Northeastern University - Cauldron Yearbook (Boston, MA)

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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

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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.

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Northeastern and the community The 1970s were a time of great change in the relationship between Northeastern and the surrounding Fenway community. The members of the community began again to question the contin- ued expansion of the university into the community. For years the people of the Fenway had watched Northeastern expand, slowly taking over most of the neighborhood, ac- cording to one member of the Fen- way community. In 1972, Northeastern purchased a building at 84 St. Stephen Street to be used as a fraternity. The Fen- way Interagency Group (FIG), an affiliation of about 30 to 40 commu- nity organizations, was upset with the purchase of the building. The Rev. Robert Case of the Fenway Center and a member of FIG, said when the building was sold to Northeastern its tenants were given no prior notice of the sale and were subsequently evicted. FIG sent a letter to the city build- ing commission. The commission found that 84 St. Stephen Street and several other buildings belong- ing to three Northeastern frater- nities were in violation of city zon- ing laws. Hearings were held on the violations and two fraternities were forced to relocate by the fall of 1974 and the third, to vacate in June, 1975. Fr. Case said the community was not against fraternities, it just ob- jected to the uncontrolled ex- pansion of Northeastern or any large corporation in the area. Loring Thompson, vice president and dean of planning, said the uni- versity was not planning any further movement into the community. There is no master plan in the minds of the administration to take over the community, he said. In July, 1974, the university an- nounced plans for a $1.8 million cooperative education institute to be built on the Huntington Avenue parking lot between John A. Volpe Hall and Greenleaf Street. Con- struction was slated to begin in No- vember of the same year. An aerial view from the top of the Prudential Building shows Northeastern as a large sterile looking complex in the midst of the shabbiness and squalor of the surrounding community. 22