Chicago Neighborhoods

endless explosions for you Americans
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The transfer from the CTA Blue Line southbound platform at the historic Damen station involves crossing under the elevated tracks to the station mezzanine, going up the stairs to the northbound platform, then using an old, long walkway past where the ‘L’ trains berth at the station, over North Avenue, then out the rotogates and down stairs to the street and the bus stop. This complex arrangement is a holdover from a former branch that left the ‘L”s main line (then only as far as Logan Square) to head straight west to Lawndale Ave. This was the Humboldt Park Branch, built as part of the Metropolitan West Side Elevated Railroad Company’s initial system in 1895. It was planned, but never built, past Lawndale, so could never quite generate enough traffic to be efficient. An interlocking tower was built at the junction between the two lines, but by the time it was built, it had almost no use as the branch declined. Service was downgraded several times by the CRT and then the CTA, until it became a back-and-forth shuttle run, until 1952 when service was stopped. It was finally demolished in the late 1960s. When the Humboldt Park Branch was dropped from the system, CTA hastily built this walkway from the main Damen station, over North Avenue, and down to the north side of the street, to allow for direct transfers to the North Avenue trolleybus (later just a bus route). Aside from some old steelwork bits remaining on west North Avenue, the tower, bus route and transfer walkway …
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