For out of towners, the map of Boston’s subway system might just look like a jumbled mess of red, blue, green, orange and silver pasta. Or maybe Medusa’s head or something. It’s reasonable for them to ask why they can’t get on the E train to go to Fenway Park or why the silver line is really just a glorified bus. Bostonians might think they know the lay of the land, but when we perfect time travel, it might not be so easy. Check out this map of Boston’s transit system from 1945, an aerial view put together by the Metropolitan Transit Recess Commission.
You can adjust the size of the picture there, but it’s no less a jumbled mess. And impossible would it be today to give directions using it. Unless, of course, you could decipher this: “Yeah, so you’re gonna wanna hop on the Yellow Line at Norfolk Downs, take it all the way to Park, switch to the Blue Line and my place is like a five minute walk from Trinity Place at the Mechanics stop.”
Believe it or not, real life actual results came of this. The map offers proposed extensions of transit into Suburban Boston. The Blue Line, which originally opened in 1904, saw its rapid transit extend out into Revere in 1952. So it was a rather short time period between this proposal map, and it becoming a reality.
So there’s your disorienting ride on the Green Line down memory lane. Next time you’re grumbling about how convoluted the MBTA maps are, just be thankful it’s no longer 1945. Because this is truly a thing of beauty… kinda.
