The Lake Street Transfer station was a rapid transit station on the Chicago "L", serving as a transfer station between its Lake Street Elevated Railroad 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 opening of the Dearborn Street subway.
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 station, 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. These stations, and their lines, had been constructed by two different companies; when they and two more companies building what would become the "L" merged operations in the early 1910s, a condition for the merger was the construction of a transfer station between the Metropolitan and Lake Street Elevateds at their crossing, which in practice meant the replacement of Wood station with a new Lake Street one under the Metropolitan. Having already merged operations, the "L" companies formally united under the Chicago Rapid Transit Company (CRT) in 1924; the "L" became publicly owned when the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) assumed operations in 1947.
Plans for a subway to provide a more direct route from Logan Square to downtown dated to the late 1930s, but the subway was originally intended to supplement the Logan Square branch of the area, on which the Metropolitan's station lay, rather than replace it. The newly formed CTA, however, found little reason to continue operation of the old Logan Square elevated. The subway was completed in 1951, leading to the station's closure, but remnants of the station survived into the 1960s. The site of the station is near the junction of the Paulina Connectorthe descendant of the old Logan Square trackageand the Lake Street Elevated, which was used for temporary and non-revenue service until the Pink Line opened in 2006 and returned it to revenue status.
Lake Street Transfer was double-decked, the Metropolitan's tracks and station 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. Reincorporated as the Lake Street Elevated Railroad Company on August 24, 1892, to avoid legal issues, its line, the Lake Street Elevated, commenced revenue operations at 5:00a.m. on November 6, 1893, between California station and the Market Street Terminal. The new line had 13 stations, one of which was located on Wood Street. The Elevated was powered by steam locomotives until May 9, 1896, when its tracks were electrified. 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.
Lake station (Metropolitan Elevated; 1895–1913)
The Metropolitan West Side Elevated Railroad Company, another founding company of the Chicago "L", was granted a fifty-year franchise by the Chicago City Council on April 7, 1892. 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), one branch due west to Garfield Park, and one southwestern branch to Douglas Park. While the competing South Side and Lake Street Elevateds used steam traction, the Metropolitan never did; although it had originally intended to, and indeed had built much of its structure under the assumption that locomotives would be used, it decided in May 1894 to have electrified tracks instead, making it upon its opening the first revenue electric elevated railroad in the United States.
The Metropolitan's tracks on the Logan Square branch were finished up to Robey by the middle of October 1894, and were given power in April 1895 for test and inspection runs. The Metropolitan began service at 6:00a.m. on Monday, May 6, 1895, between Robey on the Logan Square branch and Canal on the main line. Eleven stations opened that day, one of which was on Lake Street. Since the Lake station crossed the Lake Street Elevated, its tracks and platforms were much higher than elsewhere on the "L".
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 Railroadsmerged operations under the aegis of Chicago Elevated Railways (CER) while keeping their separate identities. 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 City Council. 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. In the process of constructing the new transfer, the C&OP closed its nearby Wood station. 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. After a few weeks, the C&OP's station was complete, and the Wood station was closed. 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.
CER acted as a de facto holding company for the "L"unifying its operations and instituting the same management across the companiesbut kept the underlying companies intact. This continued until the companies were formally merged into the single Chicago Rapid Transit Company (CRT) in 1924, which assumed operations on January 9; the former C&OP and Metropolitan were designated as the respective Lake Street and Metropolitan Divisions of the CRT for administrative purposes. Although municipal ownership of transit had been a hotly-contested issue for half a century, the publicly-owned Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) would not be created until 1945, and would not assume operation of the "L" until October 1, 1947.
The new CTA began experiments to streamline service on the "L"; among them was skip-stop, which 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. As part of the same plan to streamline Lake Street service, the Ashland station one block east of the transfer was closed but remained standing. 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.
Dearborn Street subway, 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. Chicago petitioned the Public Works Administration (PWA) for construction funds for a subway on State Street in 1937. The petition originally included a proposal for two downtown east-west streetcar tunnels. Harold L. Ickes, the administrator of the PWA and a longtime Chicagoan, vetoed the streetcar tunnel plan and insisted instead on a second subway that would go under Dearborn Street and Milwaukee Avenue, which would provide a more direct route from Logan Square to downtown. Although this idea engendered considerable local opposition, especially from mayor Edward Joseph Kelly, Ickes's influence in the federal government led to the Dearborn plan being adopted in 1938. 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 superhighway on Congress Street (the eventual I290). 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.
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. 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, much like the State Street subway connects with the earlier elevated North Side main line that remained standing after its construction, and as late as 1949 commuters were promised such a setup that would have preserved the old Logan Square trackage. 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 Dearborn subway opened.
World War II interrupted the construction of 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 even though it was 82 percent completed by 1942. After the war ended, work resumed on the Dearborn Street subway and it opened at midnight 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. Having been rendered obsolete by the subway, the Lake Street Transfer station was closed and the Lake Street's Ashland station reopened. The subway was predicted to reduce the travel time between Logan Square and downtown from 28 minutes to 15. Since construction had not started on the Congress Line, trains in the Dearborn subway stopped at its southern terminus at LaSalle and turned back. Despite its incomplete state, and complaints from riders no longer given a direct trip to the Near West Side, the new subway had over sixty percent higher ridership than the old Logan Square branch by the end of the year. 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.