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For more than a century, South Station has stood as an enduring symbol, welcoming millions to Boston each year.
The journey, however, would not be an easy one as the station fell from grandeur, faced demolition in the 1970s, then was revived to stand, once again, as the Gateway to Boston.
South Station was born back in the late l890s when it was no longer efficient for each of the five railway companies that serviced Boston to have their own depot. Passengers found it difficult at best, and a nuisance at the very least, to cart their baggage and belongings between terminals scattered from Back Bay to Summer Street.
The turn of the century was coming and Boston needed to have the newest, most efficient and architecturally grand station in the nation.
Recognizing that, the state legislature granted a charter to a new corporation, the Boston Terminal Company, and charged it with “constructing and maintaining a union passenger station in the southerly part of the City of Boston.”
 One-fifth
of the new Boston
Terminal Company
was owned by the
Boston & Albany,
the remainder
by the New Haven
Railroad. Funding
for the new company
consisted of $100,000
stock purchases
by each of the
five rail companies
which would use
South Station,
and by $14.5 million
in bonds, sold
to the general
public from l896-99.
After successfully floating the bonds, the Company purchased a 35-acre parcel of land for $9 million. This tract of land, just minutes from the business district was the perfect setting, having been home to the New England Railroad terminal for years. The City of Boston spent an additional $2 million rerouting streets and utilities and building a 200-foot granite seawall along Fort Point Channel to hold back the tides.
After only two years of construction, South Station, the largest railroad station in the world, was ready and the first train left the station in the early morning hours of January 1, l899.
The first half of the 20th century brought the glory years for passenger trains. By l913, 38 million passengers, more than New York City’s Grand Central Station, were enjoying the convenience and comfort of South Station.
Over the next 15 years, the station continued to handle an enormous amount of traffic.
In l945, swollen by GIs returning from World War II, South Station made history, when over 135,000 visitors a day poured into its halls. That’s a volume unmatched in any train station.
Over the next decade and a half, however, the station began to deteriorate, and when the New Haven Railroad declared bankruptcy in l961, things looked pretty grim for the old building.
But there was hope on the horizon when the Boston Redevelopment Authority stepped in and purchased the building for $6.95 million in l965. Quite a deal - two million dollars less than when the land alone was purchased in l897!
The hope was short-lived, however, when the BRA decided to tear the station down, and in fact began demolition in l970. A half-dozen tracks were removed and various portions of the U-shaped edifice were closed down and sealed off.
A group of concerned citizens, outraged at the loss of such a landmark, stepped in and succeeded in getting South Station listed in the National Register of Historic Sites. Demolition was halted and South Station began its rebirth - with a portion of the headhouse and grand waiting room still intact.
Over the next few years, plans were drawn for the ‘New” South Station which included a people-mover in an elevated passageway connecting South Station to Dewey Square, a direct passageway to the MBTA and an indoor sports arena.
In l978, the BRA sold the facility to the MBTA for $6.1 million. Six years later, the MBTA embarked on a project to restore the glory of South Station at a cost of $195 million - six times the station’s original cost.
The rehabilitation of South Station included the rebuilding of the headhouse, reconstruction of 11 station tracks with high level platforms, and the construction of a new bus terminal and parking garage over the tracks.
That phase of reconstruction was completed in time for South Station’s 90th anniversary, but even now, South Station is a work in progress. In its next century you will see this venerable building and its surroundings continue to reshape Boston’s landscape.
This article originally appeared in the May 1999 edition of South Station’s STATION BREAK newsletter.
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