Boston Elevated Ry. Northampton Station

This impressive structure is from Boston's first elevated railway. In 1901, the Boston Elevated Railway Company opened its "Main Line" elevated extending from Sullivan Square north of downtown to Dudley Square station in South Boston. This station was located along Washington Street between Massachusetts Avenue and Northampton Street in Boston’s South End. Alexander Wadsworth Longfellow, Jr., a prominent Boston architect and nephew of poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, designed Northampton Station as well as nine other, identical stations for the line. The elegant station has a copper exterior over a steel frame. When in service, the station and elevated tracks stood on steel supports above the street traffic, leaving Washington Street in perpetual shadow. Neighborhood residents, however, appreciated the fast service to downtown; in the 1920s, an estimated 14,500 passengers a day boarded trains at Northampton Station. The orange sign on the station dates from 1965 when the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA), having taken over Boston's transit system, applied color codes to each rapid transit line. The Main Line elevated became the Orange Line. In 1987, the MBTA rerouted the Orange Line to new tracks below street level several blocks west of the old elevated line. So, the MBTA tore down the elevated tracks and stations along Washington Street, except for Northampton Street station. Unlike most of the other el stations, Northampton Street had remained little changed from its 1901 appearance. Seashore was awarded the station for preservation after winning a three way competition. Moving this 97-ton structure to the museum was one of the most challenging moves undertaken by Seashore. The moving project took a year, from the summer of 1989 to the summer of 1990. The station moved on dollies through the streets of Boston to the Boston waterfront and then on a former oil rig supply ship to Colony Beach in Kennebunkport. For the final five miles by truck to the museum, Seashore crews needed to remove the station's roof so that the building would fit below utility wires over the streets on the final 5.5 miles to the museum. Seashore reassembled the station here.