Remember a few weeks back when I wrote about an abandoned rail line in the Kenwood neighborhood that I thought should be converted into a elevated park?
The old rail line has one more interesting feature at 40th Street just west of Langley: an abandoned 80-year-old brick Prairie School building that once supplied the electrical power to the elevated CTA trains that once ran along the line.
Meanwhile, we can look at the details and dream. I like how each pier is topped with a decorative tile. And there are about nine more of these insets just below the roof line:
The Kenwood line went out of commission in the late 1950s, but its substation looks in decent shape for something that’s been unused for so long. You wonder what uses could be dreamed up for a place like this if the overgrown embankment above it is ever made into an actual park.
