101 Summer St.

[magid]

This morning I stopped by the credit union ATM to get some cash. I did not think about denominations, which is how I ended up with a $100 bill when I’d expected $20s. Ack.

This gave me an excuse to buy lunch out (in addition to not having brought more than breakfast with me), which, now that Bakey has lost kosher certification, meant I headed to Milk Street Cafe to grab one of today’s specials (tuna-noodle casserole will always be comfort food for me, which I know is definitely not a universal opinion).

Previously, I had a great default route from the Downtown Crossing station to the restaurant through the 101 Arch St. lobby. Recent construction has closed that option off permanently, alas (the atrium is really pretty, with a multi-story internal spiral staircase (that I suspect is no longer used, but looks great)).

On the way back, I decided to avoid the exit I’d used on the way out, which had a bunch of pigeons fighting over chicken bones (I don’t really want to think too much about that…), so went through the non-Arch St. part of the lobby at 101 Summer St., which still has an entrance to Downtown Crossing. Except that the down escalator was blocked off for maintenance, and there weren’t any obvious stairs, which is how I found out that there’s an elevator. You know how when you get into a new-to-you elevator, you do a quick scan for which side has the buttons? Well, both sides had buttons, L for the floor we were on, and… different buttons for the lower level. I pressed M (I’m guessing for MBTA?), while the other guy who got in the elevator pressed L2 on his side. Why L2? why not just L, or L1? These are mysteries. Were there not enough L2 or M buttons to go around? Is this an office plagued with Borrowers? Was there previously an L1 level that aliens sucked out and wiped from our memories except for this one slip? Inquiring minds want to know!

Also, the long-closed Charlie Card Store at Downtown Crossing is no longer empty, but not open to the public, either: it seems to be a supplies depot for cleaners and possibly other workers?

Comments

[cellio]

Wow, I didn't realize that ATMs did hundred-dollar bills. How inconvenient! (I'm used to them doing tens and twenties and giving you as many twenties as will fit -- so if you want a ten you need to plan for it.)

[magid]

I didn’t know either; it’s possible this is a feature of being an ATM for $MyEmployer’s credit union?

There was an option for choosing denominations, but I wasn’t really paying attention until the cash came out, at which point it was moot…. (Although now that I think about it, I could have just deposited it and withdrawn $20s, but apparently I was enough on auto-pilot that it didn’t cross my mind.)

[cellio]

Although now that I think about it, I could have just deposited it and withdrawn $20s

But you would have had to either trust that nothing goes wrong with the ATM or go inside to a teller. I'd never deposit cash at an ATM; if they claim I was a bill short in the envelope or something, I wouldn't be able to prove otherwise. Though with a credit union maybe it's different; I'd trust them to do better auditing. But not at a big bank that doesn't have to care...

[magid]

I don’t know that I’ve deposited cash at an ATM (definitely not in recent memory), but I have deposited checks, and the process changed a while back from “put all checks in an envelope” to “*don’t* put checks in an envelope” because now there are optical scanners inside to show what it has received, so I’m guessing it works similarly with cash. It still feels a bit odd, even though I’ve never had a problem (and you can have a receipt with a facsimile of the checks deposited, even).

Though the last time I had a transaction at this ATM, I needed to go inside to talk to a person because the machine wouldn’t handle my check because it was for a large amount. (And this is the place that won’t accept coins, only paper money. Still, I get a better rate on one savings account, so it’s worth it.)

[cellio]

Oh, ATMs use optical scanners and can give you receipts with images now? Nice. It's been a while since I've used one at all and even longer since I've used one for deposits. Good to know.

[magid]

Also on the way back to work: I’d waited for a return train at the end of the platform (to be in the right spot for the exit at my stop), so I didn’t realize until the next stop that “The fifth cah is isolated,” and folks should use a different one. The announcement was so strange to me: I could imagine one car being ‘out of service’ or ‘closed’ or ‘unavailable’ or even ‘quarantined’, but it’s in the middle of a train, companion cars on either side, so there’s no way it’s ‘isolated’, unless the usage is more about locked doors than about physical distancing. To me it was an odd enough word choice that it stuck in my head until today.

[cellio]

That's weird wording in another way, too, at least to this non-local: are the cars clearly labelled? When I stand at a subway platform I wait for doors to open and walk in; it wouldn't occur to me to count cars. And if the announcement came at that point, I probably wouldn't be able to see clearly up the line to count cars ahead of the one I'm standing in (angle, crowds), certainly not quickly enough to avoid missing my train.

[magid]

The cars are labeled (not particularly clearly) with their unique identifier, not which place they are in the train, so the announcement isn’t really helpful. I think the assumption is “if the doors aren’t opening to the nearest train car, go find another one” is what they’re really saying. All you’d need to do is follow the other folks nearby who are headed for another car.

[cellio]

Yeah, if the closest doors don't open but others do, I'd think it would be obvious that I should just go over there -- not sure why that even needs an announcement. Probably some marketing person told them they needed to make an announcement so people wouldn't think something was broken and blame them.

[minoanmiss]

An urban adventure! You're not still underground, are you?

[magid]

Horrors, no! The train took a reasonable amount of time, I was just still thinking about it this morning!

(As compared to
(a) Monday's ride Kendall - Davis, where there were delays of a couple of minutes at multiple stations, which would’ve been fine except there was a guy who felt the need to be SHOUTING about the delays each time, and
(b) my coworker’s Monday morning commute, stuck underground for an hour and a half between Porter and Harvard inbound, with some kind of mechanical issues (she was frustrated, but her work laptop was working, while around her, at least one person missed a flight out of Logan and another missed the start of a final exam))

[cellio]

Oh good, no need to deploy sandwiches. :-)

[magid]

Now I’ve got a mental image of a line of sandwiches heading out in/with caving or mining gear, rather like Snow White’s dwarf friends.
:-)

[cellio]

Oh, I was thinking of Charlie's wife, but I assume she was above-ground so dwarves make more sense in this case. :-)

[magid]

OK, my head-canon is that Charlie doesn’t have a wife, since he’s too busy riding the T for managing social relationships, though perhaps he’s found a companion in public transit nerdery?

The bit between the two stops mentioned above is definitely underground (Porter Sq is the deepest stop in the system, with a huge 5-story(ish) escalator ride at one point.)
I think deploying sandwiches for help would be more likely for their culinary properties, but re-imagined as mining dwarves to fix the mechanical issues was a fun mental image.

[cellio]

The song says he has a wife, who hands him daily sandwiches but never thinks to hand him a nickel instead. (Or maybe she like that he's away?)

Charlie's wife goes down to the Sculley Square Station every day at quarter past two
And through the open window she hands Charlie a sandwich as the train comes rumblin' through

Charlie got on at Kendall Square and was headed for Jamaica Plain. I don't know where any of those three places, or T stops, are, but that's what the song gives us.

Oh, Charlie might have kids too -- at the beginning he kisses "his wife and family" before heading out with a dime. I'm going to assume he kisses his kids, not his dog. :-)

All that said -- I like your mining dwarves better than abandoned husbands who never get more than a sandwich!

[magid]

OK, clearly I never listened closely enough to the actual lyrics of the song!

Scollay Square was what an area in downtown Boston was called until the 1960s, when the whole place was demolished to put up Government Center, including the awful, brutalist Boston City Hall. There might have been a Scollay Square stop for trolleys, but these days, all the downtown stops are underground, and this one is called Governments Center (on the Green Line and the Orange Line, which parallel each other for a few stops before heading northwest and north, respectively).
(I looked at the Wikipedia article on Scollay Square, and it had this lovely bit: "Among the most famous (and infamous) of Scollay Square landmarks was the Old Howard Theatre, a grand theater which began life as the headquarters of a Millerite Adventist Christian sect which believed the world would end in October 1844. After the world failed to end on schedule, the building was sold in 1844 and reopened as a vaudeville and Shakespearean venue.” They did not wait around once their expectations failed to materialize!)

Kendall Square is the east-most stop in Cambridge, closest to Boston, and is currently called Kendall/MIT (on the Red Line). And Jamaica Plain is officially a neighborhood of Boston, towards the southern edge of the city. There are at least three Orange Line stops within Jamaica Plain, but their names are Stony Brook, Green St, and Forest Hills.
(There’s a local ice cream chain called JP Licks because their first location was in Jamaica Plain, which everyone calls JP. Happily, it has kosher certification.)

If Charlie were riding the system today, getting on at Kendall (Red) and heading for Jamaica Plain (Orange), there would be no reason whatsoever to be in Government Center, since it’s north of the transit point where Charlie would change to the Orange Line heading south. Although that station, Downtown Crossing, is a bit of a mess, since it includes not only two train lines and entrances from a lot of different streets, but also entrances from/to a number of department stores/hotels, plus a walkway to another station.

[minoanmiss]

I was kidding. :)

I do love how effectively you described this. My memory lit right up like a movie.