Monroe		(30S/36W) Madison-Monroe
		(114S/36W) Monroe-Adams

Monroe Street and Dearborn Street, Loop

Service Notes:

	Blue Line: Milwaukee-Dearborn Subway
	Owl Service

Quick Facts:

Address:	30 S. Dearborn Street (Madison-Monroe mezzanine)
	114 S. Dearborn Street (Monroe-Adams mezzanine)

Established: February 25, 1951
Original Line: Milwaukee-Dearborn Subway
Previous Names: none

Skip-Stop Type:

Station

Rebuilt: n/a
Status: In Use

History:

Monroe/Dearborn is typical of the downtown Dearborn and State Street subway stations, consisting of two mezzanine entrances feeding each end of the stop, which is a designated portion of a long "continuous" platform that stretches the length of the Loop. The Dearborn Subway's continuous platform, a bit shorter than its record-setting State Street cousin, is 2,500 feet long.

The Monroe-Adams mezzanine is seen looking northeast on April 19, 2004. The mezzanine is still largely as it was built, although the fare controls have been changed and a walled concession (behind the Pepsi machine) was created in the southeast corner of the mezzanine. For a larger view, click here. (Photo by Graham Garfield)

The architecture of the station was streamlined Art Moderne with some Art Deco elements, simple and austere compared to earlier subways in New York, London, Paris or other systems but very much in the style and fashion of the period in which it was designed. At street-level, the entrances were very simple, consisting of stairs down from the sidewalk surrounded by simple tubular railings with a smooth identification pylon at the back with Deco rings around the top. The fare controls were at a lower mezzanine level beneath Dearborn Street. The station mezzanines had broadly curving walls clad in off-white glazed ceramic tile, which served to both reinforce the Moderne, streamlined architectural style employed in the Initial System of Subways station as well as to direct passenger flow through subtle design cues.

The interior had smooth concrete floors and ceilings, red for the former and a neutral color for the latter. The fare control booths had an angled Deco design and were made of stone walls with a small ventilation grate near the bottom and glass windows on all four sides, allowing for maximum visibility of the mezzanine for the station agents. Turnstiles were steel, with some angled toward the entrances and a number of self-serve coin-operated models for efficient traffic circulation. Each mezzanine also had several amenities for the use of passengers, such as public phones, lockers, restrooms, and concessions.

The layout of each mezzanine was originally symmetrical across both axes, with two sets of stairs and escalators down from the mezzanine to the platform guarded by an agent's booth and a set of fare controls, one on the north half of the mezzanine and one on the south, and a set of stairs up to the street at each corner.

The island platform had red no-slip concrete floors, curved, barrel-vaulted concrete ceilings and a row of I-beam steel columns along each platform edge. Unlike some of the more ornate subways in other cities, the walls along side the tracks in the stations were left as unfinished concrete rather than tiled. To aid in station identification, each station had a color scheme that was used in the accents like tile borders, platform column color, and signage lettering and background. The colors blue, red, green, and brown were rotated in sequence beginning up at Division & Milwaukee. Monroe's accent color was red. A specially-designed Futura typeface was used throughout the subway on metal, tile, and backlit glass signs. Fluorescent lights and illuminated station signs hanging from the ceilings finished the decoration.

Though much of the structural work of the Dearborn subway was concurrent with that of State Street's (which was begun in 1938 and opened in 1943), construction on the Dearborn line was suspended in 1941 due to wartime materials shortages. Even after the war was over, it was another several years before work was resumed. Finally, the Milwaukee-Dearborn Subway was completed and opened on February 25, 1951, eight years after the State Street tube was inaugurated. This is when Monroe station opened.

When the First National Bank Plaza (now called the Bank One Plaza) was created, a subway entrance was built into one the terraces. However, it's low clearance subtle signage, seen here looking south on August 9, 2002, make it hard to notice and less often used. For a larger view, click here. (Photo by Graham Garfield)

The service hours of the Monroe-Adams mezzanine entrance to the station was reclassified as a part-time entrance in 1965, several years ahead of the other station closures and service reductions that would be made in the 1970s. Beginning on August 29, Monroe-Adams was closed from 2200 to 0600 hours Monday-Saturday and all day Sundays. The Washington-Madison and Jackson-Van Buren mezzanine at the adjacent stations joined Monroe-Adams' part-time hours effective September 12, 1976.

In the late 1960s, the block bounded by Madison, Dearborn, Monroe, and Clark was cleared for the construction of the First National Bank Building and Plaza. Designed by C.F. Murphy Associates, the building was designed in a dramatic modern style, sweeping from a 200-foot wide base to 95 feet wide at the top and clad in granite panels between its wide windows. Typical of office towers built in this period, the development included open space on the unused portion of the block in the form of a multilevel plaza, with several staircases and a large fountain at the bottom. A colorful mosaic by Marc Chagall titled "Four Seasons" is located on the midlevel terrace of the plaza. Completed in 1969, the construction of the First National Bank Building and Plaza (since renamed the Bank One Building and Plaza) required the closure of the two stairs from the Madison-Monroe mezzanine to the west side of Dearborn Street so as not to interfere with the modern plaza. After completion, the west side of the mezzanine opened onto a lower-level concourse of the bank building, where passengers could either enter the basement of the bank through a set of revolving doors (and then up into the lobby by a pair of escalators) or follow a meandering set of corridors to a new stairway entrance in the plaza. The plaza entrance, which essentially took the place of the closed southwest stair, was clad in the same granite panels as the rest of the plaza, but also didn't rise above the height of the plaza planter walls, making it inconspicuous and rather hidden. The only sign that rises above the low-slung walls is a small, metal box with "Subway" in small lettering. The closed northwest stair was not replaced.

Mayor Byrne announced the Subway Renovation Program on Friday, May 7, 1982,which would have included the continuous platforms on State between Lake and Congress and on Dearborn between Randolph and Van Buren, the 14 mezzanines along these platforms, and the four pedestrian passageways connecting the State and Dearborn Subways. In addition, mezzanines and platforms would have been renovated at Chicago, Grand, Harrison, and Roosevelt on State and the Lake Transfer and LaSalle/Congress stations on Dearborn. Work at all of the facilities was scheduled for completion in 1987 but work at Monroe/State and most others never come to pass.

At a press conference on Monday, June 5, 2000, CTA^® President Frank Kruesi announced that beginning Saturday, June 10th and Sunday, June 11th, six downtown area 'L' and subway stations and seven station entrances that were currently closed late at night or on weekends would be open at all hours that trains are in service. One of the seven secondary station entrances was was a Part-Time Entrance -- closed nights and weekends -- was the Monroe-Adams entrance to Monroe station. Starting at 0600 hours Saturday, June 10th, Monroe-Adams entrance returned to 24-hour operation. Opening these stations and entrances is just one of the components of a $539,000 service improvement package that was passed by the Chicago Transit Board in May 2000.

In 2005, the southwest stairway to the Madison-Monroe mezzanine was rebuilt as part of a renovation and rearrangement of Bank One Plaza. The stairway was moved from within the plaza to the sidewalk along Dearborn, approximately back to its original location. The new stairway is faced with granite and has gold-colored fittings and trim, matching the design of the plaza and building. The signage on the entrance uses white letters on a gold metallic background, which somewhat reduced legibility. There is also some unique iconography used. As part of the renovation, Bank One (now owned by JPMorgan Chase as of 2004) also rehabbed the west wall and the nearby flooring in the Madison-Monroe mezzanine nearest their new stairs (but nothing else in the mezzanine) and built a new connection from the northwest corner of the mezzanine to the basement level of the adjacent bank building.

The Monroe stop in the Dearborn Subway is seen looking south on June 13, 2001. Except for the addition of new signage, tactile edging, fluorescent lights, and A/V readouts, plus a whitewash over the red columns and bare concrete walls of its as-built design, the platform has changed little in 50 years. For a larger view, click here. (Photo by Graham Garfield)

madison-monroe03.jpg (230k) The new southwest stairway to the Madison-Monroe mezzanine is seen looking north on October 6, 2005. The stairs were relocated from within the adjacent plaza and rebuilt in 2005. The new stairway is faced with granite and has gold-colored fittings and trim, matching the design of the plaza and building. The signage on the entrance uses white letters on a gold metallic background, which somewhat reduced legibility. (Photo by Graham Garfield)

monroe-dearborn02.jpg (160k) The blue light projecting upward into the tunnel vault, seen in this mid-November 2005 view looking north on the Monroe platform, denotes the location of a Customer Assistant call button (visible on the column on the right). The blue light is becoming a standard element on the CTA® system to signify the location of call or assistance buttons. Similar light films were installed over call buttons on the trains in 2004. (Photo by Tony Coppoletta)

• Monroe_Blue.wav (122k): "This is Monroe. This is a Blue Line train to O'Hare." (Sound courtesy of Tony Coppoletta)