Posts Tagged ‘Drexel Blvd’

The Chicago Junction Railway Embankment: Ellis Ave to Drexel Blvd and Mural

November 25, 2022

About 13′ tall, 52′ wide, and 430′ in length, its area being approximately 22,360 square feet, this part of the embankment is between Drexel Blvd and Ellis Ave. Its north wall faces 41st St and its south wall, an alley and an apartment building on Drexel Blvd. There is a mural on its Eastern Wall of Drexel Blvd.

According to https://www.chicago-l.org/operations/lines/kenwood.html the Chicago Transit Authority closed the embankment for public use (Kenwood Branch) in 1957 but the Chicago Junction Railway continued using it for commercial purposes until the 1960s.

The CJRE is about one mile long and it is located in the Kenwood neighborhood of Chicago’s south side. It is visible mostly along 41st Street, running from South Lake Park Ave, which is close to Lake Michigan, to highway 90/94. Some sections of it no longer exist and a forest has grown on top of it. Below is a video of this section of the CJRE and some photographs.

Aerial view from Google maps of the Chicago Junction Railway Embankment from Lake Park Ave to Drexel Blvd
MINUTE 2:55 is where you can see the section of the CJRE between Ellis Ave and Drexel Blvd
West wall on Ellis Ave
South west wall, Ellis Ave
Close up, upper west wall, Ellis Ave
Upper part south wall 41st St alley, north of 42nd Pl
South wall alley

The Ellis and Lake Park Station

The Chicago Junction Railway Embankment: Ellis Ave to Drexel Blvd and Mural

Cottage Grove Ave Mural, and West to 41st St

North of 41st St to South Langley Ave and 40th St

South Langley Ave and north of 40th St to the Abandoned Vincennes Station

Vincennes Ave to MLK, along south side of E Oakwood Blvd, north of Paul G Stewart Apartments

The South Parkway Train Station on Martin Luther King Drive

The mural on the West side of Martin Luther King Drive

West of MLK Drive to Calumet Ave

West of South Prairie Ave to S Indiana Ave

Indiana Train station

South Michigan Ave to South Wabash Ave

West South Wabash to East South State street

West of South State St to S Dearborn St

References:

https://www.chicago-l.org

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenwood_branch

7 CTA train lines you never knew existed

The “L”, The Development of Chicago’s Rapid Transit System 1888-1932 by Bruce G. Moffat, 1995

Copyright © 2022 Jorge Luis Carbajosa