"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.