Hey, there! Log in / Register
Orange Line Time Machine: The Don Bosco signs at Tufts
By adamg on Tue, 12/17/2024 - 10:47am
Signs at the Tufts Medical Center Orange Line stop still direct people to Don Bosco Technical High School, some 26 years after the school closed and got turned into a DoubleTree hotel.
Founded in East Boston by the Salesian Order of Don Bosco in 1945, the school eventually moved across the harbor to a larger building between Warrenton and Tremont streets in Chinatown.
1956 photo from the Boston City Archives:
With enrollment declining, the school closed in 1998. Last year, alumni and and former teachers gathered at the DoubleTree for the unveiling of a plaque honoring the school.
In 2010, the MBTA replaced almost all all the signs in the station that read New England Medical Center after Tufts changed its hospital's name to Tufts Medical Center - and after Tufts paid $150,000 for the work. But they left the Don Bosco pointers up.
Neighborhoods:
Topics:
Free tagging:
Ad:
Support Universal Hub
Help keep Universal Hub going. If you like what we're up to and want to help out, please consider a (completely non-deductible) contribution.
Comments
It’s a small thing, but life
It’s a small thing, but life is made up of small things. Not bothering to have signs reflect reality sends such a loud “we don’t give a shit” message
You must hate me
I still call the amphitheater in Mansfield "Great Woods" which must reflect my personal "don't give a shit" attitude in your book.
Two different things
What somebody personally choses to call something, and signage posted by the T for the benefit and information of the general public are two completely different things. Nobody particularly cares about the first. But it is not too much to expect accuracy from the latter.
Says you
But since you are also someone who has "anon" as their sign on a public forum for the benefit and information of the general public I'm going to have to firmly disagree with you.
If the school doesn't even
If the school doesn't even exist, there or anywhere else, I don't think the sign's likely to cause anyone trouble.
Not really
Not really. I’d you were a public official responsible for wayfinding signs and you continued to display “great woods” directional signs on the roads, then I might complain, but otherwise, as a private individual, call it whatever you like, with my blessings.
What's it hurting?
It's not as if there are people looking for the school. Having the T announce "Amtrak" at Porter Sq is the sort of confusing little things that are a big problem. (I'm assuming that's fixed now.)
who stays at hotels, again?
well, presumably it would be, you know, helpful to guide out of town folks to a hotel that they might be staying at
Not the T's job
The T never puts subway signage to private things like "Doubletree hotel". (Or even just "hotel".)
If they did, not only would they need to change the signs every year, there would be arguments about what businesses get the plug.
You could argue they should just put another sign with the street name.
skill issue
total lack of vision here. other systems do it. why not do so, and charge the businesses for the privilege? bingo bongo win win for everyone
also, that's just completely untrue. off the top of my head there's signs at various stations pointing to fenway park, the garden, the cambridgeside galleria, and, you know, an entire station called Aquarium - to say nothing of Northeastern, BU, Harvard, MIT, etc
I wouldn’t need a time machine.
I still think of that building as the old Don Bosco.
Bosco was some kind of chocolate drink and assumed it was made there. I thought Don was some guy’s first name till I worked with a kid who had gone there.
If you were to ask me what it is now, I could tell you it’s a hotel but not the name.
Bosco
It's also George Costanza's ATM code
Symphony Station
If you exit through the outbound side of Symphony on the E line, there is a reference to Falmouth Street, which was eliminated when the Christian Science Center (Mother Church) was built in the early 1970's. I'm estimating that other streets were eliminated, but I don't know which ones.
Brandon Hall
There is a stop on the C Line named "Brandon Hall", which used to be the name of a hotel. But, that hotel hasn't existed for almost 80 years.
Porter Sq
Is named for the Porter Hotel which was torn down in 1909.
Brandon Hall stop
Looks like it will soon disappear -- as it and a neighboring station are supposed to be merged into a single intermediate new stop. See: https://www.wbur.org/news/2024/12/18/green-line-c-branch-stops-removal-k...
Bigger things to worry about....
It's an interesting blog contribution but, as a complaint, it's more suited for those who want to impose their OCD on the rest of us. Nothing wrong with a little nostalgia.
Outdated Signage
Speaking of outdated and inaccurate signage, this makes me think of the ancient, large tile "Scollay Square" signs that were unearthed when Government Center was being renovated and are now left there as some sort of historic artifact for all to see. I am all for commemorating history, but subway signs are not the place for it. I have seen confused tourists get off the train at Government Center and then jump back on after seeing the Scollay sign, which then lands them at Bowdoin, where they did not want to be.
It also lives on
as a quest in Fallout 4: Boston
https://fallout.wiki/wiki/D.B._Technical_High_School
My husband was playing that game and had a hard time with that quest due to oblique references of monsters he couldn't identify. I was like, "Oh OK that's supposed to be the Don Bosco High School, where the hotel and the YMCA are now. There's a pool in the basement. Go to the basement and see if there's a sea monster down there."
And I'll be damned, there was a pool in the basement with an enormous sea monster boss to fight.
And a fine Boston/T
And a fine Boston/T historical marker it is.
Big deal, why over think?
You see similar examples all over the world, in all cities. NYC, for example, is full of them.
I attended Don Bosco. It's amusing knowing it's a Double-Tree Hotel. As a teen I would sometimes stay late in school for various reasons. When I left the doors were always still unlocked, even after dark in Fall, Winter. I'd walk down the street cut, cut through the "Combat Zone" hop on the Orange Line @ Essex (Chinatown). Yes, it was a wild time. Violent random crime was bad in the 70s, 80s.
we can do better
it's because signs should be accurate and helpful. you should see what metro systems in, say, tokyo and hong kong do in terms of signage. it keeps people moving and prevents folks from getting lost. no idea why you would be opposed to such a thing
"We can do better"...
than cliches too, but we don't. It's not a big deal.
Gym
So this would explain why the YMCA was in the same building as the doubletree and had a 1950s era gym. They just re-used the locker rooms, gym, and associated rooms for the YMCA from Don Bosco.
So clean!
That sign looks amazing for how old it is
Back in the day every other house in Dorchester
Had a Grandfather clock built by a Don Bosco student in shop class...lol
It was a great way to raise funds,
Back in the day (1970's) B.C.
Back in the day (1970's) B.C. High used to sell "Crush Don Bosco" pins to their students to raise money for our sports teams.
Does Cornhill still connect to Scollay Square
from the Haymarket, or do you have to cross on Hanover?
The demise of Don Bosco
Was due to the students being robbed and beaten in daily brawls at the station.
More likely due to society
More likely due to society deciding that everyone needed to go to college if they were going to amount to anything and that vocational school was only for dumb kids.
Don Bosco had some great
Don Bosco had some great hoops back in the day; Dwan Chandler, Felton Sealey, Joe Beaulieu etc.
That's what happens when you
That's what happens when you don't put money into infrastructure for 40 years!
I remember watching Don Bosco
I remember watching Don Bosco hockey play at the old Garden.
The direct hidden entrance
I was a student there when the station was being built. It was actually built a decent 10 years before it was actually connected to the rest of the orange line and put into use.
The original plan called for a direct entrance into the school that would only be open mornings and afternoons to accommodate students arriving and leaving.
In the end it was capped and never put into service.
As posted here, the Double Tree hotel accommodated the alumni with a placard dedicated to the students and teachers that once roamed the hallways there.
My wife and I were married in their chapel in '74. That is no longer there and is now the footprint of their outside patio area.
The school also had an old factory building at the corner of Washington and Oak that housed the Electronics shop. The incline for the Orange line from the elevated structure down into the subway was actually connected to the building's back wall. The ground level wasn't so bad since we were below the tracks but on the 2nd and up to the 5th floor class often stopped when a train went by.
Imagine attending a combination college-prep and technical school with pile drivers, often 2 or 3 operating at the same time, as your background noise from start to stop of the school day. Yet we passed.