Tremont Street subway

Coordinates: 42°21′23″N 71°3′47″W / 42.35639°N 71.06306°W / 42.35639; -71.06306
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Tremont Street subway
Boston, Massachusetts
Coordinates42°21′23″N 71°3′47″W / 42.35639°N 71.06306°W / 42.35639; -71.06306
Built1897
ArchitectCarson, Howard A.
Architectural styleClassical Revival
NRHP reference No.66000788[1]
Significant dates
Added to NRHPOctober 15, 1966; 57 years ago (1966-10-15)
Designated NHLJanuary 29, 1964; 60 years ago (1964-01-29)

The Tremont Street subway in Boston's

Government Center
stations.

History

Further information: History of the MBTA
Part of the original northbound tunnel (bottom right) exposed during City Hall construction

The tunnel originally served five closely spaced stations:

Main Line Elevated (now part of the Red, Blue, and Orange Lines
, respectively).

Boylston and Park Street were built with rectangular stone

Washington Street Tunnel incorporated this criticism into their more modest headhouses.[4]

In 1963, the northern part of the tunnel was extensively altered during the construction of

Government Center and a new Boston City Hall on what had been the neighborhood of Scollay Square. The northbound tunnel to Haymarket station was rerouted to the west (the southbound tunnel is still original). Scollay Square station was rebuilt as Government Center station, and Adams Square station was closed.[6] Much of the old northbound tunnel was filled in to support the City Hall foundation; another section was turned into a delivery tunnel. Another section was rediscovered by a City Hall employee in 1983; a 150-foot (46 m) piece was renovated for use as records storage.[7]

In 1971, the original Haymarket station was replaced with a new station just to the south.[6]

Disused southern tunnel branch

Main article: Pleasant Street incline
The now-unused southern portion of the Tremont Street subway, looking north towards Boylston – the outbound track's lower elevation takes it under the Boylston Street subway's sharply curved outbound tracks.

The subway in 1897 consisted of a main line under Tremont Street running to Park Street, where is splits into two forks. One fork connects to the

Boylston station. The tunnel still exists, dead-ended at the now-buried portal, which has been converted to a public park.[8] However, there have been proposals for the disused tunnel to become part of a new streetcar line that would partly replace access to rapid transit for southern Metro Boston neighborhoods that lost rapid transit service in 1987 with the demolition of the Washington Street Elevated southern section of the Orange Line. This proposed new streetcar service could go as far south as the Red Line's Mattapan station, with a northern turnaround terminus at Government Center, according to a 2012-dated proposal.[9]

Portals

A map showing the extent of the Tremont Street subway over time

The three original tunnel entrances were in the

Kenmore Square
station.

The western Public Garden portal was replaced in 1914 with two portals, one in the middle of Boylston Street adjacent to the old portal, and the other at the west end of the

Northeastern University). The portal at Kenmore Square was replaced in 1932 when the subway was extended west beyond the Square, to the existing portals on Commonwealth Avenue (the "B" branch) and Beacon Street (the "C" branch), although the top arch of the original portal survives as part of a ventilation shaft. The Fenway portal for the D branch
was opened in 1959.

The northern portal at Canal Street was replaced in 2004 when the subway was extended beneath North Station to a new portal next to Martha Road.

The southern portal at Pleasant Street was abandoned in 1962 following the end of streetcar service through the South End. The portal has since been sealed up and covered by Elliot Norton Park, but the dead-ended tunnel to Boylston survives underground, for a possibility of future re-use (see above).

Power

The subway uses

pantograph-only since the trolley wires were modified in the 1990s.[citation needed
]

Landmark status and ownership

The Tremont Street subway was designated a National Historic Landmark in recognition for its pioneering role in the development of the subway as a public transit system in the United States. The landmark designation encompasses the still-extant portions of the early tunnel, roughly from Court Street to Charles Street, and includes the original Classical Revival head houses of the Park and Boylston stations which are still in use.[11]

The original owner of the Tremont Street subway was the private West End Street Railway, later the Boston Elevated Railway. Public ownership began in 1947 with the Metropolitan Transit Authority, now the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority.

See also

References

  1. ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. January 23, 2007.
  2. ^ The Boston Daily Globe, "First Car off the Earth: Allston Electric Goes into the subway on schedule time.", The Boston Daily Globe, September 1, 1897. Experiences of the first Subway Riders in Boston.
  3. ^ Most, Doug (26 January 2014). "The bigger dig". Boston Globe. Retrieved 22 January 2016.
  4. ^ a b Coburn, Frederick W. (November 1910). "Rapid Transit and Civic Beauty". New Boston. Vol. 1, no. 7. pp. 307–314 – via Google Books.
  5. ^ Rettig, Polly M. (June 14, 1976). "National Register of Historic Places Inventory – Nomination Form: Tremont Street Subway". National Park Service.
  6. ^ a b Belcher, Jonathan. "Changes to Transit Service in the MBTA district" (PDF). Boston Street Railway Association.
  7. ISBN 1555534104
    .
  8. ^ Bierman, Noah (December 26, 2009). "Transit archeology: Tour of abandoned subway network offers a glimpse of how the T was built". Boston Globe.
  9. ^ "Roxbury-Dorchester-Mattapan Transit Needs Study" (PDF). Massachusetts Department of Transportation. September 2012. p. 53. Retrieved 4 October 2017.
  10. ^ "Boston Transit Milestones", MIT course, 2002 (archived 2007)
  11. ^ "NHL nomination for Tremont Street Subway". National Park Service. Retrieved 2014-06-06.

Further reading

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Tremont Street Subway.
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