The new Halsted station house at UIC-Halsted, looking northwest as a #8 Halsted bus passes on June 27, 2001, a day after the new facility opened. Sharp angles and triangular shapes characterize the exterior, its similarities to the upcoming Douglas branch stations betraying their common designers. For a larger view, click here. (Photo by Graham Garfield)

UIC-Halsted

(800W/430S) Halsted

(900W/430S) Peoria

(1000W/430S) Morgan
Between Halsted and Morgan Streets and the Eisenhower Expressway, Greektown (Near West Side)

Service Notes:

Blue Line: Forest Park-Cermak

Accessible Station

Owl Service

Quick Facts:

Address:

430 S. Halsted Street (Halsted entrance)

430 S. Peoria Street (Peoria entrance)

430 S. Morgan Street (Morgan entrance)
Established: June 22, 1958
Original Line: West-Northwest Route, Congress branch
Previous Names: Halsted, U of I-Halsted

Skip-Stop Type:

Station
Rebuilt: 1965 (Peoria added), 2000-01
Status: In Use

History:

Background

A 2200-series Milwaukee-Congress "A" train, led by car 2250, stops at U of I-Halsted on August 8, 1970. Note the exit signs on the highway in the background: the left sign for the Kennedy calls it I-94. At this time, the Eisenhower is I-90, not I-290. (I-90 would later follow I-94 north.) For a larger view, click here. (Photo by Joe Testagrose)
The original Halsted station of the Metropolitan West Side "L" was in what would now probably be the westbound lane of the Eisenhower Expressway. Built as part of the Met's main line in 1895, this station and the rest of the main line and Garfield Park branch were demolished in the mid-1950s when the Congress Street Expressway was constructed. The plan included a novel concept: a rapid transit line in the median of an expressway, making a sort of transit corridor. The "new" Congress Line thus provided no net gain for the "L" system.

Halsted is nearly identical to every other station built in the Eisenhower Expressway, including an island platform, a small station house on Halsted's overpass containing only a ticket booth and turnstiles and a long, enclosed, sloping passageway/ramp connecting the two. A brochure, published by the City of Chicago to commemorate the initiation of service June 22, 1958, describes the stations this way:

Each station platform in the expressway right-of-way is the island type, 600 feet long and canopied throughout its entire length. Supported by structural aluminum columns, the canopy extends beyond the platform edge and over the roofs of cars....

Station design here is somewhat unique, resulting from a compromise between the historic concept of closely spaced stations (favored by aldermen) and widely spaced stations, coordinated with bus feeder routes (preferred by eager CTA planners anxious to improve transit service and system productivity). The fare collection building is about 42 ft x 21 ft. The more important stops are located between two cross bridges separated by about 1/4 mile and there is a station house and access ramp at each end. While there are obvious disadvantages to the long ramp concept, the compromise design did avoid the additional stops the CTA planners hoped to get rid of.

 

U of I Opens, Morgan Closes

The newly-christened U of I-Halsted station, looking east from Morgan Street in 1965. The Peoria station house at center has just opened. (Photo from the Graham Garfield Collection)
The new station served the Chicago campus of the University of Illinois. The Circle Campus (as it was originally known) opened in February 1965, so the station was renamed from "Halsted" to "U of I-Halsted" to reflect this new landmark. The majority of the station's traffic, in fact, began to come from the university and not the surrounding neighborhoods, so a third entrance was added at an intermediate street more convenient for the school, Peoria Street. The Peoria entrance, considerably larger than the other two station houses, was built on the Peoria Street overpass (effectively closing it to vehicular traffic), contained a large space in the paid area for concessionaires, and had both stair and escalator access from the station to the platform. The Peoria entrance opened on February 22, 1965 and the station's name changed on the same day.

In the following decades, many Congress Line stations saw their auxiliary entrances closed or scaled back. Halsted's Morgan entrance escaped many of these service cuts, but its time ran out on September 20, 1981, when it was closed amid another round of Congress Line auxiliary entrance closures. The entrance was later reopened, though at what date is uncertain; this most likely occurred in the late 1980s/early 1990s.

The Peoria entrance, which drew heavy traffic from the university, was still only a part-time entrance, closing at night and not reopening until 1025 hours daily. On October 16, 1995, a six-month test began under which Peoria's opening time was moved back to 0630 hours. The test was successful and Peoria maintained earlier opening hours. Also by this time, the station's name was slightly altered from "U of I-Halsted" to "UIC-Halsted" to reflect the campus's revised name, although none of the signage has been changed to reflect this. The "UIC-Halsted" name first appeared in maps in 1993, although it was not consistently referred to as this until the mid-1990s.

In December 2000, UIC-Halsted was adopted under the CTA's Adopt-a-Station program. Greek artist Eleni Glinou was commissioned to design scenes from the mythical poem "Ithica" by Constantine P. Cavafy. The six colorful murals adorn the UIC-Halsted station, which sits on the south boundary of Greektown. The murals were painted by Gallery 37 student artists.

 

Renovation Comes to UIC-Halsted

The Morgan station house after renovation, looking southeast in the Summer of 2001. Most of the original exterior remains, but the front facade has been replaced. For a larger view, click here. (Photo by Graham Garfield)
The Morgan entrance to the station closed on April 17, 2000 as the first phase of an extensive project that resulted in making UIC-Halsted accessible to persons with disabilities at both the Halsted (800 W) and Morgan (1000 W) entrances. The previously-exit-only facility at Morgan Street was closed for about five months while the station house was modified.

The reconstructed Morgan entrance has two new standard turnstiles and a turnstile for access by customers with disabilities, as well as a ramp to the platform that has been reconfigured to meet ADA guidelines. The entrance is to be staffed 24 hours daily. It also has a new floor installed, along with some new wall coverings, new signage, new fare controls, and a new agents booth, with extends thought the front of the station house and alters the appearance of the front facade. It was given a more modern, stainless steel look. Morgan also received two TCVM's like the Peoria entrance, unusual for a secondary entrance to a station. The Morgan entrance to UIC-Halsted reopened at 0600 hours on September 24, 2000.

At the Peoria entrance, work is under way to rebuild stairways from the street level to the platform to provide wider clearance on the platform for customers in wheelchairs. At least one stairway will be open at all times while the work proceeds. When the reconstruction is completed, the escalator will be removed and two stairways will be available for customers to enter and exit, with a third for exiting only. Construction of a new stairway began at the Peoria entrance on Monday April 2, 2001. The escalator at the Peoria entrance was permanently closed at that time. Work at the Peoria entrance is expected to be finished in Fall 2001.

The new Halsted station house is still being completed on June 13, 2001. For a larger view, click here. (Photo by Graham Garfield)
The next phase of construction at the UIC-Halsted station was undertaken in Fall 2000. With construction at Morgan completed, the work shifted to the main station entrance at Halsted, which will be closed for about four months. Starting at 9:30am, Monday, October 30, 2000 the UIC-Halsted station entrance at Halsted (800 West) was closed for reconstruction to provide accessible features similar to those available at the westernmost entrance to the station at Morgan (1000 West). While the Halsted entrance was closed, customers had to use the escalator and stairway entrance at Peoria (900 West) to connect to #8 Halsted buses on Halsted at either Harrison or Van Buren. #7 Harrison buses were boarded on Harrison at either Peoria or Morgan. During this time, the street-level Halsted station entrance will be rebuilt for accessibility and the ramp to the platform will be reconstructed in the same manner as at Morgan. The Halsted entrance will have three standard turnstiles and an accessible turnstile for customers with disabilities. A picture of the proposed station facility is posted outside the station house on Halsted Street.

The interior of the new Halsted station house, looking west at the fare controls on June 27, 2001, a day after reopening. For a larger view, click here. (Photo by Graham Garfield)
By April, new micropiles were installed under the Halsted station. Construction of the new ADA-complaint pedestrian ramp and station house slab had been completed. The canopied roof system for the new station house had been completed and assembly of the new station house and completion of the new ramp was proceeding. Construction at the Halsted entrance is projected to be completed in May 2001 and work at the UIC-Halsted station complex will be complete October 1, 2001. The UIC-Halsted station will not be fully accessible until the entire project is completed.

Effective at 0530 hours on June 26, 2001, the new Halsted station house at the UIC-Halsted station reopened after the extensive rebuilding project. The Halsted/Congress entrance to UIC-Halsted station is now accessible to customers with disabilities and includes a new station house (in a rather avant garde postmodern design), a new audiovisual pubic address system, a new accessible ramp, improved, brighter lighting, new fare controls and CA booth, a new concession (currently unoccupied), and new granite flooring.

Work at the Peoria entrance to UIC-Halsted began on Monday April 2, 2001 when the escalator at the Peoria entrance was permanently closed and a construction of a new stairway was undertaken. In early summer, the auxiliary exit stairway on the east side of "Peoria Street" (there is no actual street there per se) was rebuilt to be converted to a TransitCard entrance. On July 2, 2001, this was converted to an auxiliary entrance, with access through high-barrier gates with farecards only. On the same day, the Peoria station house closed for final rehabilitation work.

On Saturday, October 20, 2001 at 0700 hours, the Peoria station reopened for passenger use. The "middle stairway" (as the CTA called it; the east stairway from the station house) reopened, while the "east stairway" (the auxiliary stairs outside the station house) closed temporarily to have their TransitCard turnstiles removed. On Monday, October 22nd at 0603 hours, the east stairway reopened for exit only with new rotogates installed. The middle stairway from inside the Peoria station house must now be used to access the platform from Peoria Street; both the middle and east stairs can be used for exit.

The interior of the Peoria station house, looking north in the unpaid area. Fresh paint and some new wall tile is most of what was changed here, as the CA booth is original and the fare controls were already in place. Drop-down gates are integrated into the station house design to allow the turnstiled to be locked up and for conversion of Peoria to "exit-only" through the rotogates on the left. For a larger view, click here. (Photo by Graham Garfield)
The "west stairs" from inside the station house remained closed while final work, including the instillation of hand rails and glass panels in the stair enclosure, in completed. The stairs were blocked off from the platform by a plywood door, while a yellow plastic crowd barrier tape blocked off the stairs and westernmost 15 feet or so of the Peoria station house.

The renovation of the Peoria station house included new flooring, repainted walls and ceilings, new gray wall tiling, new lighting, new A/V signs and new communications equipment. The same 1965-vintage CA booth and exit rotogates (complete with original 1965 black-and-yellow "Out" signs!) still adorn the station house, as do the same TransitCard turnstiles and AVMs and outdated "L" system map from 1996. The stairways from the street level to the platform were rebuilt to provide wider clearance on the platform for customers in wheelchairs. With the reconstruction nearly completed, the original escalator has been removed and the two stairways inside the station will be available for customers to enter and exit, with the third across from the station available for exiting only.

The Peoria station house is one of the few "L" station headhouses that is still used by some passengers as a waiting room (the Randolph/Wabash Inner Loop station house is chiefly the other). The clear glass (or Plexiglas, it's hard to tell) walls and functional "enunciators" (those backlit signs that say "From Loop" and "To Loop" that flash and sound a bell to alert passengers to approaching trains) allow passengers to stand inside the station house, away from inclement weather, and either see or be alerted to approaching trains with enough time to go down to the platform before their arrival. There are currently now seats or benches in the large paid area of the Peoria station house, however, that facilitate this activity.

The west stairs from the Peoria entrance reopened Monday, November 12, 2001, making both station-to-platform stairways from inside the Peoria headhouse in service. At the same time, however, the east auxiliary exit stairs closed temporarily for a final repainting. They reopened soon after, thus substantially completing the UIC-Halsted renovation project. All work at the UIC-Halsted station complex was to be complete October 1, 2001, but this date has obviously been revised in the face of its current incompletion. According to the CTA, the Peoria station is expected to be complete by November 2001.

New station name signs, following the Current Graphic Standard, were installed at four Blue Line stations in late 2002/early 2003, including UIC-Halsted. The fabrication and installation of these signs was actually the continuation of the renovation work that was completed here in 2000-01. Over the weekend of February 22-23, 2003, crews replaced the KDR station name signs with new Current Graphic Standard models, in the same locations over the windbreaks. The new signs corrected one aspect that was out of date on the old signs: the station name. The KDR signs called the station by the previous but similar name "U of I-Halsted", with the typeface "I" being a block-I like the University of Illinois logo rather than being Helvetica, as the rest of the CTA's® signs (and the other letters on the U of I-Halsted sign) were. The new signs call the station "UIC-Halsted", reflecting both the university's name change and the name the station has gone by since the early 1990s. With this step forward, however, came a small step backward: the omission of one of the exits on the tabs. The KDR signs that were replaced listed all three entrances/exits: Halsted, Peoria, and Morgan. The new signs list only Halsted and Morgan, but do not indicate which direction the center exit at Peoria can be found. Sources indicate this was a cost-saving measure, as the inclusion of Peoria would have required four different types of tabs to be produced (further raising costs not only because of the increased variation but because of the smaller lots manufactured of each type), whereas omitting Peoria allowed only two types of tabs to be required. Plans here call for additional station name signs to be installed outside the tracks on new posts. Existing symbol signs (which still call the station "U of I-Halsted" and use the block-I) were left in place.

 

The island platform at UIC-Halsted, looking east near Peoria Street on June 27, 2001. The platform has been changed little in the station's recent remodeling and still bears its old KDR station name signs that call the stop "U of I-Halsted". For a larger view, click here. (Photo by Graham Garfield)

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This view looking east from the Peoria Street overpass shows the Congress rapid transit line in the highway's median under construction on June 14, 1958. The "L" line is nearly ready for service and the ramp and station house at Halsted Street are visible on the right. On the left, the old Garfield Park line, which will close about a week later when the Congress Line opens, serves its final days for commuters as a 2-car 6000-series train enters the station en route to downtown. (Photo by George Krambles, courtesy of the Krambles-Peterson Archive)

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A two-car Congress-Milwaukee "A" train is led by car 6520 as it leaves U of I-Halsted on its way to Racine in 1970. The photo is an excellent record of what the ramps originally looked like. Also note the large amount of empty space in the right-of-way for the future installation of express tracks,. if necessary. (Photo by Joe Testagrose)

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Celebrating UIC-Halsted's adoption are (l to r) Jim Kozonis, chair of the Athens Committee of the Chicago Sister Cities International Program; CTA President Frank Kruesi; 27th Ward Alderman Walter Burnett; Athens Committee member Elena Dimpoulous; and Gallery 37 Director Elaine Rackos. (Photo from CTA's Going Places)

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The sign graphics designers at the CTA have always enjoyed experimenting and taking some liberties with the standardized sign specifications. One example was at U of I-Halsted, where the "I" of the station name signs and symbol signs (seen here), which normally would have been Helvetica to match the rest of the "KDR" standard, was replaced with a block I, the logo of the University of Illinois. In 2001, the CTA tried to hide the words "AB Station" (with skip-stop service having been abandoned in 1995) with paint, which was promptly scratched off by bored waiting passengers. (Photos by Paul McAleer)

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Artist's rendering of the new Halsted station house at UIC-Halsted. This drawing was posted outside Halsted for the duration of construction.

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A profile view of the new station house, looking north on June 13, 2001. (Photo by Graham Garfield)

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The UIC-Halsted platform, looking east on March 16, 2001. The ramp up to the Halsted station house (which doesn't actually exist at this point) is closed by a plywood barrier while the new ADA-compliant ramp is under construction. (Photo by Graham Garfield)

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The original 1958 platform remains, but the new ADA-compliant ramp is almost finished in this view on June 13, 2001. (Photo by Graham Garfield)

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An O'Hare-bound Blue Line train pulls into UIC-Halsted on June 13, 2001, led by a two-car unit of 2600s, followed by sets of 2200s. Their paint removed, the rehabbed 2600s aesthetically trainline well with the old 2200s. (Photo by Graham Garfield)

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New station name signs were installed at UIC-Halsted over the weekend of February 22-23, 2003 in the same locations over the windbreaks. The new signs corrected the station name. which had changed to "UIC-Halsted" in the early 1990s. They also omit one of the exits on the tabs that the old signs included: Peoria. The new signs also did away with the clever use of the university's block-I rather than a Helvetica "I". One of the new signs is seen here on February 24, 2003. (Photo by Graham Garfield)

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The Peoria station house, looking north while it was still open on June 14, 2001. It has since been closed for rehab work. (Photo by Graham Garfield)

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The auxiliary stairs at Peoria, looking northeast on June 14, 2001. At this time, they are exit-only. They were later converted to an entrance with high-barrier gates. (Photo by Graham Garfield)

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The interior of the Peoria station house, looking east on June 14, 2001. Work had already begun on the stairs and escalators at Peoria, enclosed behind the plywood walls on the right. Two weeks later, the Peoria station house closed for the final phase of the renovation work. (Photo by Graham Garfield)

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The large, open interior of the Peoria station house, looking west. This space is large enough for en extensive waiting area and a concessionaire, both of which it used to house and neither of which remains by the time this photo was taken in the late 1990s. (Photo from the Chicago Transit Authority Collection)

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The auxiliary exit at Peoria, converted back to exit-only with newly-installed rotogates on October 25, 2001. (Photo by Graham Garfield)

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The Peoria station house, with renovation completed, looking north on October 25, 2001. Nothing on the exterior was substantially altered in the project. (Photo by Graham Garfield)

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The interior waiting area inside the Peoria station, looking west on October 25, 2001. Despite the absence of benches or heat lamps, it still is a favorable waiting space in bad weather, with incoming trains clearly visible. (Photo by Graham Garfield)

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The original rotogates inside the Peoria station house, looking east from the paid area on October 25, 2001. They still bear their original 1960s-era yellow-and-black "Out" signs. (Photo by Graham Garfield)

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Car 3119, wrapped as an ad train, picks up the rear of a Blue Line train at UIC-Halsted on a snowy day in March 1999. (Photo by Sean Gash)

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A 2200-series car leads a Blue Line train heading into the UIC-Halsted station on January 22, 1999. The car's marker lights indicate that the train is bound for the Forest Park Branch. The Peoria station house is visible in the center, above the canopy. (Photo by Sean Gash)

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It is common operating procedure that if a run gets sufficiently behind schedule, the Control Center will authorize the operator of that train to skip several stops to get the train back on schedule. While "breezing" scheduled station stops, the train's destination signs are turned to the generic "Express" reading, with flashing white-white markers, as this Blue Line train at UIC-Halsted with 3110 at the rear has on March 13, 2002. (Photo by Graham Garfield)

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During the first half of 2002, the Target store chain had an ad car contract with CTA® for 24 wrapped cars evenly distributed on three lines. Here, car 3093 displays its wrap while on the rear of a Blue Line train short-turning at UIC-Halsted on March 12, 2002. (Photo by Graham Garfield)