Argyle (5000N/1200W)
Argyle Street and Broadway, Uptown

Service Notes:

	Red Line: Howard
	Owl Service

Quick Facts:

Address: 1118 W. Argyle Street
Established: May 16, 1908
Original Line: Northwestern Elevated Railroad
Previous Names: Argyle Park

Skip-Stop Type:

Station

Rebuilt: 1921
Status: In Use

History: The Argyle station entrance is seen looking northeast in 1985. Although it had been over 60 years since the station had been built, it still looked largely as it did wen it opened, including its original light fixtures. For a larger view, click here. (Photo by Olga Stefanos) The first "L" station at this site was built in 1908 and was of simple frame grade-level construction, called Argyle Park for its namesake neighborhood. This simple clapboard building, with a hipped roof and an island platform behind, was built to replace the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad's commuter depot at the same location following the Northwestern Elevated's electrification of the Milwaukee Road's tracks. The Chicago City Council prohibited the use of a third rail on the ground-level tracks for safety's sake, necessitating the use of overhead trolley wire. In the mid-1910s, the Northwestern began to elevate the tracks north of Wilson, but work was slow due to the city's refusal to close intersecting streets and the narrow right-of-way. In early 1916, trains were moved onto a temporary trestle, but construction of a permanent embankment had to wait until the end of World War I due to a materials shortage. By early 1922, the new four track mainline was completed, allowing full express service to the city limits. The current station at Argyle was built circa 1921 as part of the elevation of the tracks of the Northwestern Elevated Railroad. The station, whose design was typical of the facilities built as part of the Wilson-Howard elevation project, was designed by architect Charles P. Rawson and engineered by C.F Loweth. The architectural design is a Prairie School-influenced vernacular form, with the Prairie influence seen most acutely in the ornamental cement pilasters on the front facade and in the details of the wooden doors, windows, and ticket agents' booths. The exteriors were brick and cast concrete with wooden doors and large plate glass windows and transoms. Ornamental upturned globed light fixtures originally decorated the pilaster capitals. The interior was rendered in plaster, wood, glazed brick, and brick with terrazzo floors. There were arches stretching across the interior between the support columns. The Argyle station, looking east on September 29, 2005. The pagoda added to the platform canopy in 1991 is evident in this view, making it at home in the surrounding pan-Asian neighborhood. For a larger view, click here. (Photo by Graham Garfield) The platform was of the island variety between the middle two of four tracks (Tracks #2 and 3), which at the time served Howard- and Evanston-bound local trains and which now serves the Red Line. The platform had wood decking and a canopy with metal columns down the center line which split into gently-curving gull wing-shaped roof supports, supporting a wooden canopy roof. The stairs were sheltered by wooden enclosures with wooden bottoms and windows on top, divided into rows of square panes, with swinging doors at the front of each enclosure. Like most of the stations north of Lawrence, there was originally an auxiliary exit on the south side of the street, descending down in the middle of retail spaces built under the elevated, now closed. This neighborhood has one of the largest Asian populations in Chicago (after Chinatown, of course), with many Chinese, Vietnamese and Cambodian residents, among others. Starting in the 1980s, Charlie Soo and other neighborhood leaders set out to rehabilitate the decaying community. Soo talked Chicago Transit Authority officials into a tour of the "filthy, graffiti-covered [Argyle] rapid transit station. He showed the transit bosses how the station was holding the neighborhood back; how the newly arrived Vietnamese and Cambodians were trying to set up restaurants and gift shops on a tired commercial strip known for its raunchy taverns."1 The CTA® was impressed and approved a $250,000 renovation of the station, including a red and green color scheme for the station and platform (the Chinese colors for prosperity and longevity) and a station fare collection booth trimmed like a tea house. In 1991, a Chinese pagoda was added onto the platform canopy through a partnership between the neighborhood and Aon Corporation, a local company whose issuance offices at at 5050 N. Broadway (at Argyle). Soo and Aon now officially watch over the station through the CTA's® Adopt-A-Station program. In 2006, the station name signs and column signs on the platform were replaced, with Current Graphic Standard signs replacing the KDR Standard graphics, and new entrance signs installed as part of a signage upgrade project on the Red Line. As part of this effort, the station also received granite compass roses inset into the sidewalk in front of the station entrance to assist customers leaving the station to navigate their way, and three-sided galvanized steel pylons in the station house and on the platform to display maps and station timetables.

A view down the Argyle platform, looking south on December 8, 2001. The station was repainted in green and red -- the Chinese colors for longevity and prosperity -- to represent the sizable Asian population that lives nearby. For a larger view, click here. (Photo by Graham Garfield)

argyle05.jpg (175k) As part of an overhaul championed by the local community in the late 1980s, the interior of the station was repainted in a red and green color scheme (the Chinese colors for prosperity and longevity) and the station's agent collection booth was trimmed like a Chinese tea house. (Photo by Graham Garfield)

 

• Argyle_next.wav (123k): "Argyle is next. Doors open on the left at Argyle." (Sound courtesy of Tony Coppoletta)

¹ Chicago Tribune "'Mayor' brings life to Argyle Street", 6 Feb 1991