Broadway station (MBTA)

Subway station in Boston, Massachusetts, US

Broadway station is a subway station in Boston, Massachusetts. It serves the MBTA's Red Line. It is located at the intersection of Dorchester Avenue and Broadway in South Boston. It was opened on December 15, 1917, as part of the Dorchester Extension from Downtown Crossing (formerly Washington station) to Andrew. The station has a single island platform to serve the two tracks.

The Old Colony Railroad was built along the west edge of South Boston next to the Bass River in 1845. South Boston station was opened just south of the Dover Street (West 4th Street) bridge by the late 1860s. The New York and New England Railroad (NY&NE) had its own South Boston station on the Midland Branch, located at West 1st Street near B Street. In use around the 1880s, it was closed no later than 1896, when Midland Branch service was rerouted to the Old Colony terminal during construction of South Station. Both the Old Colony and the NY&NE were absorbed by the New Haven Railroad in the 1890s as the Old Colony Division and Midland Division. By 1915, South Boston station was primarily served by Boston– (Shawmut Branch) service, plus a small number of Midland Division trains and Old Colony Division trains to/from or points south. The station closed around the time that Broadway station opened, though it reopened briefly in July 1919 during a strike that shut down subway and streetcar service.

The middle level streetcar tunnel ran from a portal on Foundry Street south to another in the median of Dorchester Avenue. Service lasted for under two years' time, until October 14, 1919 just after Andrew opened since Andrew provided more convenient service to South Boston and eliminated unprofitable running on an industrial section of Dorchester Avenue. The streetcar tunnel saw several adaptive reuses. In the 1930s, the Boston Elevated Railway attempted to grow mushrooms in the tunnel, and in the 1980s it was used to test tactile platform edging for blind passengers. The 1985 built fare lobby occupies a section of the old streetcar platform and tunnel. After the September 11th attacks focused attention on infrastructure safety preparedness, the MBTA used the tunnel to train firefighters to respond to a burning train. The facility opened on June 12, 2013.