page_title: Conductor's Building
section_title: Decline
hierarchical_section_title: Conductor's Building / History / Decline
caption_attribution_description: English: An RTS bus owned by the MBTA in Bennett Alley in July 2006
context_page_description: The Conductor's Building is a former Boston Elevated Railway administrative building, located on Bennett Alley between Mount Auburn Street and Bennett Street near Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Built in 1912 as the headquarters of BERy's 7th Division, it is the only original building surviving from the construction of the Cambridge Subway. After being renovated from 2014 to 2017 as part of an adjacent hotel project, the building was used as a restaurant from April 2017 to August 2018. Under the name Boston Elevated R.Y. Offices, it is a contributing property to the Harvard Square Historic District.
context_section_description: The BERy was folded into the Metropolitan Transit Authority in 1947, which in turn became part of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) in 1964. With the streetcar lines converted to trackless trolleys and buses by the 1950s, Bennett Street Carhouse became a trackless trolley facility. It was closed around 1978 for the construction of the Red Line Northwest Extension, leaving Bennett Alley as a layover point for routes serving the tunnel. With most administrative functions centralized, the division headquarters was scarcely used by the MBTA and the building fell into disrepair.
  Under the name Boston Elevated R.Y. Offices, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places on July 27, 1988 as a contributing property to an expansion of the Harvard Square Historic District. It is the last remaining building from the 1912 construction of the Cambridge Subway; the original station entrances, powerhouse, and carhouses have all been demolished.
caption: An MBTA bus next to the disused building in 2006
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