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When Sullivan Square station was elegant

Newsstand in the old Sullivan Square station

Sullivan Square didn't always feel like a depressing afterthought to the construction of an interstate in the middle of a horrible rotary. The original station, built at the turn of the last century, featured a soaring vaulted ceiling, elegant architectural touches - and tracks for trolleys. Remember trolleys? The only thing it didn't have was Donut and Donuts.

The Boston City Archives has a bunch of photos of the old station, back from when the Orange Line was mostly an el (the station lasted until 1975, replaced by the concrete thing under the Deck).

The inside looked more like the inside of a railroad station - compare to the inside of South Station (see it larger):

Inside the old Sullivan Square train station

The outside also looked more like a railroad station than what we think of subway stops today:

Outside the old Sullivan Square train station

Construction took place in 1900 and 1901:

Construction of the old Sullivan Square train station
Construction of the old Sullivan Square train station

Photos posted under this Creative Commons license.

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Comments

What happened to us as a society where we started accepting cheap and ugly as acceptable for public environments and infrastructure? It seems after the first and second world wars appearances and grandeur were thrown by the wayside.

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