The Lake Street Transfer station was a rapid transit station on the Chicago "L", serving as a transfer station between its Lake Street Elevated and the Logan Square branch of its Metropolitan West Side Elevated Railroad. Located where the Logan Square branch crossed over the Lake Street Elevated, it was in service from 1913 to 1951, when it was rendered obsolete by the construction of the Dearborn Street subway.

LAKE ST. TRANSFER   1700W 200N
Former Chicago 'L' rapid transit station
The Lake Street Transfer. The Metropolitan is on top, the Lake Street Elevated on bottom.
General information
Location	1719 West Lake Street Chicago, Illinois, US[1]
Coordinates	41.8852°N 87.6701°W / 41.8852; -87.6701
Line(s)	Lake Street Elevated Logan Square Branch
Platforms	4 side platforms
Tracks	4
Construction
Structure type	Elevated
History
Opened	November 6, 1893 (1893-11-06) (Wood) May 6, 1895 (1895-05-06) (Lake) November 3, 1913 (1913-11-03) (Transfer)
Closed	February 25, 1951; 71 years ago (1951-02-25)
Previous names	Wood Street (Lake Street Elevated) Lake Street (Logan Square branch)
Former services
Preceding station Chicago "L" Following station Damen Closed 1948[lower-alpha 1] toward Harlem/Lake Lake Street Elevated Ashland Closed 1948[lower-alpha 2] toward Loop (Randolph/Wells) or Market Terminal Grand toward Logan Square Logan Square branch Madison toward Marshfield

The transfer station was an amalgamation of two predecessor stations. Wood, on the Lake Street Elevated, was on Wood Street, one block west of the site of the future transfer, and had been constructed in 1893. The Metropolitan's Lake station, on the other hand, was on the site of the future transfer and had been built in 1895. The merger of the stations was a legal obligation to the Lake Street Elevated's owner when the four companies that had formed the Chicago "L" merged operations in the early 1910s, and involved its closing of Wood station and building a station at the site of its transfer with the Metropolitan.

Plans to replace the Logan Square branch in the area, on which the Metropolitan's station lay, with a subway to provide a more direct route to downtown dated to at least the 1930s, and the subway was completed in 1951. This led to the station's closing, although remnants survived into the 1960s. The site of the station later served as the junction of the Paulina Connector and the Lake Street Elevated, which was used for temporary and non-revenue service until the Pink Line opened in 2006.

Lake Street Transfer was double-decked, with the Metropolitan's tracks and station being located immediately above the Lake Street's tracks and station. Access to the eastbound Lake Street platform was by a station house at the street level; passengers would then use the platform to access the Metropolitan's platforms and Lake Street's westbound platform by additional stairways.

History

Wood station (Lake Street Elevated; 1893–1913)

The Lake Street Elevated Railway Company was incorporated on February 7, 1888.[4] Reincorpoated as the Lake Street Elevated Railroad Company on August 24, 1892, to avoid legal issues,[5] its line, the Lake Street Elevated, commenced revenue operations at 5 a.m. on November 6, 1893, between California station and the Market Street Terminal.[6] The new line had 13 stations,[lower-alpha 3] one of which was located on Wood Street.[8] Originally powered by steam locomotives, the Elevated's tracks were electrified on May 9, 1896.[9] The Lake Street Elevated Railroad, having been dogged by financial issues since its inception, was reorganized as the Chicago and Oak Park Elevated Railroad (C&OP) on March 31, 1904.[10]

Lake station (Metropolitan Elevated; 1895–1913)

The Metropolitan West Side Elevated Railroad, another founding company of the Chicago "L", was granted a 50-year franchise to operate on April 7, 1892.[11] Unlike the Lake Street Elevated, which operated a single line, the Metropolitan had a main line that proceeded west from downtown to Marshfield Junction, where it split into three branches: one northwestern branch to Logan Square (which in turn had a branch to Humboldt Park[lower-alpha 4]), one branch due west to Garfield Park, and one southwestern branch to Douglas Park.[14] Unlike the competing South Side and Lake Street Elevateds, the Metropolitan never used steam traction; although it had originally intended to, and indeed had built much of its structure under the assumption that locomotives would be used,[15] it decided in May 1894 to have electrified tracks instead,[16] making it upon its opening the first electric elevated railroad in the United States.[17]

The Metropolitan's tracks on the Logan Square branch[lower-alpha 4] were finished by the middle of October 1894, and were powered on in April 1895 for test and inspection runs.[12] The Metropolitan began service at 6 a.m. on Monday, May 6, 1895, between Robey on the Logan Square branch and Canal on the main line.[18] Eleven stations opened that day, one of which was on Lake Street.[18] Since the Lake station crossed the Lake Street Elevated, its tracks and platforms were much higher than elsewhere on the "L".[1]

Transfer station (1913–1951)

In 1911, the four companies operating the "L" – the C&OP and Metropolitan, as well as the South Side and Northwestern Elevated Railroads – merged operations under the aegis of Chicago Elevated Railways (CER) while keeping their separate identities.[19] CER instituted full integration of crosstown service on the "L" and free transfers between the lines in 1913, having been mandated to do so by the Chicago City Council.[20] As part of the same ordinance, the Metropolitan and C&OP were required to construct a transfer station where their tracks intersected; since the Metropolitan already had its Lake station on the site, this meant in practice that the C&OP had to build a station to connect with it.[21] In the process of constructing the new transfer, the C&OP closed its nearby Wood station.[21] Free transfers commenced on November 3, 1913, but the C&OP's new station was not finished at that point. As an interim measure, "walking" transfers between Wood station and the Metropolitan's Lake station were issued.[21] After a few weeks, the C&OP's station was complete, and the Wood station was closed.[21] Throughout the transfer station's existence, it was used as a point of transfer for passengers of one of the lines to switch to the other when construction or maintenance work rendered a line unable to go downtown.[lower-alpha 5]

Skip-stop on the Chicago "L" began as an experiment on the Lake Street Elevated on April 5, 1948; stations in between Pulaski and the Loop, exclusive, became either "A" or "B" stations and were serviced by respective "A" or "B" trains during weekdays. Despite being located in this area, Lake Street Transfer was exempt from this system and continued to be serviced by all Lake Street Elevated trains. Skip-stop was part of a broader plan of streamlining Lake Street service when the publicly-owned Chicago Transit Authority assumed control of the "L"; as part of the same plan, the Ashland station one block east of the transfer was closed but remained standing.[2] The Logan Square branch would not begin skip-stop until the opening of the Dearborn Street subway and the closing of the transfer in 1951.[24]

Dearborn Street subway, closure, and demolition

Plans for Chicago to have a subway system in addition to, if not replacing, its elevated trackage dated back to the early 20th century, but the city lagged in building subways.[25] Chicago petitioned the Public Works Administration for construction funds for subways on State Street and Dearborn Street in 1937.[26] Such subways would alleviate the severe congestion of the Loop, and the Dearborn Street subway would provide a more direct route from Logan Square to downtown.[1][25] A 1939 plan also introduced the idea of replacing the Metropolitan's main line and Garfield Park branch with a section of rapid transit operating through a proposed Congress superhighway (the eventual Interstate 290).[27] These sections of transit would be connected, allowing for the area's rapid transit to be routed through downtown rather than adhere to a trunk-and-branch model.[28]

World War II interrupted plans to construct the Dearborn Street subway; although the federal government allowed the continued construction of the State Street subway, it did not do so for the Dearborn Street subway in spite of its 82 percent completion rate in 1942.[24] After the war ended, work resumed on the Dearborn Street subway and it opened at the midnight beginning Sunday, February 25, 1951; at the same time, the Humboldt Park branch was restricted to a shuttle service to and from Damen on the Logan Square branch.[24] Having been rendered obsolete by the subway, the Lake Street Transfer station was closed and the Lake Street's Ashland station reopened.[3] The subway was predicted to reduce the travel time between Logan Square and downtown from 28 minutes to 15.[24] Since construction had not started on the Congress Line, trains in the Dearborn subway stopped at its southern terminus at LaSalle and turned back.[24] Despite its incomplete state, the new subway had over 60 percent higher ridership than the old Logan Square branch by the end of the year.[29] The old Logan Square branch trackage south of its entrance to the subway became known as the Paulina Connector, connecting the branch with the rest of the "L" system.[30]

Construction on the Congress Line began in 1954, leaving the Douglas branch with the issue of how to connect with the Loop in the meantime.[31] The Paulina Connector south of Washington Boulevard (a block south of Lake Street) was reopened for the purpose,[31] but the Metropolitan's old tracks north of Washington were replaced in revenue service by a direct connection to the Lake Street's trackage known as Washington Junction, located adjacent to the abandoned station.[30] This junction contained an automatic interlocking mechanism, where Douglas Park trains carried an electric coil to switch them to the Connector that Lake Street trains lacked.[32] This connection was used until the Congress Line was completed in 1958, after which the Douglas branch connected directly with it to use the Dearborn Street subway to go downtown, creating the "West-Northwest Route" that was renamed the Blue Line in 1992.[33][34]

The Paulina Connector – both the original Metropolitan tracks and the newer Washington Junction – remained in non-revenue service. The old northbound track north of Washington Junction was removed in 1957, the southbound track continuing non-revenue operations.[30] Wooden material from closed stations on the Connector, including Lake Street Transfer, was removed in the late 1950s to mitigate fire hazards, as were the lowest flights of stairs to deter trespassing, but the rest of the station would remain until the mid-to-late 1960s.[1] The old Metropolitan trackage north of Washington Junction was sparsely used and most of it was demolished in 1964 with the right of way sold off;[35] the remainder of the Connector was relegated to single-track operation, running the former northbound track north of Madison Street and the old southbound track south of it.[30] The Connector reentered revenue service when the Pink Line was formed from it and the Douglas Park branch – by then renamed the Cermak branch – in 2006.[36]

Station details

Prior to 1913, both the Wood and Lake stations had two wooden side platforms each. The Wood station had two station houses, one on each platform, designed in a "gingerbread" Queen Anne style, similar to the other stations on the route and the surviving station houses at Ashland.[37] The station houses were heated by potbelly stoves, and while earlier plans had called for their ticket agent's booths to be placed on the sides of the station houses facing the street, they ended up being placed in alcoves adjacent to the platforms.[37] The construction of the Lake Street Elevated's stations was contracted to Frank L. Underwood of Kansas City and Willard R. Green of New York.[38] The Metropolitan's Lake station, which continued as its portion of the Lake Street Transfer, also had two wooden side platforms, but a station house located at street level on the north side of Lake Street. The station house, made of red pressed brick and white limestone trim, was designed similarly to other stations on the Logan Square branch, surviving examples of which are at California and Damen, with a corniced and dentiled front bay containing dual doors specifically marked "Entrance" and "Exit" and prolific use of terra cotta. Its wooden platforms had hipped roof tin canopies in the center and decorative cast-iron railings with diamond designs.[1][39] Unlike elsewhere on the "L", station houses on the Metropolitan had central heating and a basement.[40]

After the transfer was completed in 1913, the C&OP built new platforms; these platforms projected westward from the Metropolitan, with their eastern halves covered by arched canopies with lattice framing and their western halves open. Auxiliary exits onto Hermitage Avenue were located on the middle of the Lake Street platforms at the western ends of their canopies. On the Metropolitan's end, its platforms and canopies were extended southward to meet the southern Lake Street platform, and a new station house on the south side of Lake Street was constructed sometime before 1917, whereafter the original station house was used for storage. The final station was double-decked, with the Metropolitan's original two side platforms being augmented by the Lake Street Elevated's lower two side platforms. Access to the station was through stairwells from the station house to the Lake Street platforms, which had additional stairways to connect to the Metropolitan platforms; each Lake Street platform was connected to each Metropolitan platform, leading to four inter-platform stairwells in total. It is presumed that the station house had direct access only to the southern eastbound Lake Street platform, with patrons wishing to access the Lake Street's northern westbound platform having to walk up to the Metropolitan platforms and walk down again.[1]

Throughout the stations' existence, both the Lake Street[lower-alpha 6] and Metropolitan Elevateds[14] had two tracks each in the vicinity, meaning that the transfer station had four tracks overall. Having had trouble constructing its trackage with two different companies and assembling much of its own infrastructure, the Lake Street Elevated contracted with Willard and Green to construct its stations and the tracks west of Ashland.[42] The Metropolitan's tracks were constructed by the West Side Construction Company, a company with the same officers as the Metropolitan itself and the chief engineer of E. W. Elliot, with steel and iron from the Carnegie Steel Company.[14] Like the rest of the station, the tracks were double-decked in relation with one another, with the Metropolitan's tracks being above the Lake Street's tracks.[1]

Operations and connections

As originally opened, the Metropolitan's trains ran every six minutes between 6 a.m. and 6:30 p.m., and every ten minutes during the night; the average speed was 16 mph (26 km/h).[18] Unlike the Lake Street Elevated, all of the Metropolitan's cars allowed smoking.[18] The Lake Street Elevated originally operated some smoking and some non-smoking cars,[18] but the C&OP banned all smoking on its trains in 1909.[43] Smoking was banned by the city across the "L" and in streetcars in response to a 1918 influenza outbreak, a prohibition that has remained in force ever since.[43]

The fare across the "L" was legally mandated to be a nickel (5 cents, $1.37 in 2021) in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This fare continued until temporarily increased by a cent to $0.06 ($1.27 in 2021) in 1917 before stabilizing to a dime (10 cents, $1.35 in 2021) in 1920.[44] Starting in 1922, fares were usually marketed in packs of three rides for 25 cents, or 8+1⁄3 cents per ride ($1.35 per ride in 2021), but individual fares remained 10 cents each.[45] At the same time, a weekly pass was introduced, the first in a major American city, for $1.25 ($20.24 in 2021) for rides outside of Evanston and Wilmette.[45]

The Lake Street transfer station was served by a streetcar service on Lake Street; this service was consolidated with a streetcar service on State Street down to 63rd Street on September 14, 1924, as part of so-called "Through Route 16", or TR 16.[46] Unlike many streetcar lines in Chicago, TR 16 had no owl service, and its last northbound car left 63rd Street at 12:35 a.m.;[47] during the day, streetcar lines in Chicago typically had intervals of between eight and fifteen minutes per car.[48] After the transfer station was abandoned, streetcar service on Lake Street was cut back from downtown on November 15, 1953, and replaced by buses on May 30, 1954.[49]

Notes

References

Works cited

• Borzo, Greg (2007). The Chicago "L". Arcadia. ISBN 978-0-7385-5100-5 – via Google Books.
• Chicago Transit Authority (1951). Seventh Annual Report of Chicago Transit Board for the Fiscal Year ended December 31, 1951 – via Archive.org.
• Chicago Transit Board (1954). Tenth Annual Report for the Fiscal Year ended December 31, 1954 – via Archive.org.
• Public Information Department (1967). Congress Rapid Transit. Chicago: Chicago Transit Authority – via Archive.org.
• Lind, Alan R. (1974). Chicago Surface Lines: An Illustrated History. Park Forest, Illinois: Transport History Press.
• Moffat, Bruce G. (1995). The "L": The Development of Chicago's Rapid Transit System, 1888–1932. Chicago: Central Electric Railfans' Association. ISBN 0-915348-30-6.
• "The Metropolitan West Side Elevated Railroad of Chicago". The Street Railway Review. 5: 263–274. January 15, 1895.