New find sheds light on an old T stop
 An old Arlington Street sign was uncovered at the Arlington MBTA Station. "We had no idea it was back there," project manager Winifred A. Stopps said of the mosaic. (Barry Chin/ Globe Staff) |
Arlington station on the Green Line is undergoing its fourth renovation since its tunnel was first dug in 1913. In the current construction chaos, a piece of the past was recently uncovered. A tip of the hat to Jonathan of Back Bay, who pointed this out via e-mail.
"Sections of paneling on the platform were recently removed," he wrote, "revealing mosaic tiles that spell out the station name and seem to frame slots for old ads in a couple of places. It looks like workers are just running pipes and plan to cover the whole thing back up. Do you know if that's the case? It seems a shame to erase a piece of history like that at one of the T's oldest stations."
It's true. Lining the station walls between Berkeley and Arlington streets, the original black and white mosaic tiles have reappeared, harking back to simpler days before CharlieCards and heck, even Charlie on the MTA.
"We had no idea it was back there," project manager Winifred A. Stopps of the architectural firm Leers Weinzapfel Associates , said of the mosaic.
The tunnel at Arlington was built in 1913, but the station stop was not constructed until 1920. When it debuted, the walls were lined with the tiles, with advertising panels spread throughout the station and beautifully lettered station names. No old ads were found in the now-blank spaces, Stopps said.
Still, "They had even more advertising then than they do now," she said.
There's no anti-Warren Harding graffiti, and some of the tiles have been badly damaged by prior renovations.
Despite the find, once the station project is done, the old mosaic tiles will be covered up again, as Jonathan suspected, replaced by some of the enamel-on-porcelain pictures that lined the walls before the project began.
Arlington was the first station to adopt the MBTA's historic (and in urgent need of a revamp) "wayfaring system," created by the Cambridge 7 architectural firm about 1968. That system, which used colors on trains and pictures in stations to guide riders to what was above ground, was imitated around the the world.
At Arlington, the enamel-on-porcelain pictures of Boston Common and the Swan Boats will be coming back, Stopps said, along with some public sculptures of fish weirs, large walls of intertwined sticks used by Native Americans to trap fish on what was once Boston's shoreline.
In fact, the current platform at Arlington is where many ancient weirs were first unearthed after being buried for centuries.
"We're trying to bring up some of the layers of history in Arlington station," Stopps said, adding that one of the old mosaic signs near the Arlington Street entrance might be saved.
The station's renovations, complete with raised platforms, should be complete by 2008, said Michael Shanley, resident engineer for the MBTA.
Currently, from Back Bay to Worcester, Massachusetts Bay Commuter Railroad trains are under the control of dispatchers in Selkirk, N.Y., because freight giant CSX controls the rails not only for its trains, but also for the commuter trains.
Train crews are required to maintain radio contact with CSX dispatchers, not commuter rail dispatchers. This means that between Back Bay and Worcester, the trains are off the local grid.
Dispatchers for Massachusetts Bay Commuter Railroad, the company that runs commuter trains for the MBTA, have had no idea where the trains were.
That changed Jan. 25, when the commuter rail dispatchers finally got a CSX computer display of train positions on the line.
"For the very first time ever -- ever! -- we can see where our trains go," said Steve Jones, deputy director of railroad operations for the MBTA, whose job is to oversee commuter rail service.
Jones said the new display isn't a cure-all for the line, which is the most delayed commuter line, but it will help.
"This is significant only in that we can see the train and its location," Jones said. "We can't do anything about it, we may not know why it's late but we can tell how it's operating."
He got his lost hat back. From the federal Transportation Security Administration, no less.
He was traveling to Dayton, Ohio, on a regional jet and had to step outside to board the aircraft. Once outside, he noticed he was missing his charcoal gray scally cap, one given to him by his family over the holidays, an important gift.
So he went back inside the terminal to check where he was sitting but the hat wasn't there. With no time to go back to the security checkpoint, he considered it gone for good.
On his way back through Dayton on his trip home, he checked security and was given a TSA phone number for their lost and found. Fat chance, he thought.
When he called the number, he got a recording, instructing him to leave his name, phone number, a description of the object he lost, what airline he had flown, and what date he lost the object.
"The recording said I would only get a return call if they found my object," he wrote via e-mail.
Less than 24 hours later, Joe got a phone call about his hat.
"I had to describe it again over the phone to the TSA employee who was very polite," he wrote. "He told me I could come pick it up or they could send to me via
The hat arrived the next day.
"When my cellphone rang the next day, the last person I thought it would be was a TSA representative saying he had found my hat," he wrote.
We do. As part of the second phase of the CharlieCard rollout this spring (T folks were vague on the exact month), registration of CharlieCards will begin, along with the ability to store value on a CharlieCard via the Internet.
In addition, T officials said this week that based on customer complaints, they also plan to clarify the language on the screens of fare vending machines this spring.
We took the T to task a while back about the screen term "Stored Value," prodding them to add the words "Bus/Subway" to make it clear to customers what button they need to press to buy a bus or subway ticket.
The Essex Street on ramp to I-93 north will close 10 p.m. to 5:30 a.m. Tuesday to Saturday .
The Sumner Tunnel on ramp to I-93 north will close 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. Thursday to Saturday .
Exit 26 (Storrow Drive) off I-93 north will close 11:30 p.m. to 5 a.m. Thursday to Saturday .
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The Storrow Drive on ramp to I-93 south will close 11:30 p.m. to 5 a.m. Thursday to Saturday .
Exit 23 (Purchase Street) off I-93 south will close 11:30 p.m. to 5 a.m. Thursday to Saturday morning.
The ramp from the Tobin Bridge and Rutherford Avenue/City Square to Storrow Drive will close 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. Thursday to Saturday . The ramp to I-93 south will remain open.
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Access from South Boston to the Pike east and Logan Airport will close 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. Tuesday to Saturday .
Route 1A north near Logan Airport will close 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Tuesday to Friday.
The Sumner Tunnel on ramp to Storrow Drive will close 11:30 p.m. to 5 a.m. Thursday to Saturday morning. Sumner Tunnel access to Haymarket will remain open.
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