Pair of architects have tunnel vision
By adamg - 12/20/11 - 9:48 pm
The Metro reports on a couple of local architects who think abandoned MBTA tunnels would make fascinating venues for art exhibits and plays.
Ed. question: Besides the that track you can see as you take the Green Line from Boylston to Arlington - what other abandoned T tunnels are there?
Comments
http://www.abandonedsubwaytun
http://www.abandonedsubwaytunnels.com/subwaysite/subway_home.html
apparently...
http://bostinno.com/2011/12/14/13-secrets-from-an-mbta-engineer/
How about putting those
How about putting those tunnels back to use for a green line extension to South Station and beyond using the existing Silver Line bus tunnels & the trolley tunnel on top of the Red Line heading to Broadway. Reopening the Pleasant Street incline to turn the Silver Line on Washington to Dudley into light rail, with an extension down Blue Hill Avenue all the way to Mattapan would be great too. Those tunnels are too valuable for future transit needs to be turned into some silly art gallery!
The Chinatown neighborhood
The Chinatown neighborhood will never go for converting the Eliot Norton Park back to a tunnel entrance.
Th Broadway trolley tunnel ends on the surface at Foundry St, across from the Red Line yard on the surface and deadends under Dot Ave @ A St., doesn't really connect to anything and didn't serve much function when it was built (only opened for two years). When Broadway station was rebuilt in the 1980s, the new elevator shaft and part of the relocated fare collection area was built in part of the northbound abandoned trolley tunnel. The southbound tunnel is intact, but a one way tunnel wouldn't do you much good.
Lots of sites with lists and pictures.
There's a long tradition of urban exploration (aka "vadding" by old timers) in the Boston metro. The T has always attracted people who love this sort of adventure - compared to some similar local destinations, the T tunnels are safe and comfortable.
Here's a site with lots of good pictures.
Here's a fun article and short video tour from the Glob.
And here's a fairly exhaustive (but no longer maintained) list of a couple dozen abandoned/sealed stations/tunnels/passageways (long!)
One of the locations
One of the locations mentioned on the NE Transit list (the Brattle Loop) will now be visible to passengers effective with the new Winter 2012 timetable. There will once again be a scheduled Lechmere-Government Center shuttle, which will turn via the loop. Granted, you can presently just peak around the wall by the hot dog guy, but it will be nice to be able to ride through it again.
There is a access point in
There is a access point in Southie at street level near that fairly new green condo building. Not the color, but the environment :) It is on the same street as that welding supply shop near the Red Line yard. Not sure where it leads, I assume the Red Line.
That's the Broadway trolley
That's the Broadway trolley tunnel, only used for two years from 1917 to 1919. Its on top of the Red Line tunnel, and only goes a few blocks down Dorchester Ave. The portal on the other end was sealed in the 1940s. The MBTA has used it for records storage in the past and is talking about using it as some sort of security training center.
Tunnel Dwellers
I saw an interesting documentary a while ago about the tunnel dwellers of New York. They seem to be somewhat of a breed apart from other homeless people in new York. I wonder if there is anything like this going on in the T's abandoned tunnels?
Abandoned Red Line tunnel in Harvard Square
There's a short section of abandoned Red Line tunnel under Brattle and Eliot streets. This section was no longer used after about 1983 when the Red Line was realigned to point north towards Porter Square.
The abandoned tunnel at
The abandoned tunnel at Harvard is very wide, it had three tracks that were used by Red Line trains changing ends. There is no longer any practical transportation use as it deadends at one end at the building foundation for the JFK school of government (built on the site of the old Red Line yard and shops) and it deadends on the other end at a ventilation fan room. Beyond the fan room is th present day fare collection mezzanine for Harvard Station. The space where the present day elevator and the Dunkin Donuts are was were the trackway and tunnel connecting the abandoned tunnel section to the active tunnel used to be. When the Red Line was relocated in 1983, the then new Harvard station could only be accessed from the Church St. entrance for a couple years while the original tunnel heading toward Brattle was demolished to build the present day large large mezzanine and the infamous pit on the surface.
The track you see at Boylston
The track you see at Boylston is the part of the Tremont St. tunnel that lead to the Pleasant St incline, it is not the incline itself. That was sealed around 1975, abandoned in 1962. The park next to the closed Church of All Nations is the location of the incline.
The incline you see beteen Boylston and Arlington is the Boylston St. incline, that's where Huntington Ave trolleys left the subway until the Huntington Ave subway (the tunnel from Copley to the Northeastern incline) was opened in 1941.
Wikipedia is informative on occasion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleasant_Street_Incline
Nice map referenced in the article.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tremont_Street_Subway.jpg
The clock seems to stop in
The clock seems to stop in 1959 for the wiki map, as it does not show the 1963 relocation of the northbound subway between Government Center and Haymarket and the 2004/2005 new tunnel from North Station to Science Park that replaced the el in that section.
Foundry street
I think there's one over on foundry St. in Southie, to the east of the Red Line yard, near the W. Broadway bridge. It's gated up, and the tracks to the yard aren't there anymore.
Not sure on it's story.
Edit: See it was already answered above.
Question
Any long abandoned underground platforms/stations?
Always see that type of stuff in the movies and apparently NYC has some. How about Boston?
Not much of a platform, and not underground, but it is abandoned
On Spring Street in West Roxbury, between the Spring Street Cafe and this hair salon, is a parking lot. It's where trolleys used to turn around for the run back to Forest Hills (and now buses use it for the same thing). There's still a small concrete platform from which passengers would board a trolley.
OK, it's pretty sad, but still ...
There are also the abandoned entrances/exits to what's now the Chinatown Orange Line stop on Washington Street (hmm, wonder if they'll survive the new building going in there?) and the one around the corner from them on Essex Street (which is what the station used to be called).
And if you stand across the
And if you stand across the street and look through the metalwork atop that Washington Street entrance -- http://g.co/maps/fnmkk -- you'll see "ESSEX" spelled out in tile.
Is this the old turnaround
Is this the old turnaround loop?
http://binged.it/v6G0bd
Where is the former platform?
That indeed is it
In the parking lot, on the "lower" side near the entrance, there's a car parked behind some beige-y thing. That's the platform. See, I told you - pretty sad :-). Until relatively recently, there was also an old pole for the overhead wires on Spring Street in front of the cafe (given how long those things last, I bet our great-great-great-grandchildren will still be seeing them on Centre Street in JP).
One kinda bizarre trolley thing from this past summer, which I wish I had stopped to take a photo of: National Grid or Nstar was digging up Cummins Highway south of Roslindale Square, and you could see the trolley tracks now buried a few feet down (they didn't seem to be removing them, either, just working around them).
Where's the abandoned entrance on Essex Street?
I know about one on LaGrange street, next to Centerfolds, but didn't know about Essex. Where is it?
Maybe Adam means the one on
Maybe Adam means the one on Hayward Place?
http://g.co/maps/jp2r5
Or maybe these doors, which are on Essex Street --
http://g.co/maps/rpc5u
Harvard
You can still see the old Harvard platforms when you are entering the station going outbound, and leaving going inbound. You have to squint, and hope that the lights from the train catch the tile, but they're there. It's easier to see the one on the inbound side - you can definitely make out an old wooden staircase, which I doubt to be the original staircase but put there perhaps for emergency access.
On the outbound side, once the tracks for the inbound side go out of view, start looking towards the right. Once the train starts turning is right around where the old platform is. Taking the last car makes it easier to see, as you get more lights at the end of the train.
It's pretty neat. I know it's not Boston related, but there is a huge amount of info on abandoned London tube stations. One of my favorite sites is http://www.abandonedstations.org.uk/, as it's still maintained.
One of those is the temporary 'Harvard-Holyoke' station platform
which was used for a few years in the early 1980s, replacing the old Harvard station while it was torn up for the Red Line extension.
Ah, thanks!
I was unaware of that. Do you know which one?
The platform to the right
The platform to the right heading south and to the left heading north is the temporary Harvard/Holyoke from the early 1980s, the platforms to the left heading south and the right heading north is the orignal 1912 platform. Only a sliver of the 1912 platform remains, as most of it was demolished to allow the construction of the existing track alignment. All of the Harvard-Holyoke platform space remains, but much of it was converted to utility space (room for electrical equipment, signal equipment etc).
Its Sad..
Its sad. Unlike NYC, Boston really doesn't have any usable tunnels for any other purpose than to be re-used as transit lines. Unlike "The Tunnel" -- a nightclub in the Chelsea (?) section of NYC, which was a nightclub underground formed out of an abandoned tunnel section. The nightclub has since closed due to it just being a death trap (improper egress) and inadequate ventilation (people used to pass out on the dance floor because it would get so hot). It's too bad, it was a really fun club (I went twice!)
I really just can't see any abandoned tunnel that the T has to be used much more than just a 'tourist' attraction to take tours of. And even that's a stretch. The problem being is the location, how'd you get there, and what you'd see. (not much). Its just that many of the old "trolley" tunnels (i.e. Pleasant Street & Broadway) are just too narrow for any real purpose out side of a walking tour.
The only one that would be a great space would be the former Red Line tunnel near Harvard Square, but again, the issue being having proper egress, and ventilation (much like The Tunnel in NYC), and then, of course, every lawyer's favorite word, Liability! (which, outside of 9/11 issues, is why the T seldom does tours of these tunnels and when they do it takes an act of god to get on them.). It's sad, but in today's world of lawyers and 9/11, it just takes the fun out of everything!
And as far as the old Harvard station (the pre 1983 station & the 1983-1985 station), if my memory serves me correctly, the pre 1983 station is almost gone, since the new tunnels to Alewife cut thru the northbound side platform (and I believe you just can't get there anymore since its been sealed off and can only be seen from the southbound 1983-1985 platform), and the southbound side was cut in two in order to create the new post 1985 station. (I think... someone correct me if I am wrong).
The 1983-1985 station (southbound side) is still intact (see link below) but its far too narrow and next to the still in use red line tracks (big liability!) to be useful for anything else. And the northbound side was chopped up to create the new lobby for the post 1985 station. I may have my facts confused but it was something like that.. ;)
Here's some pictures, courtesy of railroad.net's John Arico of all the neat stuff lurking behind the walls at Harvard Station. These are some of the best pictures I've ever seen of this stuff! (thanks John!)
http://sery2831.smugmug.com/Trains/Harvard-Station-and-yard-leads/2771265_WMCV9C#147510374_pD9P9
A few more abandoned tunnels
As someone who actually did take a pretty cool tour of most of the abandoned tunnels back in 1977 (sponsored by the Boston Street Railway Association), let me add a few more:
* the old loop at Maverick on the Blue line-- prior to the 1950's, when what is now the Blue line terminated at Maverick, streetcars from East Boston and the surrounding area used to enter an incline at Maverick (which was created when the tunnel was first built as a trolley tunnel to Boston) and loop underground; that was abandoned when the line was extended to Wonderland
* the roof and walls of the old Court St. station on the Blue Line-- when the trolley tunnel, now the Blue line, was first built, it terminated at this station, right next to the current Government Center. When this tunnel was extended a few years later to Bowdoin, the new, deeper tunnel extension eliminated the floor of the station, but supposedly much of the ceiling and walls of the old station are still above the Blue line tunnel
* the short stretch of tunnel between the Blue line Bowdoin loop and the old incline on Cambridge St.-- this inclined was sealed I think in the late 1950's, and the short tunnel stub is used to store extra Blue line cars. When this incline was originally built, it allowed streetcars to go from Cambridge thru the current Blue line tunnel directly to East Boston; when the tunnel was converted in 1924 to rapid transit use, this small stretch and inclide was used at night occasionaly to shuttle the old transit cars to the Eliot St. repair yards in Cambridge, via a connection with the Red line tracks directly on the Longfellow bridge
* the old Green line northbound loop from Government Center to Haymarket-- the northbound Green line used to have a sharp turn at Government Center that led to the Adams Sq. stop, before rejoining the present tunnel at Haymarket. Most of this tunnel was destroyed with the building of Boston City Hall, but part of the walls survive as part of City Hall's garage
* and finally, while technically never part of the Boston El system, there is the old narrow gauge train tunnel in East Boston that is still there, just sealed up, in the Jeffries Point area; this was abandoned in 1941, when the trains from Lynn/Winthrop to a ferry on the East Boston waterfront was abandoned.