The massive Brown Line reconstruction is only a few months old, but already the city has made two mistakes that allowed the CTA to break local landmark laws. In December the CTA demolished the Gothic Hayes-Healy Athletic Building next to the Fullerton el stop after landmarks division officials mistakenly approved a demolition permit for the protected structure. And now the CTA has permission to violate landmark regulations in its reconstruction of the historic-district el stop at Armitage.
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The changes centered on the platform. The CTA had decided to replace gooseneck light poles with girderlike metal poles resembling “the lights you see in a football stadium,” says Timmerberg. The revised plan would also replace the original mesh-style railings with a thick galvanized-steel guardrail that will run the length of the platform, looking, as one preservationist puts it, “like something you’d stick on a tank in Iraq.”
The CTA says such modifications aren’t that big a deal. But the el stop falls within the Armitage-Halsted Historic District, which was created precisely to preserve the integrity of architecturally important details like lights and railings. In the face of residents’ protests the transit authority is now insisting that it has no alternative but to stick with the revised plan: the original project bids came in too high, and it needs to cut expenses. When residents offered to raise money to help cover construction costs, the CTA said it wasn’t allowed to receive money from outside sources on these projects.
According to Alderman Daley the permit was approved because of a miscommunication between the CTA, the landmarks commission, and the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, which also had to approve the station reconstruction. “The CTA told the commission that the state had signed off on the project,” Daley says. “But the state hadn’t signed off on the whole project–they had just signed off on the designs for the station [house]. The state hadn’t signed off on the platform. But the city thought the state had signed off on the platform as well as the station house.”
Preservationists say they’re going to appeal to the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency to put the kibosh on the Armitage restoration unless the CTA restores the gooseneck lamps and railings. If the state wimps out on protecting its laws, Fine says, Preservation Chicago may sue.
