Damen
2000W
4700N
4700N
Damen is a station on the Brown Line's Ravenswood Branch that kept its old brick original station house on the eastside of Damen Avenue when it was closed for renovations from November 26, 2007 to December 19, 2008. The little station house is now almost this strange museum area that passengers can chose to enter or not. There are green doors out to the street and at the opposite end a wide foyer-type opening back to the main fare control area. The walls of the original station house are tiled white with a wooden ceiling (with modern florescent lights) wooden doors. Inside are various bronze sculptures of chairs and suitcases all part of American Tourister, 2008 by Ron Baron, 2008 on a brick floor. The window frames are green on the outside and wooden on the inside. Just north of the original station house are two modern glass doors with green framing that also lead to the main entrance area after passing an indoor bike rack. The main entrance area has standard white walls and a staircase and red brick elevator shaft up to each platform. These both lead up to the platforms at about the second car from the eastern end of the platforms. Here the platforms have restored brown canopies for about two car lengths. These canopies are particularly notable because of brown square fencing with wooden tops for railings. The rest of the wooden platforms have the usual modern silver railings. There is an additional exit from each platform about a quarter way from its western end. These lead down to a free crossunder at street level and two exit only high turnstiles out to the western side of Damen Avenue.
All photos taken on 1 August, 2011
