25 Nov MBTA drawbridge repair endangers historic signal tower
While any news of MBTA improvements are gratefully welcomed by all Bostonians, it looks like the upcoming North Station Drawbridge repair project will demolish a 1931 signal tower from the historic Boston & Maine Railroad.
1931 Boston & Maine Signal Tower A pictured in 1988.
On the northern, Cambridge side of the drawbridge before reaching North Station, a remnant of transportation history still stands. Signal Tower A is a handsome two-story, rectangular steel frame and brick building with full story brick and copper, and distinctive five-sided bays on the north and south elevations. It is architecturally significant, but it is also the only remaining unaltered structure from the Boston & Maine Railroad’s Boston Engine Terminal improvement plan from 1928 -1932.
This past September, the MBTA won $472 million in federal funding from the U.S. Department of Transportation to replace the North Station Draw One Bridge. Among program features outlined by the MBTA is the proposed design to replace Signal Tower A.
Proposed Design to replace 1931 Boston & Maine Signal Tower A.
As preservationists, we wanted to bring awareness to the fact that this project could result in the loss of one of the last extant structures of the Boston & Maine Railroad. By 1919, the Boston & Maine had emerged as the sole owner and operator of most of the competing branches in eastern Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine by the acquisitions of the lease of the Boston & Lowell in 1887, the acquisition of the Eastern Railroad in 1890 and the leasing of the Fitchburg Railroad in 1900. Signal Tower A had been in operation as recently as the 1990s and has since been left to fall into a state of disrepair. It is not listed on the National Register of Historic Places nor is it a designated Landmark, leaving it vulnerable to new development.
Although the signal tower is technically in Cambridge and beyond the bounds of HBI’s operational jurisdiction, the tower’s preservation is worth advocating for. Before the designing phase is complete, we want to encourage the MBTA and the Cambridge Historical Commission to explore options for potential reuse of this charming piece of Boston’s transportation history.
