Melissa Obleada shows us part of the mural being painted on the barriers around the Government Center T-station construction site.
Anybody know who's doing the painting?
UPDATE: It's the same guys who did the Nelson Mandela mural in Roxbury, working with Heidi Schork and the Boston Mural crew (H/t Joyce).
DD808 shows us the above-ground progress on rebuilding the Government Center T stop.
The Blue Line is currently experiencing "severe delays" due to "a signal problem at Orient Heights."
Passengers allowed back in as cops got ready to leave. Photo by Mary C. Stevens.
A suspicious package at Airport on the Blue Line around 8:50 a.m. quickly brought the bomb squad and officers with high-powered weapons and dogs to the station.
Passengers were evacuated from the station and train service was halted.
Around 9:06 a.m., the package was declared not suspicious. A couple minutes later, riders were allowed back into the station and service resumed.
Kevin Franck photographed the scene on his way out:
Wire troubles on the Blue Line mean buses instead of subways between Orient Heights and Wonderland this morning.
Firefighters battling a brush fire off Bennington Street south of Orient Heights asked the T to shut down the Blue Line around 8:20 p.m., because the fire is close enough to the tracks they did not want to have to worry about what might happen should their streams of water hit the overhead electrical lines.
A guy charged with nearly disemboweling a man and slicing up a woman after an argument at the Wonderland Blue Line stop was ordered held in lieu of $100,000 at his arraignment yesterday in a Whidden Hospital room - where he is now being treated for his own chest pains - the Sufffolk County District Attorney's office reports.
Police say a man stabbed two people at the Wonderland Blue Line station around 9:30 p.m., then hopped on a Blue Line train. He only got as far as the next stop - Revere Beach - because police had the train stopped there until they could arrive to arrest him.
Transit Police report he stabbed a man and a woman. Both were taken to Mass. General - the man with life-threatening injuries and the woman with less serious wounds.
the closure of Government Center station such a secret from the passengers? As I first mentioned some weeks ago (in a reply to another post), announcements about the closure, save for an occasional Green Line operator, are almost non existent. Further, only a handful of the line maps I've observed on Green Line streetcars have not yet been modified with the temporary "CLOSED" stickers over the Government Center stop.
But earlier, I received the ultimate proof of the MBTA's campaign to keep unwary tourists and other non-everyday users of the system in the dark about the Government Center closure. Witness this alert:
Concrete Plaza has daily views of the work to replace the old Government Center T stop, from somebody who works across the street.
Standing at Aquarium, Matt Lowe shows us what happens when a train dies on the Blue Line, in this case around 8 p.m. outbound.
The MBTA reports workers gutting Government Center for its two-year renovation have uncovered yet another tiled sign from back in the days when the stop was known as Scollay Square, back when Boston still had a Scollay Square.
A.P. Blake reminds us that on this day in 1924, the predecessor of the MBTA shut the trolley line between downtown and East Boston for 50 hours to convert it into what we now know as the Blue Line.
The Boston Street Railway Association posted this photo of one of the old trolleys at Devonshire (late renamed State).
Rachel Paiste asks:
Why are the escalators at Government Center constantly running when the station is closed? Seems like a waste of energy & $$
The T forwards this photo of the spot on the Government Center Green Line platform where the Dunkin' Donuts used to be as workers continue to tear apart the station as part of a two-year overhaul.
Also, the T reports workers uncovered another 100-year-old tile Scollay Under sign on one of the Blue Line platforms:
The goal is to keep it in place, and build the new stairs around it.
Ari floats the idea of a short elevated atop Cambridge Street to complete the fabled Red/Blue connector - an idea currently gathering dust on some state shelf due to its cost.
Late night at Park Street. Photo by MBTA.
Walkingbostonian reports on the first night of extra weekend service on the T:
B train totally crushed, busier than rush hour, after 2 am, and we had to leave many people behind on all the platforms.
ElmerCat also rode the early-morning rails:
Oh, they've been working on the railroad. Photo by MBTA. See it larger.
As noted earlier, some people left notes on the walls of the Government Center T stop in the hours before it was shut for two years of reconstruction.
Via the MBTA comes this ode, found penned on one of the walls:
Dear Government Center,
The current Government Center bunker, um, T stop went up in the early 1960s as part of the transformation of Scollay Square into Government Center.
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