Grand station (CTA Logan Square branch)
GRAND 1700W 500N | |||||||||||
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Former Chicago 'L' rapid transit station | |||||||||||
General information | |||||||||||
Location | 1714 West Grand Avenue[1] Chicago, Illinois, US | ||||||||||
Coordinates | 41°53′28″N 87°40′13″W / 41.8910°N 87.6703°W | ||||||||||
Owned by | Chicago Transit Authority (1947–1951) Chicago Rapid Transit Company (1924–1947) See text before 1924 | ||||||||||
Line(s) | Logan Square branch | ||||||||||
Platforms | 2 side platforms | ||||||||||
Tracks | 2 | ||||||||||
Construction | |||||||||||
Structure type | Elevated | ||||||||||
History | |||||||||||
Opened | May 6, 1895 | ||||||||||
Closed | February 25, 1951 | ||||||||||
Passengers | |||||||||||
1948 | 128,950 23.25% (CTA) | ||||||||||
Rank | 196 out of 223 | ||||||||||
Former services | |||||||||||
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Location | |||||||||||
Grand was a rapid transit station on the Chicago "L"'s Logan Square branch, one of the several branches of the Metropolitan West Side Elevated Railroad. Located on Grand Avenue, the station was constructed by the Metropolitan in the early 1890s and began service on May 6, 1895.
The Metropolitan, one of four companies that would build what became the Chicago "L", had many branches to serve Chicago's west side, including the Logan Square branch on which Grand lay. With some interruptions and financial issues, it operated these lines until 1911, when it handed operations to
Grand was typical of the Metropolitan's stations, with two wooden side platforms and a brick station house at street level. For most of its existence it connected with a streetcar route that reached
History
The
The Metropolitan's lines were originally operated by the West Side Construction Company, which had been responsible for constructing them, and would be transferred to the Metropolitan on October 6, 1896.
Closure and demolition
Plans for Chicago to have a subway system to relieve the severe congestion of, if not replace, its elevated trackage dated back to the early 20th century, but the city lagged in building subways.
The subway's approval did not immediately imply the end of the old Logan Square branch; plans in 1939 included another proposed subway to connect the branch with the Ravenswood branch to the north and through-routing it with the Douglas Park branch to the south into a subway on Ashland Avenue to form a crosstown route.[22] Damen Tower, serving the Humboldt Park branch divergence, was rebuilt with the expectation that it also would switch trains between the subway and the elevated, in the same manner as the State Street subway supplementing the earlier elevated North Side main line,[23] and as late as 1949 commuters were promised such a setup that would have preserved the old Logan Square trackage.[24] However, the CTA had no interest in operating either the old Logan Square elevated or the Humboldt Park branch; the new Damen Tower would never be installed with switching equipment, and the Logan Square branch south of Damen would be closed after the subway opened.[23]
The old Logan Square branch trackage south of its entrance to the subway became known as the
Wooden parts from the old stations on the Connector, including Grand, were removed to reduce fire hazards, as were the lowest flights of stairs to deter trespassing.[33] North of Washington Junction, the old northbound track was removed in 1957 while the southbound track continued non-revenue operations.[29] The portion of the Connector north of Kinzie Street, including where Division, Chicago, and Grand stations stood, was demolished in 1964 and the right of way sold to adjacent landowners.[34]
Station details
Grand had two wooden side platforms at its tracks and a station house at street level. The station house, made of red pressed brick and white limestone trim with a stone
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, on the main line and Northwest branch; the average speed was 16 mph (26 km/h).[11] By 1898, the night hours were updated so that trains ran at 30-minute intervals on each branch, or 15 minutes on the Northwest branch.[6] Fare control was usually by a station agent posted 24 hours a day, but conductors were used instead on the Northwest branch during night and off-peak hours from 1931 to 1934, and during 1936 and 1937.[36]
Grand Avenue had streetcar routes as early as 1912, which were consolidated in 1916 to a single line with
Ridership
Grand's ridership peaked in 1902 at 634,530 passengers.[41] Between 1900 and 1913, the station was consistently in the middle of the Northwest branch's[a] rankings, surpassing the stations of Lake and Madison to its south but trailing Robey, Division, and Chicago to its north.[42] By the late 1910s, the station was the lowest-ridership station on the branch except for the Metropolitan's portion of the Lake Street Transfer station, the successor to Lake and a station whose ridership the Metropolitan shared with the Lake Street Elevated, giving a combined ridership higher than that of Grand; in any event, Grand's ridership also trailed every station on the Logan Square branch proper.[43] Ridership last exceeded 600,000 passengers in 1907, 500,000 in 1910, 400,000 in 1912, 300,000 in 1924, and 200,000 in 1929.[7] During the 1930s, ridership dropped below six figures, bottoming out at 83,003 patrons in 1933.[36] In the last year ridership records are available, 1948, Grand served 128,950 passengers, a 23.27 percent decrease from the 168,006 in 1947.[44] In 1948, it was the 196th-most ridden of the 223 stations on the Chicago "L" at the beginning of the year where ridership was recorded; in 1947, it had been the 193rd-most ridden of 222 such stations.[b][47]
Notes
- ^ a b c Technically, the Logan Square branch started after Robey and was, like the Humboldt Park branch, a divergence from what was formally known as the "Northwest branch".[5] However, as early as 1898, even the Metropolitan itself was referring to the Northwest branch as part of the "Logan Square branch",[6] although ridership statistics continued to separate them.[7]
- ^ Several stations on the Niles Center and Westchester branches were permanently unmanned and thus did not collect ridership statistics.[45] Several stations closed on the "L" during 1948.[46] Exchange station on the Stock Yards branch discontinued statistics after 1946, but adjacent Racine station began collecting them in 1948.[44]
References
- ^ Polk Directory, p. 205
- ^ Moffat 1995, p. 123
- ^ 1895 Review, p. 263
- ^ a b c d 1895 Review, p. 264
- ^ a b c Moffat 1995, p. 130
- ^ a b "The Metropolitan West Side Elevated Railroad". Metropolitan West Side Elevated Railroad. 1898. Archived from the original on October 23, 2022. Retrieved October 23, 2022.
- ^ a b CTA 1979, pp. 10–14
- ^ 1895 Review, p. 267
- ^ Moffat 1995, p. 124
- ^ Borzo 2007, p. 43
- ^ a b c "New "L" Road Opens". Chicago Tribune. Vol. 54, no. 127. May 7, 1895. p. 12. Archived from the original on October 22, 2022. Retrieved October 29, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ a b c d Moffat 1995, p. 134
- ^ Moffat 1995, p. 139
- ^ Moffat 1995, p. 237
- ^ Moffat 1995, pp. 240–242
- ^ Moffat 1995, p. 261
- ^ Moffat 1995, p. 260
- ^ Chicago Transit Authority (October 1, 1947). "Today – they're all yours!". Chicago Tribune. Vol. 106, no. 235. p. 8. Archived from the original on October 29, 2022. Retrieved October 29, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ Borzo 2007, p. 91
- ^ "Entries in Loop at Every Block; Begin Work Dec. 15". Chicago Tribune. Vol. 97, no. 245. October 13, 1938. pp. 1–2. Archived from the original on November 17, 2022. Retrieved November 17, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ CTA 1967, p. 5
- ^ 1939 Plan, p. 16
- ^ a b Garfield, Graham. "Damen Tower". Chicago-L.org. Archived from the original on August 20, 2022. Retrieved November 18, 2022.
- ^ "Work Speeds on Building New Subway". Chicago Tribune. Vol. 108, no. 34. August 21, 1949. pp. 3–1. Archived from the original on November 20, 2022. Retrieved November 20, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ a b c d e Buck, Thomas (February 18, 1951). "1st Trains Run in New Subway Saturday Night". Chicago Tribune. Vol. 110, no. 7, Part 1. p. 21. Archived from the original on October 17, 2022. Retrieved October 24, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ Nedella, Carola (March 5, 1951). "Results of Eliminating the Logan Square "L"". Chicago Tribune. Vol. 110, no. 62. pp. 1–20. Archived from the original on November 22, 2022. Retrieved November 22, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ Serpico, Lillian (May 15, 1951). "Inconvenienced Riders". Chicago Tribune. Vol. 110, no. 116. pp. 1–14. Archived from the original on November 16, 2022. Retrieved November 16, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ CTA 1951, p. 1
- ^ a b c Garfield, Graham. "Paulina Connector". Chicago-L.org. Archived from the original on January 19, 2022. Retrieved February 12, 2022.
- ^ a b CTA 1954, p. 12
- ^ "Announces Congress Subway Plan System for Trains". Berwyn Life. Vol. 26, no. 70. Berwyn, Illinois. June 11, 1958. p. 5. Archived from the original on October 17, 2022. Retrieved October 16, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ "A colorful inspiration at the CTA". Chicago Tribune. Vol. 148, no. 209. September 25, 1992. pp. 1–22. Archived from the original on October 18, 2022. Retrieved October 16, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ a b Garfield, Graham. "Grand". Chicago-L.org. Archived from the original on October 29, 2022. Retrieved October 29, 2022.
- ^ "Demolish 70-Year-Old 'L'". Chicago Tribune. Vol. 118, no. 306. November 1, 1964. p. 10–9. Archived from the original on October 29, 2022. Retrieved October 30, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ 1895 Review, p. 268
- ^ a b CTA 1979, p. 13
- ^ Lind 1974, p. 258
- ^ Lind 1974, p. 202
- ^ Lind 1974, p. 201
- ^ Lind 1974, pp. 258–259
- ^ CTA 1979, p. 10
- ^ CTA 1979, pp. 10–11
- ^ CTA 1979, pp. 11–14
- ^ a b CTA 1979, p. 14
- ^ CTA 1979, pp. 22 & 38
- ^ Chicago Transit Authority (April 5, 1948). "New Lake Street All-Express "L" Service". Chicago Tribune. Vol. 107, no. 82. p. 7. Archived from the original on February 13, 2022. Retrieved February 13, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
- ^ CTA 1979, pp. 6, 14, 22, 30, & 38
Works cited
- "The Metropolitan West Side Elevated Railroad of Chicago". The Street Railway Review. 5: 263–274. January 15, 1895.
- Department of Subways and Traction (1939). A Comprehensive Plan for the Extension of the Subway System of the City of Chicago. City of Chicago – via Archive.org.
- Borzo, Greg (2007). The Chicago "L". Arcadia. ISBN 9780738551005– 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.
- CTA Rail Entrance, Annual Traffic, 1900–1979 (Report). Chicago: Chicago Transit Authority. October 1, 1979.
- 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.
- "R. L. Polk & Co.'s Chicago Street and Avenue Guide" (PDF). Polk's Chicago Directory 1923. Chicago: R. L. Polk & Co. 1923. pp. 193–228 – via ChicagoAncestors.org.