Elevated Orange Line on Display

Did you know the MBTA’s Orange Line was once elevated? The line’s stops from Chinatown to Dudley Square were on tracks hoisted high above Washington Street. Though the line was dismantled in 1987, you can see how it looked at an exhibit through January.

An Elevated View: the Orange Line, an exhibit featuring 65 photographs from between 1901 and 1987 when the Orange Line was elevated is on display at the Wiggin Gallery at Central Library in Copley Square.

The photographs are arranged in order of MBTA Orange Line stops from Forest Hills to Dover Station, and are taken from a 1987 project by nonprofit organization URBANARTS, which documented the end of Boston's “El.”

On Monday, Jamaica Plain’s Connolly Branch Library hosted a screening of The Conservation of Matter: The Rise and Fall of Boston’s Elevated, an accompanying documentary which highlights what became of the 10,000 tons of steel after the elevated Orange Line was dismantled.

The photograph exhibit is open Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday, 9 a.m.-5 p.m.; Tuesday and Thursday, 9 a.m.-7 p.m.; and Sunday, 1-5 p.m. The exhibit closes Jan. 19, 2013. (The Library will be closed on Thanksgiving Day.)