Homan (CTA Green Line station)

Homan
Location	3400 West Lake Street Chicago, Illinois 60624
Coordinates	41°53′06″N 87°42′41″W / 41.884914°N 87.711327°W / 41.884914; -87.711327
Owned by	Chicago Transit Authority
Line(s)	Green Line
Platforms	2 Side Platforms
Tracks	2 tracks
Construction
Structure type	Elevated
History
Opened	March 1894
Closed	January 9, 1994
Rebuilt	Station house moved to Conservatory–Central Park Drive
Previous names	Garfield Park
Services
Preceding station   Chicago "L"   Following station Pulaski toward Harlem/Lake Green Line Kedzie toward Ashland/63rd or Cottage Grove

Homan was a station on the Chicago Transit Authority's Green Line. The station was located at Homan Avenue and Lake Street in the East Garfield Park neighborhood of Chicago. Homan was situated east of Pulaski and west of Kedzie. Homan opened in March 1894 and closed on January 9, 1994, when the entire Green Line closed for a renovation and rehabilitation project. The station did not reopen with the rest of the Green Line on May 12, 1996.^[1]

Preservation and relocation

In 1997, the CTA began working with the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency on a plan to preserve the historic station house by moving it two blocks west to Central Park Drive near the Garfield Park Conservatory for a new stop called Conservatory–Central Park Drive. The new station would create equal spacing between the stations at Kedzie and Pulaski but would no longer have a direct bus connection to the #82 Kimball-Homan bus route. This created some controversy in the East Garfield Park community because residents said that they would have to walk through a high crime area to get to the bus from the new station. This was also around the time when the CTA had also eliminated the #16 Lake Street bus which ran underneath the Green Line. The bus route was eliminated on October 5, 1997, due to budget cuts.^[2] The neighborhood also felt that the community leaders and the Mayor favored tourists who would use the new station to visit the Garfield Park Conservatory over local residents who needed the station to be located near a bus route.^[3] On September 15, 1999, the CTA finished planning and released a project schedule to move the historic station house and use it to create a new station. The old Homan station was completely demolished by the spring of 2000, and put into storage to be later reconstructed at Central Park. Relocation of the former station house began in March 2001 and the project was finished on June 30, 2001, when the new station opened at Conservatory.^[4]

References