Long-awaited Damen Green Line station opens

A new Green Line station opened Monday at Damen Avenue on the Near West Side, offering a rail connection to the United Center in time for the Democratic National Convention, which kicks off in two weeks.

Mayor Brandon Johnson helped cut the ribbon on what officials celebrated as a "visually compelling" station that closes a 1.5-mile gap on the Green Line, the only L line that serves both the South and West sides.

Residents said they were impressed by the glass-clad station that intersects with Lake Street.

"This station is so beautiful," said Tyrone Christopher, 46, who lives at the adjacent Westhaven Park housing project.

"I've had dreams of having a station for so long now," he said.

The station will cut down Christopher's Sunday commute to church in Oak Park, he said.

The mayor said the station provides service to an area that had been neglected since a station at the site was closed in 1948 by the Chicago Transit Authority.

"With the opening of this station, we take another step in our city's journey to reverse the historic disinvestment of this community," Johnson told the crowd.

Tom Carney, commissioner of the Chicago Department of Transportation, said the station is "truly one of the most visually compelling stations in Chicago."

The $80 million project was led by the city’s Transportation Department. Construction took seven years due to delays.

Ald. Walter Burnett (27th) said the project's conception began much earlier, in 2004, when he held a news conference at the site to demand a station return here.

"This is something we have been advocating for three administrations," Burnett said.

Since becoming an alderperson in 1995, Burnett has seen a new Green Line stop built at Morgan Avenue in 2012 and the return of the Green Line at California Avenue in 1996.

The Damen station stands out for its heavy use of glass walls.

Westbound riders must walk over a glass-enclosed bridge suspended above the tracks, with near 360-degree views over the Kinzie Industrial Corridor.

A large tile mosaic suspended in an oversized glass atrium at the station's entrance shows young Black people walking across a wheat field under a partly cloudy sky and large, colored dots.

Artist Folayemi Wilson said the piece considers the 19th-century migration of ethnic groups to Chicago's Near West Side.

The piece is titled "Promise (for tomorrow from the past looking to the future)," said Wilson, a former art history teacher at Columbia College Chicago and co-founder of blkHaUS Studios.

The artwork uses historical images and colorful dots pulled from a study of the area's working and social conditions by Florence Kelley in the early 20th century, she said.

"The artwork asks the question, as the kids are looking up the stairs: Where are they going? What kind of Chicago future might the Green Line take them to?" she said.