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Metropolitan Railroad (Boston)
The Metropolitan Railroad was an early street railway in the Boston, Massachusetts area. Formed in 1853 to provide horsecar service between Boston and Roxbury, it quickly expanded to become the largest railway company in the region, with operations over more than ninety miles of track and an annual ridership of over forty-two million passengers per year. It ended operations in 1887 as a result of the consolidation plan which united nearly all Boston streetcar lines into the West End Street Railway. Formation The Metropolitan Railroad was an early pioneer in the effort to bring street railway service to Boston, replacing the older horse-drawn omnibus lines which had come to be viewed as expensive and unreliable. The company received its charter on May 21, 1853, by the Massachusetts General Court, by which it was enabled to build a rail line connecting downtown Boston with the then-independent town of Roxbury. John P. Ober, a former Boston alderman, served as first president of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
West End Street Railway
The West End Street Railway was a streetcar company that operated in Boston, Massachusetts and several surrounding communities in the late nineteenth century. Originally an offshoot of a land development venture, the West End rose to prominence when it merged several independent streetcar companies into a single organization, and over the next decade it was the primary operator of public street transit within the Boston area. During this time, the company maintained one of the largest street railway systems in the world, the first unified streetcar system in the United States, and first electrified system in a major US city. The West End remained in independent operation until 1897, when it leased its entire line to the Boston Elevated Railway. It was formally consolidated into the Boston Elevated in 1922. History Foundation The original purpose of the West End was to provide service to a speculative land venture in western Boston and Brookline. In the mid-1880s a syndicate of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John P
John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Second Epistle of John, often shortened to 2 John * Third Epistle of John, often shortened to 3 John People * John the Baptist (died c. AD 30), regarded as a prophet and the forerunner of Jesus Christ * John the Apostle (lived c. AD 30), one of the twelve apostles of Jesus * John the Evangelist, assigned author of the Fourth Gospel, once identified with the Apostle * John of Patmos, also known as John the Divine or John the Revelator, the author of the Book of Revelation, once identified with the Apostle * John the Presbyter, a figure either identified with or distinguished from the Apostle, the Evangelist and John of Patmos Other people with the given name Religious figures * John, father of Andrew the Apostle and Saint Peter * Pope Joh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Double-track Railway
A double-track railway usually involves running one track in each direction, compared to a single-track railway where trains in both directions share the same track. Overview In the earliest days of railways in the United Kingdom, most lines were built as double-track because of the difficulty of co-ordinating operations before the invention of the telegraph. The lines also tended to be busy enough to be beyond the capacity of a single track. In the early days the Board of Trade did not consider any single-track railway line to be complete. In the earliest days of railways in the United States most lines were built as single-track for reasons of cost, and very inefficient timetable working systems were used to prevent head-on collisions on single lines. This improved with the development of the telegraph and the train order system. Operation Handedness In any given country, rail traffic generally runs to one side of a double-track line, not always the same side as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Government Center, Boston
Government Center is an area in downtown Boston, centered on City Hall Plaza. Formerly the site of Scollay Square, it is now the location of Boston City Hall, courthouses, state and federal office buildings, and a major MBTA subway station, also called Government Center. Its development was controversial, as the project displaced thousands of residents and razed several hundred homes and businesses. Controversial in design since before it was completed, the use of Brutalist architecture for its main buildings, as well as the open brick-and-concrete plaza at the center of the development, have been alternately praised for its innovative design, and scorned for its lack of character and uninviting appearance. After decades of calls for a redesign to make it more friendly and usable, a major rebuild of City Hall Plaza, the main public space of Government Center, was begun in 2020 and is to include additional seating areas, play spaces for children, and space for public art. Hist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scollay Square
300px, Scollay Square, Boston, 19th century (after September 1880) 350px, Scollay Square, Decoration Day, 19th century (after September 1880) Scollay Square (c. 1838–1962) was a vibrant city square in downtown Boston, Massachusetts. It was named for William Scollay, a prominent local developer and militia officer who bought a landmark four-story merchant building at the intersection of the Cambridge and Court Streets in the year 1795. Local citizens began to refer to this intersection as Scollay's Square, and, in 1838, the city officially memorialized the intersection as the Scollay Square. Early on, the area was a busy center of commerce, including daguerreotypist (photographer) Josiah Johnson Hawes (1808–1901) and Dr. William Thomas Green Morton, the first dentist to use ether as an anaesthetic. As early as the 1950s city officials had been mulling plans to completely tear the Square down and redevelop the area. Eventually more than 1,000 buildings were demolished a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tremont Street
Tremont Street is a major thoroughfare in Boston, Massachusetts. Tremont Street begins at Government Center in Boston's city center as a continuation of Cambridge Street, and forms the eastern edge of Boston Common. Continuing in a roughly southwesterly direction, it passes through Boston's Theater District, crosses the Massachusetts Turnpike, and becomes a broad boulevard in the South End neighborhood. It then turns to the west as a narrower four-lane street, running through Mission Hill and terminating at Brigham Circle, where it intersects Huntington Avenue. The street name zigzags across several physical roads, often requiring a sharp turn to remain on the street, as a result of changes made to the street grid during urban renewal. Etymology The name is a variation of one of the original appellations of the city, "Trimountaine", a reference to a hill that formerly had three peaks. Beacon Hill, with its single peak, is all that remains of the Trimountain. Much of the Tr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Eliot Square District
John Eliot Square District is a historic district located in the northern Roxbury neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. It is formed by the intersection of Dudley, Bartlett, Centre, Roxbury and Highland Streets. Named after local missionary to the Indians, John Eliot, the square was the site of the Roxbury town center after its founding in 1630. Roxbury was annexed to Boston in 1868, and John Eliot Square was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973. The square is the nucleus of Roxbury Heritage State Park, a history-themed heritage park. Major landmarks First Church of Roxbury John Eliot Square's central landmark is the First Church of Roxbury, Boston's oldest surviving wooden meeting house from the Federal Period of American architecture. Dillaway-Thomas House Roxbury Heritage State Park is anchored by the Dillaway–Thomas House, a large colonial structure built in 1750 and thought to be Roxbury's oldest surviving house. The location includes an adjacent ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Washington Street (Boston)
Washington Street is a street originating in downtown Boston, Massachusetts that extends southwestward to the Massachusetts–Rhode Island state line. The majority of its length outside of the city was built as the Norfolk and Bristol Turnpike in the early 19th century. It is the longest street in Boston and remains one of the longest streets in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The street's great age in the city of Boston has given rise to a phenomenon whereby intersecting streets have different names on either side of Washington Street. History Until 1803 and the commencement of large-scale infilling of Boston Harbor and Back Bay, the town lay at the end of a peninsula less than a hundred feet wide at its narrowest point. This was the waist of the strip of land known as Boston Neck. Originally a single street traversed the Neck, joining peninsular Boston to the mainland. This was termed Orange or South-End Street. The route served as the first leg of the Boston Post Road to Ne ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Boylston Market
Boylston Market (1810-1887), designed by architect Charles Bulfinch, was located in Boston, Massachusetts, on the corner of Boylston and Washington Streets. Boylston Hall occupied the third floor of the building, and functioned as a performance and meeting space. History The Boylston Market Association developed the building. John Quincy Adams served as the association's first president. In 1809, the proprietors paid $20,560 for the land formerly belonging to Joseph C. Dyer (and to Samuel Welles before him). The new building "was named to honor the benevolent and philanthropic Ward Nicholas Boylston" Architecture Construction began in April, 1810, and was completed the same year. The 3-story building measured 120 feet long and 50 feet wide. "On the first floor are 12 stalls for the sale of provisions. The 2nd is separated by an avenue running lengthwise, on the sides of which are 4 spacious rooms. The 3rd story consists of a hall 100 feet in length with the entire width of the bu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Single-track Railway
A single-track railway is a railway where trains traveling in both directions share the same track. Single track is usually found on lesser-used rail lines, often branch lines, where the level of traffic is not high enough to justify the cost of constructing and maintaining a second track. Advantages and disadvantages Single track is significantly cheaper to build and maintain, but has operational and safety disadvantages. For example, a single-track line that takes 15 minutes to travel through would have capacity for only two trains per hour in each direction safely. By contrast, a double track with signal boxes four minutes apart can allow up to 15 trains per hour in each direction safely, provided all the trains travel at the same speed. This hindrance on the capacity of a single track may be partly overcome by making the track one-way on alternate days, if the single track is not used for public passenger transit. Long freight trains are a problem if the passing s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston, Worcester, and Springfield. It is one of two de jure county seats of Middlesex County, although the county's executive government was abolished in 1997. Situated directly north of Boston, across the Charles River, it was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, once also an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Lesley University, and Hult International Business School are in Cambridge, as was Radcliffe College before it merged with Harvard. Kendall Square in Cambridge has been called "the most innovative square mile on the planet" owing to the high concentration of successful startups that have emerged in the vicinity ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cambridge Railroad
The Cambridge Railroad (also known as the Cambridge Horse Railroad) was the first street railway in the Boston, Massachusetts area, linking Harvard Square in Cambridge to Cambridge Street and Grove Street in Boston's West End, via Massachusetts Avenue, Main Street and the West Boston Bridge. The company was chartered and incorporated May 25, 1853, and started construction September 1, 1855. The horsecar line opened between West Cedar Street (just east of Charles Street) and Central Square on March 26, 1856. Extensions opened in April to Brattle House in Brattle Square and to Revere House in Bowdoin Square. A further extension to Mount Auburn Cemetery opened soon after, as did a branch to Porter Square. The connecting Watertown Horse Railroad opened on April 27, 1857. The Porter Square branch was extended to the border of West Cambridge (now Arlington); there it met the West Cambridge Horse Railroad, which opened on June 13, 1859. The line beat a rival company by buying seco ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
