Oak (1000N/400W)
Oak Street and Orleans Street, Near North Side

Service Notes:

North Side Division

Quick Facts:

Address: TBD
Established: Date unknown (between 1906 and 1913)
Original Line: Northwestern Elevated Railroad
Previous Names: none
Skip-Stop Type: n/a
Rebuilt: n/a
Status: Demolished

History:

Like Willow to the north, Oak was not part of the original plan of the Northwestern Line as built in 1899-1900. Its was included in a draft of the franchise to build the Ravenswood Branch in 1906 that was ultimately rejected, so one can assume that whether it was built as a result of the franchise or not, it must have been constructed shortly thereafter. The station featured a station house at street-level, with two dual side platforms on the outside of the structure, serving the local tracks.

Oak Street station was closed on July 31, 1949 as part of the CTA's^® major North-South service revision that saw closings of a number of low-use stations, including a number of stations near Oak -- Division, Schiller, Halsted, Ogden/Larrabee -- as well as several others on the North Side, South Side, and Loop. Some have conjectured that Oak and other stations in the Near North area may have been closed because of or to discourage patronage by public housing denizens. One preservationist formerly with the City of Chicago suggested this, saying,

"...some of [the stations] were torn down because the crime element from the public housing... people were getting on at Ogden and getting off at Division after just having robbed a whole car full of people. There was no ridership using it and what ridership was using was scaring all the decent folks up in the Ravenswood neighborhood and they couldn't afford to lose the ridership of the working people to placate a few public housing people. So what basically happened was 'Oh, low ridership! Bye-bye!' It was done really to protect the ridership. It was probably, in some cases, a good idea."

This theory, however, is almost certainly untrue, if for no other reason than pure chronology: the only Cabrini housing there in 1949 were the Frances Cabrini Rowhouses, built in 1942. Known at the time as "Little Sicily," this development served as a stronghold for the city's Italian-American community and, under Elizabeth Wood's leadership (1937-1954), the Chicago Housing Authority's developments were relatively safe, well-maintained places, making them unlikely sources for crime or disturbances. The high rise towers, formally known as the William-Green Homes, and the CHA policies and problems of the high-rise era didn't come to Cabrini for many years after the stations closed. So it seems unlikely that the public housing was the reason that Oak and other surrounding stations closed.

However, it is acknowledged that the neighborhood *around* Cabrini was quite rough at the time, sometimes called "Little Hell" and consisting of much rundown tenement-style housing (indeed, making it the very reason why public housing was being located there to begin with, to provide new, better housing stock). The state of the neighborhood no doubt made the area unappealing to riders and employees alike. But low ridership and the desire to streamline the North-South Route were the real, primary reason for the stations' closures.

Whatever the reason, it is unfortunate that this station could not continue to serve the area, where new upscale housing is now being built, as well as near the location of the former Division station.