Former 58th Street CTA Station

Can you see the gap between the two tracks? That space used to be the island platform of the Former 58th Street CTA Station. It stood here on East 58th Street from January 22, 1893, when it was built for the World’s Columbian Exposition, until January 9, 1994, when it closed, never to open again. The station was designed by Myron H. Church, an influential architect of the late 19th century, who incorporated elements of the Queen Anne style and the Chicago School. It had a brick station house with a half-cone bay at the top, and a hump-shaped canopy that stood out because most other canopies along the South Side Elevated were replaced with shorter ones. The station platform was built on a steel structure with a wooden deck. In 1905, the Englewood Branch of the elevated line opened, creating a transfer point at 58th Station. It remained a transfer station until 1949, when skip-stop service changed the way people took trains, but in 1993, the CTA restored it.
In 1983, the CTA began to rebuild the station in a piecemeal fashion, starting with the platform and then the station house. But plans to rebuild the station house were abandoned. The station was officially closed in 1994, and in 2014, it was demolished. The only remnants of the station today are those wide spaces between the tracks and the elevated structure around the site. So, although it’s gone, you’ll see its shadow every time you pass through this area.