Between North Pleasant Street and Hasbrouck Laboratory, a small brick waiting station for bus passengers has been the topic of discussion for local historical groups and University of Massachusetts campus planners.
Recently, a group hoping to save the waiting station shelter reached out to Amherst’s Historical Commission and Chancellor Robert C. Holub’s office, calling for the preservation of the structure. The group has received last-minute support from the Historical Commission of Amherst.
“There now seems to be an improved chance to preserve the historic 1911 street railway waiting station in the middle of the UMass campus,” wrote Joseph S. Larson, an emeritus professor at the University of Massachusetts in a letter addressed to the editor of the Daily Hampshire Gazette.
As a part of the campus’ new master plan, the waiting station would be demolished. According to campus planners, it would cost $200,000 to transport the facility during construction and return it to the North Pleasant Street location after construction is finished. Preserve UMass, a group that Larson is the secretary of, said his organization had the cost estimated and received a significantly lower figure.
“Preserve UMass has recently obtained an independent estimate from a firm experienced in moving whole buildings of $75,000 to move [the structure] a short distance and return it when the utility line work is done,” Larson wrote in his letter to the editor.
The brick trolley stop, currently used as a PVTA transit stop, was built in 1911 as part of an electric trolley line on North Pleasant Street.
While the stop has changed with the times, Larson wrote that the waiting station still provides a needed service.
“Unlike many historic structures that have been adapted to modern uses, the Waiting Station continues its original use to provide shelter, not for streetcar patrons, but for thousands of students, faculty, staff and others who use the public bus system that covers most of the towns once served by the Amherst and Sunderland Street Railway.”
-Collegian News Staff
