A Bus Through Boston, Its People

The number one bus pulls up to the curb next to Johnston Gate and Mass Hall, and with a wheeze, opens its doors to allow passengers aboard.

Twenty-five minutes later; the manicured lawns and cobblestone streets are gone as the bus pulls into Dudley Square, the hub of one of Boston's poorest neighborhoods.

As the number one winds its way from Harvard Square to MIT, across the Charles, through the Back Bay, by the Boston Medical Center before finally stopping at Dudley Station, the MTBA bus cuts through more than just the city of Boston; it cuts through the region's full spectrum of social, racial and intellectual diversity.

First Stop: Harvard Square

At the Harvard Square stop on a recent weekday afternoon, the number one has several empty blue vinyl seats.

Three teenage girls are in the front, talking quietly. Two more teenagers laugh and chatter in the back. Other than these sounds, the bus is quiet.

A middle-aged man who doesn't give his name says there is a simple difference between this stop and the one at the end of the ride.

"In Harvard Square, you've got a university. In Dudley, you don't," he says.

"I live near Dudley, and I work in Harvard Square, so they're the same to me," he says.

Second Stop: Central

The bus follows Mass. Ave. and stops near Cambridge City Hall.

Carrying several overflowing bags, Maura E. Murphy steps on and stumbles into a seat.

"It's crowded in the rush hour," she says, nodding to the empty front of the bus.

Murphy takes the bus nearly every day from Central to homeless shelters in Boston, and frequently visits both Harvard Square and Dudley Square.

She says the population and the buildings differ.

"Harvard has more chains, more types of buildings like [Pizzeria] Uno's," Murphy notes.

"The people [in Dudley] are poorer than some of the people in Harvard, money-wise, but some people might be wealthier in spirituality," she says, her eyes peeking out under a wide straw hat.

Third Stop: MIT

When the bus stops in front of MIT, Murphy strikes up a conversation with her neighbor.

Students shuffle aboard, some grabbing seats, some standing, and the bus crosses the Charles.

Agus Budiyono, a MIT graduate student in aerospace engineering, sits in one of the few remaining seats.

"The atmosphere [of the bus] is pretty good," Budiyono says.

"There's a mix of people. You can see Americans, African-Americans, Asian-Americans--it's a mix of races," he says.

Budiyono also notes that the racial makeup of the bus changes as it heads towards Dudley.

"The way I see it, that's a part of the Boston character," he says.

Fourth Stop: Hynes

By the time the bus slips by the Back Bay's glitzy townhouses and stops near the Hynes Convention Center, there is only standing room left. Passengers grab the metal bars to steady themselves, and there is little room to move.

Anthony Harvey, a security guard at Hynes, adjusts his red and black checkered jacket and collapses into a just-vacated seat.

He stops at Dudley twice each day, to catch the transfer bus to his home outside Boston.

"I don't think there are any similarities [between Harvard and Dudley]," he says. "They have totally different cultures."

"Harvard Square is kind of strange," Harvey laughs. "There are a lot of things going on there, and I've seen some strange people there."

"In Dudley, it's kind of quiet during the days," he says.

Fifth Stop: Boston Medical

After the Boston Medical Center stop, the bus is empty again.

A man mutters to himself as he stands at the door, shaking his head.

"Make up your mind and get off the bus!" shouts a woman from several seats back.

"Sometimes there's trouble on this bus at night," says Arthur Johnson, a retired bus driver who occasionally drove the number one and now rides it as a passenger.

"At night, you would pick [the bus] up [at Dudley] and you'd get people who didn't want to pay. They're smoking dope and all that stuff," he says, describing what driving the number one used to be like.

Other riders say the bus can be dangerous in this area, too.

"I don't think it's safe, especially not at night," says Channel Evans, a Dorchester resident who rides the bus to classes at Wheelock College every day.

"I just go, get my bus, get my daughter and go home, but the type of people that hang out at the bus stop, it's just horrible," she says.

"[Dudley Station] looks awful," says Lisa Martin, who transfers buses there. "Since they've cleaned it up, it's looked a little better, but there's dirt on the street, you know?"

Last Stop: Dudley Square

In the last minutes before the number one's route ends, the streets narrow and become crowded with small, one-story shops.

Signs for "New York Fashions," "Bargain for Men," "Jack's Dept. Store" and "African Market" whiz by the windows.

The bus follows a curve in the road, past boarded up buildings and pulls into a bustling Dudley Station, where commuters run to catch one of the 15 transfers and locals head home.

Like in Harvard Square, the sidewalks are brick. A large beige bank presides over the square, while smaller sub shops, beauty salons and bargain clothing stores line the streets.

Teenagers with Walkmen and books head toward the bus station, shouting to each other; mothers push baby carriages across the main street.

But the buses veering in and out of the station, which spans a square block, add noise and confusion to the scene.

"It used to be quiet. There weren't a lot of people here," says Frances Jenkins, a housekeeper who lived in Dudley Square during the '70s and '80s.

"It was primarily white when I moved in, but now you see a very diversified place," she says.

"In Harvard Square, the difference I see is that there are more businesses, restaurants--a lot more things to do than in this section, and that makes a big difference," she says.

A few people are already waiting for the next number one to come in the designated waiting area. The bus will head back to Harvard Square along the same route, and the passengers will shift once more.

"You get all different people on this bus," says Johnson, the retired bus driver, as he taps a brightly colored umbrella on the ground. "All different people."