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Old phone companies never die, they just get covered with leaves and fade away
By adamg on Mon, 10/18/2021 - 10:13pm
If you walk up Washington Street along Stony Brook Reservation in West Roxbury, you might come across this ancient New England Telephone & Telegraph manhole cover in the sidewalk - along with several old Edison Electric Illuminating Co. covers:
Now, the UHub Mobile Action News Unit has toodled up that stretch of Washington roughly eleventy billion times, but the UHub Mobile Action News Prius needed to go into the shop for some brake work, at Top Auto on Washington at Grove, and it was a nice day, so instead of hopping on a UHub Mobile Action News 34 bus, I walked back into Roslindale. It's the first time I'd ever walked that side of Stony Brook and it was a very pleasant view, aside from all the trash bags full of construction debris or something that people had tossed over the guard rail that separates the forest from civilization, such as it is.
There's even an old trail going further into the woods:
Neighborhoods:
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Comments
My Insta is mostly restaurant and bar photos,
but I posted this the other night.
Check out this exhibit and scavenger hunt:
https://happeningnext.com/event/sidewalk-candy-art-of-kathy-kottaridis-e...
At the WorkHub Substation you can pick up three route maps and search for 30 different manhole and utility covers, including a couple for the Boston Elevated Railway. Complete the hunt and you'll be entered to win a prize. Through October.
We did the scavenger hunt, and our prize (so far) was finding a lot of interesting stuff. Now I need to figure out why there are three different types of "Don't Dump" plaques next to storm drains - "Drains to Boston Harbor", "Drains to Charles River" and "Drains to Neponset River" was it just random placement or do the storm drains in the Square run in three separate directions?
Are these rare? I feel like I
Are these rare? I feel like I see N E TEL & TEL CO manhole covers so often that I don't pay attention to them any more.
They're not uncommon
But I always thought Bell System ones were more common.
My favorite ones are the BLTWA ones downtown - which were installed by the Boston Light Tension Wire Association to connect stock-broker ticker-tape systems in the early 1900s. Here's a bunch of downtown manhole covers, including a BLTWA one in Chinatown (there are at least a couple of them on Washington Street in DTX as well).
Washington Street in Roslindale between the square and Forest Hills also has several BERy ones, for the old Boston Elevated Railway trolley line that used to run from Forest Hills down to to Dedham.
Lots of BERy manholes
Less common are MTA covers, because it only existed from 1947 to 1964.
We're the ones for you,
New England.
Part of ...
The NYNEX family.
Then dad hangs up on Jill again, that hussy.
I'm still looking for a
I'm still looking for a manhole cover for Bell Atlantic NYNEX Mobile.
beat me to it
But now I'm going to sing it to myself all day
The Phone Company
My girlfriend has been there for over 34 years, and this is what I sing to her when she starts complaining about her day.....
Of course, this was 4 or 5 stationary changes ago
Story incomplete
Without a description of the UHub Mobile Action News Walking Shoes.
Should we do a pool
on what kind of shoes Adam wears?
I'm putting a dollar on New Balance.
My money's on eight-eye Doc Martens
in classic black.
UHub Mobile Action News Sneakers
Generic black laced things.
We need these made into t
We need these made into t-shirts!
https://www.spreadshirt.com/shop/design/boston+sewer+manhole+cover+mens+...
Adam to the Adams
I didn't see this on Twitter or I would have posted a photo: start on Delmont Street at the new Adams Library and walk north up Adams and you'll see all of these.
The Edison Electric Illuminating Company
Is where WEEI gets its call letters from. It was started by the Edison company and broadcast from the Edison building on Boylston St. downtown in the 1920s. (The building still exists, at 39 Boylston St., and says “Edison” on its imposing facade.)