LaSalle Street Station

Classic Trains General Discussion
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Excerpt from Locomotive Firemen’s Magazine, Sept. 1903

The illustrations published herewith give the reader an idea of the magnificent passenger station just completed in the city of Chicago for the joint use of the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railway and the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway. The following is a brief description of the details of arrangement:

Main Lobby of Main Floor - Entrance from Van Buren Street. Walls of enameled brick and enameled terra cotta; marble floor; the woodwork is of mahogany. Along the east side are the ticket offices, with a large entrance from LaSalle Street.

On the west side, in the northeast corner, is the dining room, finished in Italian marble walls and fireplace, and marble floor; what little woodwork is used is of mahogany; the furniture is all of mahogany.

In the center of the west side of the lobby are two large elevators, carrying passengers to the main waiting room, which is on the track level.

Directly opposite the Van Buren Street entrance, is a very broad stairway leading both to the concourse and to the main waiting room.

On the east side of this stairway is the entrance to the carriage court, with a cab stand conveniently located by this entrance. This carriage court extends under the tracks along the LaSalle Street front of the station, affording ample space for people arriving in carriages or busses.

To the west of the staircase is the entrance to the baggage room, which extends along Sherman street under the tracks. This baggage room also has an entrance immediately from the carriage court, so that people bringing baggage with them can attend to checking it before entering the station.

The principal feature of the track level floor is the large waiting room, which occupies the court of the building proper. This waiting room is 108 feet by 106 feet by 37 feet in height, and is finished in Italian marble. The mai

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Wonderful photos of LaSalle Street Station in its heyday!

I commuted on the Metra Rock Island into and out of LaSalle Street Station in the 70s and again in the 90s.

In the 70’s, what was left of the station and the train shed was pretty shabby. If it were raining, or if the rain had just recently ceased, you needed to carry an open umbrella to avoid getting drenched inside the train shed. It was a pretty awful experience, For the last few years of the station’s existence, before it was demolished, no one even used the building, choosing instead to reach the trains from the outside.

In the 90’s, the site of the former station had become a financial office center. The trains are now located behind the office building. There is a small ticket office at the back of the office building, and that is it.

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http://chicagopc.info/Chicago%20postcards/transport/railroads/stations%20-%20depots/la%20salle%20st%20station%202%20color.jpg

Thanks Canada Southern for 20th Century Limited brochure and this great pic:

http://www.canadasouthern.com/caso/images/nyc-5450.jpg

South wall (trainside) of LaSalle Street Station under construction in 1902.

More train pics. Probably seen some of these before.

http://photoswest.org/photos/00013501/00013583.jpg

http://muse.museum.montana.edu/rvndb/rvn-jpgs/RVN13300.jpg

http://www.railpictures.net/images/d1/9/0/1/6901.1197896400.jpg

http://www.railpictures.net/images/d1/8/5/0/6850.1164895200.jpg

http://www.railpictures.net/images/d1/1/6/9/7169.1041994380.jpg

http://www.railpictures.net/images/d1/0/1/1/3011.1168671600.jpg

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=655142

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=677027

http://www.railpixs.com/ri/RI662_LaSalleSt_station_Chicago_Dec76.jpg

http://www.railpixs.com/ri/RI4504_LaSalleStStation_Chicago_Dec76.jpg

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More nice photos, but I will not be satisfied until you spend some time on Dearborn Station, the most interesting of all six Chicago passenger stations.

Rich

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The following was from another Classic Trains forum entry concerning La Salle St. station and my personal reminisces of the facility.

"In the late 1970’s a friend who was a Rock Island fan and I went to college in downtown Chicago. Occasionally when we had long breaks between classes, we would walk down to La Salle Street Station to just walk around and see what was going on. The structure was run down, grimy and falling apart. The track platforms were decomposing and trains were wobbling as they were going in and out of the station. On the other hand, there were reminders of better times, such as the architecture, the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern and Rock Island designations that adorned both sides of the arched entrance, the neon sign that pointed out the Rock Island and NYC ticket booths - but the neon was turned off on the NYC half, and the track designators that took their visual cues from the postwar NYC diesel paint scheme - the light gray one with dark gray stripes.

We visited the station at the last day of its operation in 1981 to see off the final RI commuter departure from the old station. It was very quiet and very empty - there was no celebratory sendoff for the old station like there was for Philadelphia’s Broad Street Station a couple of decades earlier. It was just my friend, myself and a security guard who wasn’t above offering some station artifacts for a king’s randsom. All of the station retail shops were gone and the RI ticket office was basically empty. We paid our respects, saw the final commuter run of the day off, and did a final exit from the facility. I let my friend be the last “passenger” exiting from the old La Salle Street Station. We visited the site in the following weeks to see the station’s demolition, but also we witnessed the evolution of the area from a seedy section of the Loop to a modern commercial one, with new buildings and renovations of older buildings which at one time contained busin

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Thank You. Thx IGN

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Those were the days when the Chicago Board of Trade Building was the tallest in town. Here’s a view of it from the Prudential Building, the second tallest.

http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/collections/cushman/full/P12882.jpg

To visit our grandparents on Easter vacation in 1953, we had come in on the Rock Island from Davenport and were going to take the New York Central to Palmer, Mass., the Boston & Albany (and Central Vermont) station nearest to Ware, my mother’s hometown. It was a photo op to promote the family plan: 2 full-fare round-trip tickets and the 8 kids ride for free. I’m sure my father had already bought the tickets at Davenport. From left to right, Jimmy, me, Jerry (1945-1990), Rosey, George, Joe, Jr. (1940-2007), Mom (1915-2004), Ginny, Dad (1914-1978) and Tommy. Youngest brother Steve wasn’t born yet.

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e390/MikeMacDonald/1953.jpg

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Your family had a lot of time on its hands that day, as was typical, waiting in Chicago to make that NYC connection. The Prudential Building is a good mile or more walk from the Board of Trade building. La Salle Street Station was just south of the Board of Trade building.

The photo is looking south-southwest. If you look at the left side of the photo, at about 9 o’clock, you will see a building with two smokestacks. To the immediate south of that power generating plant is an elevated street running east and west. That is Roosevelt Road, a favorite sight of railfans in its heyday. Looking north from Roosevelt Road, railfans could watch trains coming and going from five out of six Chicago passenger stations, Union Station, Grand Central Station, LaSalle Street Station, Dearborn Station and Central Station. The only other station, Northwestern Station sent its C&NW trains northwest. Everything else moved south out of those other five stations before proceeding south, east or west.

Rich

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Not quite all went south from the five stations, but it was close. The Milwaukee ran North out of Union.

Art

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Art,

Good call on that, you are correct.

I should be embarassed; I knew that but overlooked it.

Rich

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Rich, no need to be embarrased; at my age things pop in and out memory rapidly with no rhyme or reason.

I’m just glad that wanswheel provides us with such great entertainment. His pictures are a joy to look at. His photo of the family lined up for the tickets was great.

Art

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Thank you Rich, Myron, IGN and Art. I found more stuff.

Comiskey Park?

Rock Island Lines grain elevator on old Chicago River.

LaSalle St. train shed still up in 1929. Board of Trade not yet built. Zoom at link.

http://encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/10583.html

Shiny streamliner might be the Rocket. See large photo at link.

http://tbn0.google.com/hosted/images/c?q=20a768bce3902ee4_large

Mike

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And again, fantastic photos, Mike. Especially the straightening of the river!

Art

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Yes, that is the old Comiskey Park where the Chicago White Sox played baseball for many, many years. It was torn down and became a parking lot for the new Cellular Field next door and to the south of the old ball park where the CWS now play ball.

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Yeah, I agree, I have had a copy of that photo for years showing the south branch of the Chicago River before straightening. If you click on the encyclopedia link, you can access that photo even better with handles to move around on the photo, zoom in and out, etc. I particularly love the old Rock Island Freight Depot, the large dark structure sitting on the north edge of the bend in the river. I have some other photos in books with a real closeup of that building.

Here is an aerial photo of that area today.

The river is a straight channel and the empty area with the lower arrow pointing to it was full of freight yard tracks in the 1930s and forward until recently. Today, it is vacant land waiting for long promised development. I added an upper arrow to locate Dearborn Station which still stands today although the tracks are long gone, replaced by a park and townhomes. You can see the old Santa Fe abd C&WI tracks running up to the station from the south and southwest in wanswheel’s aerial photo.

Rich

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I was working for the French National Railroads Chicago office in the summer of 1981, and went into La Salle St. Station on my lunch break. It was in pretty bad shape–about the same as it was in 1978 when I rode RI No. 5/6 for the last time. (If you can get hold of a copy of Remember the Rock, v.4, no.2, 2007, check out “Time Passages.”) I didn’t realize it was slated for demolition. Sadly, the new La Salle St. Station has no class.

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Interestingly, there actually is no LaSalle Street Station anymore. When the old LaSalle Street Station was demolished, it was replaced with a high rise office tower named One Financial Place which is actually 440 South LaSalle Street. At the back of the building is a small space set up for the Metra LaSalle Station with an address of 414 South LaSalle Street. That “station” is smaller than many suburban train stations serviced by the Metra Rock Island. It consists of rest rooms, a samll “candy counter”, a few ticket windows and seating for less than 20 people. Ugh.

Rich

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Since the current version of La Salle St. Station handles suburban service only, it doesn’t need too much in the way of amenities. North Western Station is similar in that regard and Randolph Street Station was always that way.

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“It doesn’t need too much in the way of amenities”. Is that ever an understatement. I quite agree with you on the IC’s Randolph Street Station. There is a real hole in the ground.

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Some of the last photos of old LaSalle Street Station just prior to its demise:

http://www.trainweb.org/rshs/VRP%20LaSalle%20Street%20Station.htm