BOSTON – In the midst of a multi-million dollar station renovation, MBTA workers have discovered a historic subway sign beneath the streets of Boston, WCVB-TV reports. MBTA is rebuilding the Government Center stop, the interchange between the Blue and Green lines, and last week during the initial teardown workers discovered mosaic sign announcing the station’s original name, “Scollay Under.”
The maroon and white sign was discovered along the Blue Line platform and the transit agency plans to keep the relic in place and build around it. Another is already displayed near the Green Line platform.
The renovations to the station will include raising the platforms, adding elevators to make the station wheelchair accessible and the construction of a four-story glass headhouse that will welcome passengers when it reopens in the spring of 2016.
The project is expected to cost $82 million.
To go along with Park Street Under (downstairs for the current Red Line) and South Station Under (not a reference to the suburban train loop tracks that gave way for a bowling alley.)
Vote for George o Reilly, he'll get Charlie off the mta!
I found pictures by going through MBTA.com. Under the "news and events" heading, open the entry for April 8. If you follow the WCVB.com link from inside the story, you are taken to a slideshow of the Gov't Center station renovation.
There are only 3 or 4 pictures of the mosaic sign that has been surrounded by concrete. The sign has only a thin border of the original tile wall around it. None of the photos are closeups of the original tile workmanship.
I can understand why Trains didn't post a picture: none of them are "quality" photographs.
Vote for George o Reilly, he'll get Charlie off the mat!
Gee, I wish I knew what you were all talking about. Oh, wait, no picture. Nice.
When I lived in boston I recall seeing the scollay under signs when departing govt. ctr on the blue line all the time. One just has to look out the windows right after leaving or right before entering the station.
We are talking about lowering the tracks only 8 inches. The loop track was rebuilt already and it looked like there was a lot of ballast under that track.
Kenmore was done the same way even though there is nothing underneath. The BC line is actually built on deep fill because the intent was to convert that track to high-platform heavy rail. Lowering that track would have been very easy.
Appropriate sign…back in the bad old days of Prohibition, Scollay Square was a big playground for the underworld.
"Mists" huh? Perhaps the station name should be "Play Misty For Me…?"
I think "midst" is the intended word.. Oh Well…:>)
Raising platforms is the most cost effective method. Lowering tracks involves far more excavating than just in the area of the platform. It also involves modifying drainage, which isn't an easy thing to do and usually introduces many unforeseen complications.
Never understood why they just don't lower the tracks instead of raising the entire station platform. Wouldn't that save a lot of money?
George, by bringing up a song title, and with, in the story, the phrase "beneath the streets of Boston,"
triggered a bright, searing, huge, FLASH-back….
a couple of guitars and a banjo, 3 college students from Stanford dressed in the style of the rest of the students,
close harmony, brisk rhythm, it's folk music, folks…
"she goes down to that Scollay Square Station"
"hands him a sandwich as the train goes rumbling through"
"Will he ever return?"
"He's the man who never returned."
The Trio's spirits are swilling "Scotch and Soda" while haunting the "Tijuana Jail."
I've thought it was spelled "scully"
But then my second-hand RR-grade watch, a 1921 Waltham ( commonly pronounced wall'-thum)
Uninformed, assuming me!
Two doctors, my niece and her wife, assure me it is said "wall-thaam'. "…..Harvard Medical School Faculty, Klarmin Foundation, Mass General…..they gotta' be right.
Once again, great pic to go with story TRAINS.
Also can't lower the green line tracks because the blue line .goes beneath them. And the correct wording on the sign is "Scollay Square Under."