My ongoing project to photograph the Chicago L unofficially started on March 9, 2019, when I took a spring break trip to the city, unaware I’d live there a year and a half later. The first photo taken in Chicago (at least that I deemed worth publishing) is this one, of the entrance to Millennium Station:
Interestingly, the first four train stations I photographed in Chicago were all Metra, on March 9, 2019: Millennium Station, McCormick Place, 55th-56th-57th Street, and Museum Campus/11th Street. The situation there was I was going to the Museum of Science and Industry but stopped at McCormick Place along the way to photograph it, and then headed back to 11th Street to visit the Field Museum. The first photo I took and deemed worthy of publication on the L was at Adams/Wabash:
The date on Flickr is listed as March 10, but it was actually taken very late on March 9 since my camera was still set on Eastern Time due to coming from Cleveland. Little did I know that this would start my most ambitious photography project so far. I photographed a number of stations in/near downtown as part of that trip, and then returned to Cleveland.
In December 2020 I flew out to Chicago to interview for the company that ended up hiring me, and photographed two stations: O’Hare (where I flew in) and Chicago (Red) (near my hotel).
In March 2020, I had been hired for my current job in Chicago and came back to visit apartments. At that point I knew I would be moving here and had in the back of my mind that I eventually wanted to photograph all the L stations. I stayed in Rogers Park (near Morse) and toured apartments all over the north side. I photographed a number of stations in the process, but knew I would come back.
Since then, I have photographed all but about 25 stations. I have photographed all stations on the Loop, North Side Main, Ravenswood Branch, State Subway, Kennedy/O’Hare Branch, Evanston Branch, Skokie Branch, Englewood/Ashland Branch, and Jackson Park/East 63rd Branch. I also have photographed all but one station on the Milwaukee-Dearborn Subway and at least half of the stations on the Dan Ryan Branch, Cermak Branch, South Side Elevated, and Congress Branch. The big ones remaining are the Lake Street Elevated (just under half done) and Midway Branch. I am taking advantage of every good weather opportunity I get, so with any luck I will have this in the bag soon. If not, I’m not in any hurry. Once this is done, it will be without a doubt my most ambitious photography project so far.
I’m not sure what will come next – maybe photographing as much of Metra as I can? I’m not sure how realistic photographing every Metra station is given that there are over 200 of them and Metra doesn’t run anywhere near as frequently as the L (I don’t have a car) and some lines don’t run at at all on weekends.