Buy A Piece Of A Historic Loop CTA Station Friday

By Rachel Cromidas in Arts & Entertainment on Aug 26, 2015 3:00PM

via the Rebuilding Exchange

The CTA's crusty but well-loved Madison and Wabash station is no more, thanks to a months-long dismantling process that is helping make way for a new Loop "super station."

But fans of the less-super, 119-year-old former station still have a chance to commemorate it by buying up an old piece of the station at Lincoln Park's Rebuilding Exchange this Friday.

The warehouse of reclaimed building materials diverted from landfills around the Midwest is playing host to a CTA auction Friday evening for pieces of the station, which was torn down earlier this summer. The historic facade is also on display at the warehouse, but it is being saved in hopes that a museum will want to display it.

The Rebuilding Exchange shot this time lapse of the station house facade being reconstructed inside its massive, Webster Avenue warehouse:

The station house facade has some major cred behind it. As we wrote in March:

In early 2014, Preservation Chicago added the stop’s station house to its list of the seven most threatened architectural sites in Chicago. The station house— that dilapidated white structure on the east side of the station that Preservation Chicago describes as “Palladian style, with “marvelous classical detailing, pilasters and ornamental stamped metal”— dates back to 1896 and is the only remaining original station house in Chicago.

The Rebuilding Exchange and the local nonprofit Preservation Chicago, which organized the event, say attendees should expect a party. Food trucks and vendors such as 5411 Empanadas, Döner Men, and Whole Foods will be serving food, and C.H.A.O.S. Brew Club will be serving samples of their Green Line beer, named after the CTA line, among other drinks.

The Rebuilding Exchange is located at 1740 W. Webster Ave. CTA station materials will go on sale at 7 p.m. through direct purchase and auction, so arrive early.