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By adamg - 7/18/12 - 6:09 pm

Mike Miccoli reported from Government Center at the height of one of the afternoon's storms:

Turnstiles at Govt Center aren't working. Of course, there are millions of tourists confused. Now I know what hell looks like.

Line to get into Govt Center is backed up into the rain. Of course, there's only one frantic employee trying to manually open each one.

Thankfully a true Bostonian used his hand to enter thru turnstile and let everyone in. MBTA worker not pleased, but hey, problem solved!

By adamg - 4/9/12 - 7:19 pm

Firefighters quickly knocked down a fire in an escalator at the Government Center T stop shortly after 7 p.m., but heavy smoke forced them to evacuate everybody from the station and ask the MBTA to have Green Line trolleys bypass the stop until the smoke could be cleared.

By adamg - 2/24/12 - 10:42 am

Firefighters outside DA's office. Photo by Jake Wark.

An envelope containing "a suspicious material" forced the evacuation of three floors of the Suffolk County District Attorney's office in Government Center this morning, in a replay of a similar scare at the Israeli consulate last month.

By adamg - 11/21/11 - 7:21 pm

Orange Bird tweets:

Nothing perks up a bad day like hearing the Sammy Davis Jr. doppelganger at Gov Center sing "Candyman"

By adamg - 11/1/11 - 9:10 am

UPDATE: The all clear was given not long after State Police arrived.

State Police, bomb squad on scene at the courthouse behind Center Plaza, after a bomb threat was called in.

By adamg - 6/18/11 - 12:05 pm

Biggest victory parade ever? That's what BPD is saying. Sure felt like it at Government Center, where a sea of jumping, chanting, happy people waited in the melting sun for the Bruins and the Cup - and then exploded into a chant of "We got the Cup!" when they arrived in a cloud of black and gold confetti.

Photos from the parade.

By adamg - 4/29/11 - 8:04 am
Crashed trolley

The Salem News reports on the suit filed yesterday by Samantha Mattei, who suffered a broken back and a concussion when Quinn he crashed his Green Line trolley into a stopped trolley because he was too busy texting to notice it.

Mattei filed her suit the same day the National Transportation Safety Board released its final report on the 2009 crash, basically concluding that texting trolley driver was texting. However, the board also said the accident could have been avoided if the T had an automated system to stop trolleys that go through red signals, like the ones in place on the T's other lines.

In the aftermath of the crash, which did an estimated $10 million in damage, the T banned cell-phone use by train drivers and other employees.

By adamg - 4/7/11 - 7:39 am

The Herald reports MBTA officials figure a full shutdown would let them rehab the station in less time and wouldn't drag on forever and ever like certain other T-stop projects one could think of.

By adamg - 3/7/11 - 4:29 pm

Boston firefighters are at Government Center dealing with a trash fire on the Blue Line tracks. Expect delays, traffic problems by the station.

At least one train is stuck in a tunnel because of the power shutdown required to let firefighters on the tracks.

By adamg - 1/19/11 - 7:03 am

Utile posts an image from a 1959 plan for a Scollay Square replacement that would have started pretty much at Old City Hall and which would have involved a series of low-slung buildings:

In spatial design, as well as building massing, and no less in spatial and massing composition we were very mindful of weaving into the existing social and physical texture of this part of Boston.

Via Boston Reddit.

By adamg - 12/30/10 - 10:38 am

The T forwards a report from one of its workers on an incident around 2:50 p.m. yesterday on the Green Line platform at Government Center:

A 14 yr old male was walking while on his cell phone and he walked right into one of the columns that holds the ceiling up. He is bleeding from his face and is requesting medical at this time. Boston H&H dispatched, Transit Police dispatched.

Kid was taken to Tufts Medical Center with a small laceration on his forehead.

The pillar he walked into:

By adamg - 12/3/10 - 6:34 am

The city hosts a symposium on greening Government Center on Thurs., Dec. 9 in the Rabb Lecture Hall at the BPL in Copley Square. Starts at 4 p.m.

By adamg - 11/10/10 - 2:07 pm
The trolley hit by train operated by Aiden Quinn. Photo by NTSB

The trolley hit by train operated by Aiden Quinn. Photo by NTSB.

Operators of three of the four trolleys involved in a major trolley smashup just past Government Center on May 8, 2009, described chaos and panic among passengers in the moments after the collision, in interview transcripts released today by the National Transportation Safety Board.

By JohnAKeith - 10/30/10 - 11:43 am

That Google Maps has Boston City Hall Plaza tagged as a "park" is a bit sad, no?

IMAGE(http://johnakeithrealestate.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Screen-shot-2010-10-30-at-11.23.11-AM.png)

(However, they get points for still including Cornhill Street on their maps considering it doesn't really exist and hasn't for, say, 64 years.)

By adamg - 10/14/10 - 8:59 am

It's a-busing we go between Kenmore and downtown stations as the Green Line sits moldering underground due to the ever popular signal problems.

Robinite took this photo from one of the emergency shuttle buses at Kenmore. Notice how almost nobody's smiling? Notice how her bus isn't moving?

By adamg - 10/6/10 - 7:27 am

Always ready to assume the worst, Herald readers are busy contemplating the downside of the glass entrances the T wants to build as part of a Government Center upgrade, because, as writer Richard Weir helpfully explains, they could "explode into flying shards of lethal shrapnel should a bomb ever be detonated there." Except the T says they couldn't because they'll use safety glass (and good luck getting that song out of your head; you're

By adamg - 7/8/10 - 8:19 am

Fabulously Out There just doesn't get the Government Center T stop:

By adamg - 3/18/10 - 9:38 am

So don't even think of not filling your census form out.

Giant Inflatable Census Form

Hat tip to Dan Wilets for reminding me to post this photo.

By adamg - 1/13/10 - 11:17 pm

The Globe reports the developer who wants to replace the Government Center garage with $2.2 billion worth of skyscrapery goodness is replacing the current project manager with Tom O'Brien, former director of the BRA. Given the economy, though, they don't plan to build upwards right now.

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