Chicago (800N/1232W)
Chicago Avenue and Ogden Avenue, West Town

Service Notes:

	Blue Line: Milwaukee-Dearborn Subway
	Owl Service

Quick Facts:

Address: 800 N. Milwaukee Avenue
Established: February 25, 1951
Original Line: Milwaukee-Dearborn Subway
Previous Names: none

Skip-Stop Type:		Station (1951, A/B service annulled after one AM rush period)
		Station (1958-1995)

Rebuilt: n/a
Status: In Use

History:

Chicago/Milwaukee is typical of the downtown Dearborn and State Street subway stations. Described at the time as of a "modern design" (really somewhere between art deco and art moderne), the mezzanine station has smooth concrete floors and ceilings and white glazed tile walls (sometimes referred to as "structural glass"). The fare control booths are made of stone walls with a small ventilation grate near the bottom and glass windows on all four sides. Turnstiles were steel.

The island platform has red no-slip concrete floors, curved concrete ceilings and I-beam steel columns. Fluorescent lights and illuminated station signs hanging from the ceilings originally finished the decoration. When compared to the ornate subways of New York, London or Paris (built at least several decades before), these stations and their simple, deco-style designs may seem starkly utilitarian but they are very much a product of their era. Though much of the structural work of the Dearborn Subway subway was concurrent with that of State Street's (which opened in 1943), the Dearborn line's was held up until 1951 due to wartime materials shortages. Even then, it was only open at the north end, with cars forced to turn around at LaSalle/Congress until the south end's completion years later.

Chicago received some signage upgrades in March 2004. During a shutdown of the Milwaukee-Dearborn Subway from 2200 hours Saturday, March 6 to 0600 hours, Sunday, March 7, for the installation of telecommunications cables, CTA^® personnel took the opportunity to install new Current Graphic Standard station name signs on the tunnel walls, replacing KDR-style signs installed in the 1980s. Because of the limited time allowed, only the gray-background station name signs themselves were installed at that time; the blue "tabs" to be installed later. In October 2005, the symbol signs on the columns were replaced with new Current Graphic Standard versions as well.