Tremont Street Subway

Tremont Street Subway
National Register of Historic Places
National Historic Landmark
	A flyover in the now unused southern part of the tunnel with a rise to Pleasant Street .
location	Boston , Massachusetts
Coordinates	42 ° 21 '23 " N , 71 ° 3' 47" W Coordinates: 42 ° 21 '23 " N , 71 ° 3' 47" W
Built	1897
architect	Howard A. Carson
Architectural style	Revolutionary architecture
NRHP number	[1] 66000788
Data
The NRHP added	October 15, 1966
Declared as an NHL	January 29, 1964

The expansion of the Tremont Street Subway over time

The Tremont Street Subway is a tunnel in the subway system in Boston in the state of Massachusetts in the United States . It went into operation on September 1, 1897, making it the oldest subway tunnel in North America . Originally, the tunnel was built to separate the trams from above-ground traffic, but not to create a subway. Today the structure is the central part of the Boston Green Line and connects the Boylston , Park Street and Government Center stations .

Initially, the tunnel served stations on Boylston and Park Street, as well as Scollay Square and Adams Square . However, when the Government Center and Boston City Hall stations went into operation in 1963, the Adams Square station was closed and the Scollay Square station was completely renovated and rebuilt. At the same time, the north tunnel was relocated in the direction of Haymarket , but the original south tunnel was retained. Today, the Tremont Street Subway is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a National Historic Landmark .

Closure of the southern section of the tunnel

In its original state in 1897, the tunnel consisted of a main tube below Tremont Street , which ended at Park Street and had a fork to the south. The west-facing branch is still in use today and runs under Boylston Street towards Back Bay . The other tube continued below Tremont Street and rose to the surface via the Pleasant Street Incline (right in the photo shown). Through this section, streetcar lines ran southwest towards Egleston station on Tremont Street and southwest towards South Boston on Broadway. Although the tram lines were closed in 1961, the tunnel section still exists today.

Entrances

The original entrances were in the Boston Public Garden at North Station and on Pleasant Street. The other entrances at Copley Square and east of Kenmore Square were closed as the route expanded.

Power supply

From the beginning, the Boston subway used electrically operated trams with overhead lines , which was made possible by the invention of the pantograph in 1880 by Frank J. Sprague . A contemporary system is used today.

Property rights

The original owner of the tunnel was the private West End Street Railway and later the Boston Elevated Railway . In 1947 the tunnel became publicly owned by the Metropolitan Transit Authority, which was later re-established as what is now the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority .

Web links

Noah Bierman: Transit archeology. Tour of abandoned subway network offers a glimpse of how the T was built. In: Boston Globe . December 26, 2009, accessed on February 6, 2012 (English, including video).
Scott Moore: 100 Years of the Tremont Street Subway. Archived from the original on January 27, 2007 ; accessed on February 6, 2012 .
Description and picture gallery of the Tremont Street Subway
Photos and discussions
More photos

Individual evidence

^ National Register Information System . In: National Register of Historic Places . National Park Service . Retrieved January 23, 2007.
↑ Listing of National Historic Landmarks by State: Massachusetts. National Park Service , accessed August 13, 2019.
^ First Car off the Earth. Allston Electric goes into the Subway on Schedule Time. In: Boston Globe . September 1, 1897, archived from the original on August 29, 2005 ; accessed on February 6, 2012 .
^ Boston Transit Milestones. In: MIT . 2002, archived from the original on December 26, 2007 ; accessed on February 6, 2012 .

[nris-1] National Register Information System . In: National Register of Historic Places . National Park Service . Retrieved January 23, 2007.

[2] Listing of National Historic Landmarks by State: Massachusetts. National Park Service , accessed August 13, 2019.

[3] First Car off the Earth. Allston Electric goes into the Subway on Schedule Time. In: Boston Globe . September 1, 1897, archived from the original on August 29, 2005 ; accessed on February 6, 2012 .

[4] Boston Transit Milestones. In: MIT . 2002, archived from the original on December 26, 2007 ; accessed on February 6, 2012 .