Adams Square

[GreenLinetoBrooklyn]

Try Googling "Abandoned Court Street station in Boston" for some interesting results, among them this photo:

http://transit.nerail.org/showpic/?2006 ... ING=boston

above by Paul Joyce (aka 3rd Rail) who's actually been there. Paul is the guy who could give you much better details.

Really cool that you can look up and see the old station. This would be somewhere a little down the blue line tracks and can't be seen without entering the tunnels?

[3rdrail]

Hi folks ! I have some problems with these photos. They're not Court Street Station. Court Street Station has large, bolted on both ends, connection bars on the roof which I don't see in these photos. If you look at my pictures (which I know is Court Street Station as the sign was/is still there), you'll see these bars. They act as a sort of "keystone" in keeping tension on the subway roof, holding it together. Also, Court Street is elevated above the level of Scollay (Govt. Center). You have to climb a set of old rotted, rickety stairs to get up there. (With a good chance of falling thirty feet onto an exposed live cable.) Clearly visible is the floor in these pics, complete with debris on it. What's a "Keep Right" sign doing in a subway tunnel reserved for trains or trolleys ? Also, the pic with what appears to have natural light coming in from the outside through the ceiling - nowhere in the Central Subway System does that happen that I'm aware of. We also have to keep in mind that although these photos appear to be taken in Boston, we don't know when they were taken, and thus could have been taken prior to Government Center Station. If I were tortured to come up with a location, I would say the abandoned Harvard Square tunnel leading to Eliot Shops and Harvard Stadium in the Cambridge Tunnel.

[jwhite07]

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hogie247/3004048983/

I think I've seen this photo, or one from the same location, before. I believe it's a piece of the old alignment towards Adams Square underneath City Hall. To be sure, though, has anyone tried contacting the poster of these photos and asking him/her?

[sery2831]

It is not over by Harvard, I have explored that fully. I am going to say it's part of the alignment that is under City Hall. The cinder block wall is probably the portion used for document storage at City Hall.

[Adams_Umass_Boston]

Well Paul I'm not so sure that it could be Harvard square. In one of the photos there is that distinctive over head box/guide/wire housing found through out the central subway.

For the help of the board I have lightened the back ground on these photos.

It looks like we are walking down the tunnel in these two photos

2.jpg

3.jpg

I am guessing this shot is at the opposite end?

1.jpg

I would guess that its connected to Adams Square too. since it looks like it was double tracked and the curves of the walls. ????

[3rdrail]

Yes - could be Adams Square vicinity. I just threw out the Cambridge Tunnel as a possibility, due to the fact that I have never visited it and I thought (from viewing photos) that there was a section which had natural light shining in. (Rob - The trolley wire wooden supports/guides were installed in rapid transit as well as trolley tunnels. They were used for work equipment which could come into stations after hours or if the third rail was down. So, although they're not there present day, it is possible to see a photo of a rapid transit station with overhead.) The curve would make sense for Adams Square.

[BigUglyCat]

...So I would guess that's indeed the old Adams Square connector segment underneath City Hall, with the ballast shoveled up against the wall. Was a double-track tunnel just like the current 1963 inbound tunnel, and that looks wide enough. Shocked it's still got lights and the overhead supports...that really is well-preserved.

That photo, or something extremely like it, with the whatever shoveled up against the wall, appears in a past issue of the BSRA's Rollsign. I'd have to dig through the archives, but I believe it was identified then as what F-line described.

[bigbronco85]

Years ago I saw a special on the Discovery Channel where a guy went down into a tunnel near City Hall and the "old Scollay Square" to work as an exterminator for a rat problem, and the tunnel they were in looked EXACTLY like this, it even had the pile of dirt up against one side like that.

[3rdrail]

Years ago I saw a special on the Discovery Channel where a guy went down into a tunnel near City Hall and the "old Scollay Square" to work as an exterminator for a rat problem, and the tunnel they were in looked EXACTLY like this, it even had the pile of dirt up against one side like that.

You might have hit the nail right on the head, there !

[MTD]

Perhaps this is the section of the old tunnel that they found they can access through the City Hall basement?

If it is, then the common info we all learned for many years that City Hall used this section of tunnel for record storage is either [1] an urban myth or [2] they stopped using this space as storage long before these photos were taken. Unless there's another abandoned section of tunnel that City Hall is indeed using, but not photographed.

My question though is in the first photo... where the sign says "Caution - keep back of white line on platform"... the photographer should pretty much be at the station location, assuming it is Adams Square station, but out of view from the left side of the photo?

[3rdrail]

Perhaps this is the section of the old tunnel that they found they can access through the City Hall basement?

If it is, then the common info we all learned for many years that City Hall used this section of tunnel for record storage is either [1] an urban myth or [2] they stopped using this space as storage long before these photos were taken. Unless there's another abandoned section of tunnel that City Hall is indeed using, but not photographed.



My question though is in the first photo... where the sign says "Caution - keep back of white line on platform"... the photographer should pretty much be at the station location, assuming it is Adams Square station, but out of view from the left side of the photo?

...Or, these photos were taken prior to storage by exterminators.

Yes. Those signs would only be for the public's benefit and would therefore only be located where the public was allowed and where there was a ROW. We are almost assuredly seeing the end of the Adams Square Loop, which was the only ROW to come into the public occupied station area. Originally, it was agreed that trolleys from the Lynn and Boston Street Railway Company would loop here. Adams Square Station was a good sized station. It's public concourse was about 100 feet long.(I think that the "Keep Right" sign may have been placed there by construction crews who had opened up a wall and were bringing in machinery and possibly trucks. They might not have wanted to disturb the unopened section as it may have been earmarked for future use.)

I am already picking out my front row seat when and if City Hall is moved to it's new location. Supposedly it's imminent. It should make for an interesting "archeological dig" !

[GreenLinetoBrooklyn]

...Or, these photos were taken prior to storage by exterminators.

The pictures are dated May 22, 2008. I don't know when these exterminators came, but from the context it seems like it was a while ago.

[3rdrail]

Yeah, looks like Kodak Tri-X film, which is rarely used nowadays. Probably our biggest clue is the fact that that "white line" sign is there, indicating a station. There's only six - Milk, State, Devonshire, Scollay, Adams, and Court. I know that it's not Court, I hope that it's not Scollay (Govt. Center) or Milk-State-Devonshire (State), so...

[GreenLinetoBrooklyn]

For what it is worth, these are the rest of the pictures taken on May 22, 2008 by this guy.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hogie247/a ... 008/05/22/

The first one is real interesting, with survival rations from 1963 being stored in what I assume is the same tunnel

[3rdrail]

Well, now - we seem to have another clue. That first pic is a color photo. It also looks like it has been altered to appear to have a black and white background. The 1963 date for the crackers would make them 45 years old in 2008. Yummy ! Could the rest of the pics be color shifted to B&W ? Still think that it's Adams Square Station and that these are old pics that someone found.