Prudential station is an underground light rail station on the

MBTA The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (abbreviated MBTA and known colloquially as "the T") is the public agency responsible for operating most public transportation services in Greater Boston, Massachusetts. The MBTA transit network in ...

Green Line E branch, located below

Huntington Avenue Huntington Avenue is a secondary thoroughfare in the city of Boston, Massachusetts, beginning at Copley Square, and continuing west through the Back Bay, Fenway, Longwood, and Mission Hill neighborhoods. Huntington Avenue is signed as Route 9 ...

next to the

Prudential Tower The Prudential Tower, also known as the Prudential Building or, colloquially, The Pru,subscription required'The Pru' everyone calls it: a resigned shrug of a name, as flat and uninflected as the wan moue its pronunciation requires." is an Inter ...

complex near Belvidere Street in Boston, Massachusetts. Prudential station is fully handicapped accessible, featuring low raised platforms and elevator service to the Huntington Arcade of the

Prudential Center Prudential Center is a multi-purpose indoor arena in the central business district of Newark, New Jersey. Opened in 2007, it is the home of the New Jersey Devils of the National Hockey League (NHL) and the men's basketball program of Seton Hal ...

shopping mall at the base of the Prudential Tower.

History

Streetcars and Mechanics Hall, March 1920

Mechanics station inbound platform before opening

The first tracks on Huntington Avenue east of

Brigham Circle Brigham Circle is located at the intersection of Tremont Street and Huntington Avenue in the Mission Hill neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. The commercial center of Mission Hill, it forms the southern tip of the Longwood Medical Area. The ...

were laid at least as far as Massachusetts Avenue around 1883. By the time the line was electrified in 1894, tracks were in place on Huntington Avenue all the way to

Copley Square Copley Square , named for painter John Singleton Copley, is a public square in Boston's Back Bay neighborhood, bounded by Boylston Street, Clarendon Street, St. James Avenue, and Dartmouth Street. Prior to 1883 it was known as Art Square due to it ...

. Surface cars were rerouted into the Public Garden Portal when the

Tremont Street subway The Tremont Street subway in Boston's MBTA subway system is the oldest subway tunnel in North America and the third oldest still in use worldwide to exclusively use electric traction (after the City and South London Railway in 1890, and the Bud ...

opened in 1897. By 1903, a service from Park Street to

Arborway Arborway (also known as The Arborway) consists of a four-lane, divided parkway and a two lane residential street in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. It was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted in the 1890s as the south most ...

– the E branch as it would run for eight decades – was fully in place. Service was shifted to the Boylston Street Portal in 1914. By the 1930s, auto traffic through Copley Square and Boylston Street (which, unlike Huntington Avenue, lacked dedicated medians for trolleys) caused major delays to streetcars. Mechanics station (named for nearby Mechanics Hall) and

Symphony A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, most often for orchestra. Although the term has had many meanings from its origins in the ancient Greek era, by the late 18th century the word had taken on the meaning com ...

station were opened on February 16, 1941, as the two new stations of the Huntington Avenue subway project. The project was constructed by the

Works Progress Administration The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, i ...

during the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

and allowed streetcars from Huntington Avenue to go underground through Copley Square, cutting 15 minutes off trip times. Mechanics station was renamed Prudential on December 3, 1964 upon completion of the Prudential Tower. In the 1970s, the headhouse on the inbound side was replaced during a widening of Huntington Avenue. The station was closed on Sundays for some time beginning on February 1, 1981 due to budget cuts. The station was made accessible in 2002-03 as part of the construction of

111 Huntington Avenue 111 Huntington Avenue is a Boston skyscraper. Located on Huntington Avenue, it is part of the Prudential Center (Boston), Prudential Center complex that also houses the Prudential Tower. Completed in 2002, the tower is tall and houses 36 floors. ...

nearby. For many years, Prudential and were MBTA standard

fare control In rail transport, the paid area is a dedicated "inner" zone in a railway station or metro station, accessible via turnstiles or other barriers, to get into which, visitors or passengers require a valid ticket, checked smartcard or a pass. A sys ...

stations like other underground stations in the system. However, as a cost-cutting measure they were changed to be the only two underground stops on the Green Line where riders paid upon boarding the train, rather than when entering the station. This was changed again in June 2006, when the MBTA installed the

Charlie Card The CharlieCard is a contactless smart card used for fare payment for transportation in the Boston area. It is the primary payment method for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) and several regional public transport systems in ...

electronic fare collection system at Prudential and Symphony, allowing fares to be paid at the station entrances as with other underground stations on the system.

References

External links

MBTA – PrudentialNewton Street / Belvidere Street entrance from Google Maps Street View
{{MBTA Subway Stations Green Line (MBTA) stations Prudential Financial Railway stations located underground in Boston Railway stations in the United States opened in 1941 MBTA subway stations located underground