North Western Station

North Western Station was the Loop's grand front door on the Near West Side — a Beaux-Arts head house with a vaulted, green-tiled concourse where a dense web of commuter and long-haul lines converged.

Opened in 1911 at 500 West Madison Street as the Chicago and North Western Terminal, the station's sixteen tracks moved generations of commuters, salesmen, and soldiers through its limestone facade and skylit waiting hall. For seventy-three years it was one of the busiest rail gateways in the Midwest.

The head house was razed in 1984, replaced by the Citicorp Center (now Accenture Tower), though its rail lines still run beneath the modern Ogilvie Transportation Center on the same footprint.

A piece of the old terminal for the wall — understated enough for any room, specific enough to mean something to anyone who knows.