Before the El Came Down: Photographs by John Woolf

In 2004, 92 years after opening, the Causeway Street Elevated Railway and North Station platform were demolished. With the last piece of the giant structure gone, light shone again on the West End’s main thoroughfare. The West End Museum is hosting a new exhibit that recalls the final days of the elevated tracks and station. Before the El Came Down: Photographs by John Woolf gives us a glimpse – and a reminder – of what the El looked like in its final days.

“John Woolf’s photographs of the last days of the El in the West End are not only stunning but document the ongoing urban renewal in the neighborhood that continues today,” Museum Director Susan Hanson said.

Opened on June 1, 1912, the Causeway Street Elevated Railway was one of the last sections of raised tracks constructed in Boston as part of the nation’s first subway system. By the time it was destroyed in 2004, only a short section of elevated railway at the Lechmere MBTA station remained.

Before the El Came Down: Photographs by John Woolf features vibrant digital photographs of the El taken on a single night just weeks before its demolition. “I wasn’t able to get back to North Station until a few weeks later,” Woolf recalled about his process after that night. “When I did, much to my surprise, the station and all of the elevated train beds had been torn down. All that remained were occasional piles of twisted metal rubble.”

The photographs – edited to convey what Woolf calls “color film noir” – highlight the architecture of the El and North Station platform. They also showcase how those structures fit in among other neighborhood features and shops, such as Empire Photo, which has also since closed.