Northeastern University - Cauldron Yearbook (Boston, MA)

Page 24 text:

Underground Boston So much are the standards of excellence settled by time and place, that man may be heard boasting in one street of that which they would anxiously conceal in an- other. Samuel Johnson: The Rambler ' No. 201 No person frequenting Hunt- ington Avenue in front of North- eastern would think anybody was trying to hide anything there. Every- thing seems to be in plain view. Northeastern ' s Dodge Library, Quadrangle, Richards Hall, and the Cabot cage. On the other side vari- ous apartment buildings, business establishments and parking lots. Suppose we were to take the stretch of Huntington Avenue from Forsyth Street east to the YMCA property, and completely dissect, analyze, and muse over what is un- der the street. The street whereupon so many thousands drive their cars, ride in trains, walk across the tracks every day. The distinguished Boston ad- dress — Huntington Avenue, fa- mous on both sides of Massachu- setts Avenue for different reasons. World renowned. What is under it? If we stand on a point on the sidewalk on the south (North- eastern) side of the street, directly across from the east sidewalk of Opera Place (remembering the sun goes down over Huntington Ave- nue each day), descend to between four and seven feet, and proceed north, the first unnatural phenome- non we would come to is a Boston Edison power line. The main lines connect various manholes (oval, circular, and square — all with rounded corners to withstand pressure). The lines from the manholes to the buildings are the umbilical cords of power that enable the area residents to turn on the juice. The next discovery, at an approx- imate depth of seven feet, would be an 18-inch City of Boston sewer, that magic carpet for waste and organic refuse as Webster so ap- tly stated. The resident ace in the Sewer Department at City Hall on Boston ' s sewer system, the man who really knows what is underground and what is really going on down under there, is Ed Phelan, a junior civil engineer who graduated from Northeastern in 1971. Most sewers under Huntington Avenue, according to Ed, were built in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The 18 sewer we first bumped into was built in 1904. How could sewers built so far in the past serve the bloated com- munity today? They were de- signed oversized, says Ed, in an- ticipation of tremendous growth in the City of Boston. So there is some long gone engineer out there who deserves tremendous credit for great foresight. The unknown engineer. The next obstacle in our under- ground path, and this is a highly explosive matter, is an eight-inch line of the Boston Gas Company. A four-inch line extends from this into the alley beside Dodge Library and in all probability provides whatever gas burns in Northeastern ' s labora- tories. Next we come to a 36-inch X 48- inch brick sewer, rebuilt in 1896. This line, according to Ed Phelan, is the receptacle for all the catch basins on either side of the street. If we tunnel up to the surface from the top of this pipe, we would break through at the curb running alongside the subway tracks about five feet up. If we were to pause in our journey here for a look to the right with x-ray vision, we would see a 42-inch high service water main running diagonally across the street in front of the opening to the subway tunnel. It provides an eight- inch fire line to Northeastern ' s Dodge Library. Secret securities are under the street. There is a maintenance factor in- volved in the Boston water system. Water reacts with the cast iron pipes to produce rust. The water is purified before being delivered to Boston by the MDC. But Joe Finneran, senior en- gineering advisor in the Water De- partment thinks, It picks up some sludge along the way. For example, it ' s not unusual for an eight-inch pipe to shrink down to two inches after the buildup of sludge, according to Joe. 20 This lonely Huntington Avenue fire hydrant is only the tip of the iceberg. The dogs can ' t even begin to guess what lies beneath it.

Page 23 text:

Subway riding etiquette The subterranean world of a large city nurtures in its intestinal maze of tunnels an art, solely the creation of modern man. A science-fiction story of H. P. Lovecraft speaks of strange creatures, the remnants of an ancient age, that inhabit the secret places of the Boylston Street subway stop. What Mr. Lovecraft didn ' t imagine is the still- stranger beings who stalk the city ' s underworld at all hours of the day and night, producing fears and fabric- ations of the mind more bizarre than his brute crea- tions, the daily commuters. The MBTA commuter has perfected the fine art of survival by public transportation, and the novice about to embark in this peculiar existence should be aware of some of the tested techniques. Initially, the most difficult technique to master is the detached unstare. On that train tomorrow morning, while standing up all the way from Quincy Square to Harvard, take notice of the expression on the faces of the other inhabitants of the cylindrical tube. Never again in the novice ' s commuter-life is he allowed to look anyone in the eye. Noting the expression is for training purposes only and not a general practice. Observe that the eye contact between two people no less than a half-inch apart and face-to-face is almost nil. These two are instantly marked as veteran commuters. Experts in their field, they manage the detached unstare in the most difficult circumstances. The technicalities of the skill include avoiding direct eye contact at all costs. Amateurs resort to the ruse of staring at the middle button on their neighbor ' s coat instead. The result is a decidedly uncomfortable feeling on the part of the person wearing the jacket. Knocking the person behind him in the eye with his elbow, he begins to check that buttons are unbuttoned and zip- pers zipped. After being reassured, the nervous com- muter starts to wonder exactly what classification of pervert is staring at his button. Obviously, this is not the desired result. The unstare also consists of a glazed look in the eye that appears to be some kind of self-inflicted blindness. It requires forcing the eyes not to focus on a single object. Another popular alternative to the unstare is a book or newspaper. Reading avoids embarrassing eye con- tact while giving the impression of intelligence. Any novice commuter will notice the popularity of written material, from Communist handouts to the latest best seller, on the train. They are merely an ingenious unstare device. Newspapers rate lowest on the commu- ter ' s reading list. They are large enough to prove a temptation to the man next to the comics-reading trav- Three commuters at the Green Line ' s Copley station protect their personal zones of privacy. Each stays a good distance from the other; all avoid eye contact with each other. eler who forgot his copy of The Decline of the Roman Empire. The next maxim for the novice to learn is his general stance in a crowded sardine can, sometimes referred to as the everybody ' s a potential pervert or Boy, they let crazies out early today attitude. In the sweaty, stagnant air of that train, the commuter is faced with being huddled together with perfect or not-so-perfect strangers. His attitude includes consid- ering all body contact, accidental or not, to be the product of some deranged opportunist. This is the time the unstare rule is broken and the wayfarer is allowed to give the suspect a chilling look of daggers. Unfortu- nately, innocent bystanders are often victimized by this modern evil-eye. Armed with the unstare expertise and a paranoia of people, comprehended only by fellow refugees from the highway, the novice is as ready as he will ever be for his first solo journey. A few admonitions should be mentioned about the initial experience. The rocking, squealing, lurching motion of the train does not necessarily mean the train is about to crash. The novice about to be initiated into the strange world of the modern subterranean nomad should be cautious not to look panic-stricken. (Masters of the commuting life, no matter how certain of impending disaster, never flinch.) Lastly, the novice is warned about the complexity of the crisscrossing, often incomprehensible, tangle of trains and trolleys. Getting where the greenhorn com- muter intends to go is an achievement in itself. It is accomplished only by first-hand experience. The strange underworld of migratory modern man holds in its cosmos all the mundane and weird ex- periences that can be part of this unique civilization. Perverts and paranoia, fantasy and freaks, await the incautious commuter at every turn of the winding cav- erns. Was the expressway really that bad? — Mary Wessling 19

Page 25 text:

m These formidable pieces of steel guard the entrances to the stygian caverns below which only Boston Edison, Boston Gas, and Ma Bell are privy to. When cleaning time comes, he says truckloads of the stuff are removed and there is a tre- mendous stink. So much for clean water. Next is the granddaddy of the sewer system. According to Ed Phelan, the big 6 ' 6 X 6 ' 6 circular brick sewer was a major conduit in a Sewer Department master plan of old. The most massive sewer conduit under the city, through which sew- erage from all parts of Boston eventually flows, is located under Gainsborough Street. The Hunt- ington Avenue conduit was to bring in the flow from the entire Brook- line area, then dump it in the Gain- sborough artery. But, said Phelan, the MDC took over the conduit from Forsyth Street due east after Huntington Avenue was made a state road and • assigned a route number. So what in actuality exists under the street now is a six foot six inch circular brick sewer that will never reach its full potential. It ' s simply going to waste under the street. Next in line, about six feet under, is an eight-inch water main that feeds the hydrants on the north side of Huntington Avenue. Joe Finneran had a story about hydr- ants, too. It seems there ' s been several de- signs over the years. The first two, the Post hydrant and the Boston Post, are no longer cast, but sev- eral remain at work in the city. The one being installed these days is the BF, named for its two designers, Batchelder and Finneran (no relation to Joe), who worked at City Hall probably in the 1920 ' s or 30 ' s, according to Joe. The distinctive feature of the BF is its 4 ' 2 opening in the front, fac- ing the street. The old Boston Posts had the big opening on each side and a sm all one in front. The BF was the more efficient model, said Joe. Hemenway Street, in Boston ' s Back Bay, has several post hydr- ants with the old winter draining system. On these models when the temperature goes below freezing, the firemen have to open up the plates at the base of the hydrant, and drain the water out using the valves. The new models, with auto- matic draining systems, eliminate this tedious process. Back under again we find anoth- er magic carpet 18-inch sewer ser- vicing the north side of Huntington Avenue. Finally, last but hardly least, un- der the sidewalks on the north side, yes, we finally made it across the street, is a 10-inch steam main in- stalled by the Boston Edison Com- pany, the main purpose of which is to heat one building in the Back Bay. John Dunlea of the Survey and Layout Department of the Boston Edison ' s Roxbury plant said it is a practice to install entire steam mains under the street to serve one building if the building is big enough. He also explained the two pos- sible answers to the question, Why do manhole covers some- times smoke? First of all only Edison manholes smoke. Dunlea said, It could be one of two things. It could be steam escaping from the pipe be- cause there are valves in the man- hole, or it could be condensation. What about this condensation? Dunlea also said, Some man- holes have transformers in them and they ' re hot. And when cool air comes in through the vents in the manhole, it looks like smoke, but it ' s condensation. And thus anoth- er mystery of the age is solved. So in our journey across and un- der the street we bumped into a total of 14 lines and five in- stitutions. Three private companies, Boston Edison with three lines, Boston Gas with two lines, New England Telephone and Telegraph with one line. Two public depart- ments, the Sewer Department and Water Department had four lines each. The experts and operators of the technology under the street from the private sector, with the ex- ception of the Boston Edison Com- pany, were less willing to reveal their knowledge of the under- ground. Peter Cronin, a spokesman for the phone company, and 1958 graduate of Northeastern, said in response to a request for informa- tion, My reaction is that we could not disperse that information for security reasons. We don ' t even want to talk about the dangers in- volved. Frank Ariacale, public relations man for the Boston Gas Company, said information about gas lines is something we prefer not to make public. So there is no doubt that Samuel Johnson was right. We will never really know what is under the street. — John Desmond 21