Austin
6000W
400N
400N
Austin is located on the border between Chicago and Oak Park and is the first of the three intermediate stations in Oak Park that received minimal improvements during the 1994-1996 closure of the green line for its full rebuilding. It is one of 3 Green Line stations outside of the loop (all consecutively in Oak Park) that aren't ADA compliant with elevators. It retains a basically original arrangement from its 1962 opening (during a grade crossing elimination project) that relocated this CTA line to be along the south side of an embankment shared with what was then the Chicago and Northwestern and is now the Metra Union Pacific West Line. The station has a single wooden island platform that is canopied except at its extreme ends. The station opened with exits at each end but the Mason Avenue end was closed for entrances on February 5, 1973 and exits in the 1980s. This small station house sits abandoned underneath the elevated, all evidence of the staircase is gone. The current exit has a staircase and combined up escalator/staircase down to a tiny station house on the south side of the embankment at the SE corner of Austin Avenue and Corcoran Place. A few steps lead out to the street. The station house has grey brick walls plus simple windows, parts of early 1960s attempts to add color to the design and similar to the 'bricks' found at the Blue Line station in the Douglas Expressway a half mile south of this station.
All Photos taken on 3 August, 2012
