Adams Square station

Adams Square was an underground streetcar station located at Adams Square in downtown Boston, Massachusetts. It opened in 1898 and was used until 1963.

Adams Square
Adams Square station in 1897
Coordinates42°21′36.65″N 71°3′25.99″W
Owned byMetropolitan Transit Authority
Line(s)Tremont Street subway
History
OpenedSeptember 3, 1898[1]
ClosedOctober 28, 1963[1]
Services
Preceding station Boston Elevated Railway Following station
Scollay Square
One-way operation
 Tremont Street subway Haymarket
toward North Station
Main Line Elevated
1901-1908
 Haymarket
toward Sullivan Square

History
The original headhouse in 1898
layout of Adams Square station

An unusual northbound-only station, Adams Square station was opened with the rest of the northern section of the Tremont Street subway on September 3, 1898. Initially designed for streetcars only, the station was retrofitted in 1901 to also handle Main Line Elevated trains, which ran through the subway until the completion of the Washington Street tunnel in 1908. Thereafter the station reverted to exclusive streetcar use.[1][2]

Scollay Square and Adams Square had similar baroque granite headhouses with four-sided clock towers designed by Charles Brigham. A small exit structure was located to the north, while the Brattle Loop used a separate entrance built into a building at Court Street and Brattle Street.[3] The headhouses of the Tremont Street subway were sharply criticized as "pretentiously monumental", with the Scollay Square headhouse compared to "an enlarged soda fountain".[4][5] Later stations on the East Boston Tunnel and Washington Street tunnel incorporated this criticism into their more modest headhouses.[4] In 1931, the headhouse was removed to improve visibility for automobile drivers and was replaced by a significantly smaller structure of modern design.[6][7] (Large headhouses at Scollay Square and Harvard were also torn down for similar reasons in that era.)[8]:32[9]

Adams Square was closed on October 28, 1963 as part of the Government Center renewal project, and was subsequently largely demolished and covered during the construction of Boston City Hall.[1][6]

References
  1. Belcher, Jonathan (19 March 2016). "Changes to Transit Service in the MBTA district 1964-2016" (PDF). NETransit. Retrieved 20 May 2016.
  2. Cudahy, Brian J. (2003). A Century of Subways: Celebrating 100 Years of New York's Underground Railways. New York: Fordham University Press. pp. 83, 90–91. ISBN 0-8232-2292-6.
  3. Boston Transit Commission (1898). Annual report of the Boston Transit Commission, for the year ending August 15, 1898 (Report). City of Boston. pp. 45–51 – via Internet Archive.
  4. Coburn, Frederick W. (November 1910). "Rapid Transit and Civic Beauty". New Boston. Vol. 1 no. 7. pp. 307–314 – via Google Books.
  5. Rettig, Polly M. (June 14, 1976). "National Register of Historic Places Inventory – Nomination From: Tremont Street Subway". National Park Service.
  6. Cheney, Frank; Sammarco, Anthony M. (1997). Trolleys Under the Hub. Charleston: Arcadia Publishing. pp. 27–28. ISBN 0-7524-0907-7.
  7. "Will Tear Down Adams-Sq. Station". Boston Daily Globe. July 30, 1931. p. 6 – via Newspapers.com.
  8. Cheney, Frank (2002). Boston's Red Line: Bridging the Charles from Alewife to Braintree. Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 9780738510477.
  9. "Common's Subway Forts May Yet Yield to Attack of Beauty Lovers". Boston Daily Globe. December 27, 1931. p. 26. ProQuest 758495656.

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