Back Bay Station

The New York, New Haven & Hartford line built the first station here in 1897. Destroyed by fire in 1928, it was rebuilt a year later, but would reach a deteriorated state by 1979, forcing closure. As part of an effort to revive railroad travel and to enliven the Back Bay, the station received a federal grant for a public transit project along the southwest corridor. The team created an arcade in the spirit of turn-of-the century railroad stations, paragons of civic architecture, composed of rust-colored laminated wooden arches, forty feet high, to span the entrance and the concourse between Dartmouth and Clarendon streets. The exterior portico of massive red and black brick piers and concrete arches contrasts dramatically with the light-filled interior structural framework. A striated brick ventilation tower dominates the Clarendon Street parking lot. The new station is an intermodal transportation center, comprising interstate, commuter, and subway transportation, the last a stop on the Orange Line.