Who's attaching circuit boards to our bridges?
Update: The Globe and Channel 4 now report that officials are finding these things all over the place. Storrow Drive is shut down. The Red Line is shut down between Park Street and Kendall.
On a morning when the lead story in the Globe announced the T's new random-bag inspections have turned up nothing, the Sullivan Square T stop and I-93 both get shut down so police could blow up a suspicious device found on a girder above the station. The Globe quotes a guy who ran toward the station to see what all the commotion was about:
"It was nerve racking," said Robert A. Ellington, 29, who ran to Sullivan Square to investigate when he heard whirl of television news helicopters. "It's scary, but exciting though."
Private Idaho reports:
So a friend of the family, Christie called my wife at home to say "Please help! my cell phone is running out of power and they've closed the subway and I'm stuck somewhere called Wellington Station!!! Can you come get me?" ...
Kimberly wound up walking to work because the buses got so overcrowded:
... It's only about 3 miles but crossing the bridge with the wind off the Harbor is a bit much but I trucked it and feel great! I should keep it up, an extra 3 to 6 miles a day would do wonders plus my daily workout. ...
Question of the day: If you are going to bomb a subway station, why on earth would you pick Sullivan Square?!
Cindy and Jeff at SmartRoutes made it official: This morning was an eventful Wednesday.
Note: Channel 4 has the best photos so far of the thing in question.
Ad:
Comments
Shocking!
They found something suspicious on the VERY DAY that the Globe reported the T's searches were ineffective and pointless? (my words, not theirs)
What a coincidence!
Sure seems like the T overreacted...
... to what was probably just leftover construction or surveying equipment. I bet it had been sitting there for weeks before anyone noticed it. Some contractor will not be happy now.
They could have at least waited until rush hour was over before shutting things down.
I dunno
They could have at least waited until rush hour was over before shutting things down.
As much as I might agree that the thing looked harmless, and as much as the conspiracy theorist in me wants to believe this is all related to that Globe story, if I were in Sullivan Square and the police thought they had some weird wire-y thing attached to a support beam for I-93, I think I'd want them to blow the thing up right away rather than risking an explosion right at rush hour.
One odd thing you can see on Channel 4's video of the device, though:
![Huh?](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==)
Sure looks like somebody was trying to have some "fun" with somebody.
At this point ...
I'm starting to shift towards "MassArt or MFA School student project got out of hand".
I noticed the same thing.
I noticed the same thing. I've been looking it up, and check out these photos from Flickr...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/vanderlin/358742603/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/vanderlin/358744332/i...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/vanderlin/358745469/i...
LED Graffiti. THAT is what caused this?
Not so quick...
Now everyone's in a tizzy about 4 other locales including the BU Bridge, NEMC, Stuart St. & Columbus Ave, and the Longfellow Bridge. Red Line between Park Street and Kendall is shut down for the moment.
Seems that the stuff this morning was electronic but wasn't an explosive so let's just hope this is all courtesy of some whack job with a Radio Shack Credit Card.
Radio Shack?
I just wish that radio shack still stocked any interesting circuit parts. All you can get from them now are cell phones and iPod accessories.
I just heard from a
I just heard from a colleague who heard from a friend (and you know how these things go) that four more devices have been found around the city and that trains aren't running right now.
Of course I can't get to MBTA.com to confirm about the trains.
Hmmmm...
Red Line shut down between Park Street and Kendall? Storrow Drive? I don't know how Sullivan Sq. ties into this, but the other two make me suspect an MIT prank.
More
http://www.flickr.com/photos/vanderlin/358745469/i...
http://toddvanderlin.com/blog/2007/01/16/adult-swi...
Somebody is in big trouble, I'm thinking
I wonder what creative type came up with this brilliant idea for a viral marketing campaign? (see my fulminations - which I owe all to you folks and the folks over at B0st0n LiveJournal).
Nice work on the second
Nice work on the second link. The guy who took the Flickr photos isn't the person responsible but notes that the ones who are behind this is a guerilla marketing firm. So these are, in fact, paid ads for Aqua Teen Hunger Force. very interesting to see what happens here.