Tower at 426 Washington Street. One Franklin will boast over 1,200,700 square feet of hotel, retail, office, and residential Midtown condos.
Fast forward to this past weekend, August 2008, and you will see the exclusive photos below show significant progress (or lack of, depending on how you look at demolition) on the One Franklin project site.







