Our very own mystery spot
That would be the entrance to the Porter Square T stop. Brendan Cavalier marvels - and wonders:
Saturday morning I was walking through the Porter Square T-Station and had to work my way through a crowd of Asian tourists. I had never seen a tour group in out-of-the-way Porter before, so I stopped to try and figure out what was going on. The entire group was standing at the top of the escalators and the tour guide was talking and gesturing towards the escalators (in a language I didn't understand).
I assumed she was taking her group on the subway and was explaining how to get through the turnstiles, pay, etc. But then she finished talking and the group turned and left. While all this was very strange, it got weirder when one woman turned and took a picture of the escalators.
What is so siginificant about the street-entrance to Porter Sqaure station that an entire tour group would stop there and take photos?!
Longest Escalator in Boston?
Isn't Porter Square the deepest station on the Red Line? It feels like you're going down into a Moscow Metro station. Maybe that's why they were there.
If that's what my tour guide took me to see
I'd ask for my money back.
Deepest station in Boston, I
Deepest station in Boston, I think. But you'd think that a tour group would actually go *down* so that they can actually see that, instead of just taking pictures from outside the turnstiles.
Yep
From the MBTA via a 2006 article in the Globe:
So, I guess it has some geological interest for why it's the deepest as well.
Platforms at Harvard and Porter
It's been a while since I've been on the red line up in Cambridge, so hopefully I've got this right. I remember thinking it was odd that the outbound trains are above the inbound trains at Harvard, but below the inbound trains at Porter. I have always assumed that they did that so the inbound trains wouldn't have to climb up too steep a grade on the way from Porter to Harvard, but I don't know for sure. Does anyone here know?
ding!
It's one of the longest/deepest escalators around, yes...and it also killed someone:
boston.com...strangled_after_clothing_snags_in_mbta_escalator/
Porter Square Curse?
One death on a vertigo-inducing drop in 21 years ... somebody call CHB!
Asian tourists in Porter Square
might be there because of the Asian mini-mall and food court at Lesley's Porter Exchange buildilng. However, I can't explain why they'd be acting this way in the T station.
(By the way, Adam, when I follow your link, I can't find this blog post.)
No blog post this time
It was an exclusive-to-UH eyewitness account :-).
The escalator was probably
The escalator was probably made in China. When the war starts, all the escalators in the country will shut down, and lazy fat-assed Americans will be trapped below ground, unable to claim the stairs.
Porter Square's a work of art
Between the hanging train/bird images and bronzed gloves, it's visually incredible.
Plus, perhaps particularly so to Asian art kids due to the aboveground work of two Japanese artists: Susumu Shingu's windmill statue and Toshihiro Katayama's black/white striped sidewalks and barriers (he's a former professor of mine).
(Formerly) The Longest Just About Anywhere
Only the 1977 Rosslyn station on the DC Metro had a longer escalator when Porter was built. Now Rosslyn is outdone massively by Wheaton, as well as some rebuilt/newer stations in London and the newer Moscow and St. Petersburg subways.
There are deeper stations - like the 97meter deep MAX system's Zoo Station in Portland - but that one uses superduper elevators.
DC Metro
Wheaton has the longest escalator in the Western Hemisphere. Takes more than 2 minutes to ride (2:15, if I remember my timing of it). The next station, Forest Glen, is deeper, and is only accessible by elevator.
Also, there were a lot of
Also, there were a lot of deaths completing the station - all the bronzed gloves are memorials for the men killed finishing the station.
Heat getting to you?
The deal with the gloves.
Mags Harries
The artist is Mags Harries, one of my favorites, and responsible for a number of other public art displays in Boston.
Another on the T, which I believe is no longer extant, was one pole on a Red Line train. It had a huge hand-shaped indentation in it, as though the rider gripping it had been The Incredible Hulk.
It was a piece of art that came to you, rather than you going to it. Very serendipitous.
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
Gloves
I had always heard that the gloves came from the T's own lost and found. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find anything to confirm that. Although the attached article mentions lost gloves being the inspiration.
http://www.accessmylibrary.com/coms2/summary_0286-5452225_ITM
My goodness..
Those gloves aren't in memoriam to workers killed building the Red Line Extension. I mean, there are hundreds of them. The Hoosac Tunnel had fewer deaths than those gloves would imply, if that were the case. Which it isn't.
There is a plaque next to
There is a plaque next to the charlie gates (to the right near the charlie trash bin) that states that only one person died and the station is dedicated to him. I wish there were some pictures of the excavation/construction effort, I bet it was an interesting feat of construction (and unfortunately probably the last ambitious construction effort the fair commonwealth will see for a while yet).
Yeah...
I can't think of a single other interesting feat of construction that was extremely ambitious to come after Porter Square (and also kill people in the process). Nope, not a one.
:) Sorry for the snark...but, geez...heh.