Kendall/MIT - Cambridge, MA
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NorStar
N 42° 21.744 W 071° 05.163
19T E 328218 N 4692121
The Kendall/MIT station is a station along the MBTA Red Line Subway and serves an active high tech and academic research area in Cambridge.
Waymark Code: WM7HV8
Location: Massachusetts, United States
Date Posted: 10/28/2009
Views: 5
In Cambridge, at the place where Main Street merges/splits with Broadway at Kendall Square, is the Kendall/MIT 'T' station along the Red Line subway.
The station is a below grade station with two entrances: one for the inbound side, and one for the outbound side. At this station, there is no crossover capability that does not involve a fare, so pay attention to the signs. Usually the directions will be indicated by the end stations: "Alewife" is the outbound trains that go toward the Alewife Station in North Cambridge. "Braintree" or "Ashmont" are the inbound trains that go toward the Braintree and Ashmont stations south of Boston.
The station platform has a few unique features. At the center of the station, between the tracks, are three "musical instruments." To play them, use one of the lever mounted on the wall on both the inbound and outbound sides (unfortunately, as of 10-2009, several of these levers were broken. On the walls are two large timelines. The one on the outbound side is a timeline for the city of Cambridge. The one on the inbound side is a timeline for MIT.
If you go inbound from the station, the subway rises to the surface and runs between the lanes of Main Street over the Longfellow Bridge, which crosses the Charles River Basin.
As the "MIT" portion of the name implies, the station is located by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), on its northeast side. There are many research institutes that are located here; many, a part of MIT. Biotech companies also are located within a few blocks of the station. On the other side of the Marriott Hotel is the Volpe Center, a U.S. DOT research facility. "Kendall" came from the Kendall Boiler Company that used to be located at the square (one or two of the buildings in the square were built for this company), and later relocated several blocks north along Third Street (a building on the corner of Third and Binney Streets still has the name of the company painted on it).
The station was first opened on March 23, 1912. The station went through major remodeling around the 1990s. This station was mentioned in the song "Charlie and the M.T.A." In that song, made famous by the Kingston Trio, a character named Charlie entered the subway at Kendall Square Station, but, due to the fare structure, he was unable to leave because he didn't have a nickel to get off. So he "could ride forever 'neath the streets of Boston...' The MBTA (the modern incarnation) has since issued the "Charlie Card", which is a prepaid system, so, supposedly, Charlie can now go home (that's if his wife would give him a prepaid card - she never gave him a nickel!).
Sources:
Wikipedia (Kendall/MIT Station):
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MIT - Charlie on the M.T.A.
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