The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 101

hauled out tons of dirt using 'steam-driven carts on overhead trestles, then dumping the refuse on the end of the Common where the ballfield rests today. Despite inaccurate utilities maps, beds of quicksand, killer explosions and the inadvertent exhumation of some 1,000 Colonial cadavers which were reinterred in the Common's burial ground the first leg of the Tre mont Street Subway was ready to open Sept. 1, 1897. The cost was $4,404,958.25. Of that expense, $350,000 was for the Park Street Station.

The subterranean streetcar stop was constructed using steel was a private stockholder corporation that took control 'of an lilies and stations in 1922. In 1947, the whole system was transferred to a public agency created by the Legislature: the Metropolitan Transit Authority. The MTA, which served 14 cities and towns, was abolished in 1964 and replaced by a larger transit group, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, which expanded the service district to 78, then 79, cities and towns. Under the MBTA, Boston's four historic streetcar lines were labeled with the color codes we know today: the old Boylston-Tremont trolley subway became the Green Line; the Cambridge-Dorchester line became the Red Line; the Main Line El became the Orange, and the East Boston line was Blue. Since each of the four lines was developed at different times by different groups, their equipment was never made interchangeable.

Hence, the complex history of subway and elevated rapid-transit vehicles in Boston from the earliest trolleys to sophisticated PCCs, LRVs, Pullmans, Type 7s and Kinki Sharyo's has four different versions: one for each line. Each line also has its own lingo, explains Ed Manning, the superintendent of Surface Lines, while standing on the Green line platform at Park Street. "These over beams, brick and concrete masonry. Though the steel work on the roof was left exposed, the walls were lined with white porcelain brick or tile. The supporting steel have made the station more modern.

Though MBTA system doesn't operate out of Park Street as it once did, the station still acts as "Emergency Backup for Central Control," from a spartan chamber hidden behind the Rosenberg mural. Save for a lonely Dunkin' Donuts stand by the Lechmere trains, all of the vendors that used to crowd the Green Line platform have disappeared. Luckily, the 1970s a decade that poor Park Street Station would rather forget are gone, too. There was racial tension fanned by the busing crisis. There was the fire of December '75 that began in a greasy spoon near the Lechmere track.

There was the constant breakage of old or unreliable equipment and the late trains. There was the day before Christmas 1979, when the constantly in debt, and finally broke shut down. Even a major renovation of the station in the late '70s proved architecturally controversial at best. Bob Devin, a employee for 53 years, put it simply: "After the last modernization, Park Street looked like Meyer Murray's Billiard Parlor." There were three happy endings to all the '70s mire. First, the and Park Street survived, with better equipment and more dependable streetcars.

Secondly, they survived to a columns were encased in concrete and painted white. The original station was on the level of the modern-day Green Line, since Park Street Under was not added below until 1912. In a space about half the size of to Horsepower and beyond In the early days, Boston had no need for an underground rapid-transit system. When legs wouldn't do, horses, cows and tethered carts could ably transport Colonial people and their Colonial things around the town's web of narrow, winding streets. Then, life began to change.

In 1800, only one in 13 Americans lived in cities. By 1895, that number had increased to one in three. In Boston and other urban centers, congestion and overcrowding became serious problems and improving public transportation, a major issue. Boston introduced its first horsecars in 1852. For two decades, these horse-drawn streetcars proved reasonable transportation and a good source of revenue through the sales of fares, inside" advertising cards and horse manure.

Within two decades, however, horsecars were dealt a double blow. A disease dubbed "The Great Epizootic" raced through the Eastern states' horsecar stables in 1872, disabling their finest steeds. Moreover, inventors were beginning to experiment with alternative power sources for streetcars, including steam, compressed air, naptha, mechanical legs, cables and even giant clocksprings. Still, it was not until 1888, when Frank Sprague equipped the horse-drawn streetcars of Richmond with electric motors, that urban mass transit really began. One year later, Boston's West End Street Railway one of the largest horsecar companies in America went electric.

The remaining horsecars were gently phased out; the last one ran in Boston on Christmas Eve 1900. As the 1890s unfolded, Boston's new electric trolleys proved so successful that they created even greater problems: the city streets were so inundated with tracks, wires, feeds, posts, crossings and junctions, that they offended the eye and periodically immobilized the town. One observer noted that between 5 and 6:30 p.m., a man could walk down Tremont Street from Scollay day's upper level station, there were four tracks, two island platforms, two loop tracks for return cars, plus a space for disabled or extra cars. Stairs with patent safety treads led up to four headhouses on street level the same kiosks we enter and exit today, minus two. Those boxish I (-) EXIT RED UNE (v ffmff happy tune.

"There was a joke among the guys in the mid '70s," says Manning, "that if we can't provide them service, we'll give them music to soothe their nerves." Hence, the official policy of having musicians play in the station and eventually throughout the began. Kevin McNamara is a folk-rock musician who has played the crowds at Park since 1978. Though noise, headhouses were designed by Edmund Whtelwright, 5f Wheelwright and Haven architects. The kiosks' sturdy walls were made from Deer Island granite, with roofs of glass. The exterior details were neoclassical, featuring decorative dentils and pilasters, high brass-screened windows, and in their incarnation no doors.

Alas, contemporary critics complained that Wheelwright's entrance cubes Square to Boylston on the roofs of streetcars, never touching the ground. Tremont itself was four lanes wide three of which were covered by trolley tracks. Globe staff photoSuzanne Kreiter Politicians and citizens alike argued Park Street Station near the Common about the most logical solution to the glut of surface trolleys. The two strongest camps agreed that public transport must be taken off the' streets: one group insisted on elevated tracks, while the other espoused the "European transit system subter ranean trolley tunnels, as had already proved successful in Glasgow, Paris, Lon don and Budapest. After prolonged debates, the subway idea prevailed, though elevated streetcar tracks were later added on Bos lack of audience con tinuity and lower contributions than street-corner performances are all inherent problems, McNamara still has an affection for subway gigs.

"It's been a problem in the past, but today you can do whatever you want It's great training in winning over an audience. Plus you can work out new music. Who's gonna know if you play the same song all day?" The third part to Park's happy ending is that another renovation is due for completion in November. According to project architect Margaret Minor, of Leers, Weinzap-fel Associates, this $6 million facelift and function-upgrade will give Park a new image, cleaner environment, improved signage and brighter look. Wheelchair access to platforms is also being improved, though Green Line cars are not yet accessible.

Amid all the construction clutter, Park ton's periphery. On common grounds The corner of Tremont and Park streets was a logical site to construct the initial leg of America's first subway. The area was part of Boston Com mon, a place locals had used for cow graz ing, military drills, public meetings, casual here are Light Rail Vehicles, and they're run by Operators. Down below on the Red Line are Heavy Rail Vehicles, called trains, which are run by Motormen." What all the T's vehicles do have in common is 550 volts of direct current, provided by Boston Edison. For decades, Boston's subway system had its own power plants and generated its own electricity.

During the Great Northeast Blackout of November 1965, the MBTA kept running, while the New York City subways stopped (dead in their tracks. The T's generating plants were phased out from 1977-81. Another major change has involved personnel. The change can be explained in one word: women. The subway's first seven decades were essentially all male.

But not just any men, mind you. As far back as 1901, the company outlined strict standards: "Our conductors must be presentable, for the very appearance of some men gives offense quickly in a cultured community. These men must have all their fingers and thumbs, and nowadays must have all their toes a reasonable number of either real or artificial teeth." Park Street Station has undergone a variety of alterations since 1897. The Red Line platform was added in 1912, and the Green Line's track and platform space was enlarged twice. Two of Park's original four street-level headhouses are gone, while newer additions such as elevators, escalators, computerized systems and a little- looked "like mausoleums." Revolution and evolution Those critics had nothing but good to say about opening day of the subway, however.

In the wee hours of Sept 1, 1897, crowds began to assemble at both the Boylston and Park Street Stations. Over at the Allston car barns, conductor Gilman T. Trufant and motorman James Reed both West End Railway veterans readied car No. 1752, an open-bench four-wheel trolley, for the inaugural run. The seating capacity was 50, though an overflow crowd of 175 passengers crammed into the electric streetcar the first of 100,000 riders that day.

"All aboard for Park Street!" was the cry, as the trolley traveled on surface-level tracks, via Pearl Street in Cambridge, toward an incline that began at the Public Garden. Swinging off Boylston Street, the car descended underground, arriving at the Park Street platform at 6:02 a.m. to cheers and waving flags. That first strip of Boston subway was only 0.6 of a mile. Little by little, the subway grew extending throughout downtown, over to Cambridge, out to South Boston and East Boston, and beyond.

Sometimes it grew underground, and sometimes above ground, on the elevated lines built outside the busy city center. The fares grew too from 5 cents in 1897 to 85 cents in 1992 paid first with tickets, then with coins in 1915, and finally with tokens, in 1951. The Boston Elevated Railway Which. built, and operated theEl, strolls, hangings and other festivities since 1634. A variety of buildings had graced that broad corner in times past, including the Old Granary, the Workhouse, and the Park 8 Street Church which still remains.

Street Station keeps on keeping on, much as it has for almost a century. The same crush of curious humanity continues to When the Boston Transit Commission was created in 1894 to plan the subway, and when Chief Engineer Howard A. Car son began construction on March 28, 1895, tempers still ran high. Some folks worried the project would tie up traffic. Others swarm in ana out, day atter day.

Ana tne same old questions are asked of personnel, with clock-like consistency. "How do I get to Harvard?" "How do I get to Fenway Park?" "How do I get to the MFA?" "How do you get to the other side?" "Excuse me, but where is 'Cheers'?" feared damage to the Common, inspiring Mayor Nathan Matthews to remark that Boston's 11th commandment seemed to be, "Thou shalt not touch the Common. Touch it they did, for almost three years, digging up clay, gravel and sand from Park and Tremont to the far corner of the Susan Wilson, a free-lance miter, author of Calendar's Sites and Insights and Streetwise Boston features, is writing a book, "Boston Sites and Insights, "to be published next year Public Garden. Working with teams of 100 workers doing lOrhqurifts crews known concourse (T3 Beacon Press. I i (.81 OMtic jiotlBlc fcdKg -Jhsfi VKtffei -Hi VT 6 r'j esw sun! ifi.