Construction at South Station Interesting Find

I almost fell to the ground when i was in S Sta last week. It's actually looking better but their is a long time to go before they have it done. While on the platform waiting for a train to go into town i saw that while taking off the old tiles or w/e on the walls that their seems to be a "Boston Under" sign on it. Anyone else see this? Link below is of the photo i found online of it. Also is the silver line open in that section yet?

http://narrow.parovoz.com/us/mbta_curio ... under2.jpg

Yeah, I noticed that when I went to check out the new Silver Line on Saturday. Cool stuff. Also, they're starting to take the tiles off the walls on the Blue Line inbound platform at State, although there's really no history showing through there yet -- just a bunch of old cement.

The sign says "SOUTH STATION UNDER".

When they first put it up, they meant that this was the subway station, as opposed to the elevated South Station on the Atlantic Avenue El. Now that the Silver Line has been inserted above the Red Line, the name makes sense once again.

The Silverline is now open for service in south station. It was all over the news and papers.

Yes, the name make sense again but they aren't using it. It would nice if they did (add some character to the Downtown stations) but as we know, the MBTA almost always makes sure there is no history shown in the system - unless it's one of the delapilated stations that they tend to forget to maintain....

It's too bad the sign is in such bad shape. The T did manage to save the signs in Harvard and Central...

Is it possible to fix?

GP40MC 1116 wrote:Is it possible to fix?

Probably, with the right application of dollars. Of course, its also not the right color, so it'll probably have to go...

The single mosaic at the north end of the platform on the inbound side of Broadway Station also isn't the "right" color (it's green), but it was saved and renovated, and it's still there.

And back around 1990-1991 when Andrew Station was being renovated, I actually talked to Peter McNulty, who was the T's Director of Construction at the time, about saving a mosaic or two at Andrew (they were yellow, by the way). We got as far as having the work crews put a piece of plywood marked "SAVE" over one sign on each side, and McNulty was going over the requirements for a change-order to the design. Then McNulty left the MBTA, I got too busy with college to give the idea much more attention, and as you can see the mosaics weren't saved (although I'm sure they're still there, behind the new wall tiles). I did end up getting a rather large and heavy book of blueprints from the station renovation project as a consolation prize.

Until the MTA/MBTA started getting updated and upgraded, there were other little idosyncracies in the transit system. What is the Red Line level today at Park Street was PARK STREET UNDER. That's probably been covered over too. The four original downtown stops in the Washington Street Tunnel (Orange Line) had different station names for the north and southbound sides of the same stations and the two lines that crossed that line (what are now the Blue and Red Lines) had another name for their stations at the same locations.

Generally each line's station was named for a cross street. Street names changed on either side of Washington Street, thus the different names for northbound and southbound Orange Line stops:

Currently: Haymarket
Formerly:
Orange Line northbound: Union
Orange Line southbound: Friend
Green Line: Haymarket

Currently: State
Formerly:
Orange Line northbound: State
Orange Line southbound: Milk
Blue Line: Devonshire

Currently: Downtown Crossing
Formerly:
Orange Line northbound: Summer
Orange Line southbound: Winter
Red Line: Washington
(between the mid-1960s and late 1980s, the whole station was called Washington)

Currently: Chinatown
Formerly:
Orange Line northbound: Essex
Orange Line southbound: Boylston
(which had no connection to the Green Line station
also called Boylston, a block to the west)
(between the mid-1960s and late 1980s, the whole station was called Essex)

Currently: Government Center
Formerly:
Green Line: Scollay Square
Blue Line: Scollay Under

Ooh, let's rename Haymarket to Friend/Haymarket. That just sounds better!!!

Note to ST214. It should be Friend-Union-Haymarket.