There's a novel L stop in Chicago -...

There's a novel L stop in Chicago -- further it's not on any CTA map.

A replica of a late 19th centenary platform, with gooseneck lamps and a armor canopy, has been constructed inside the Chicago History Museum.

The shelter has been built nearest to the museum's recently added focal point: a restored 21-ton 1890 L car that one time ferried passengers from the crook to the World's Columbian Exposition onward the South Side.

Neither the olive recent car nor its matching platform is ready for passengers just further The museum, formerly known as the Chicago Historical Society, will reopen tribe 30 after a $27 million renovation.

forward Tuesday, workers were busily hammering and sawing while others hoisted [i]or[/i] complements and artwork for the delineate which will expand exhibition space from 6000 square feet to 16000

The redo will allow the Near North Side museum to devoid of contents out its attic somewhat, putting about 1300 artifacts in succession display -- triple its former offering. about are old, like a liquor still from the roaring '20 and slaughterhouse tools that formerly made Chicago the Hog Butcher of the World. Others are entirely fading from the local show like platform shoes worn at open cry commodities traders.

The refurbished unpliant L car, on loan from the CTA, anchors the museum's City in succession the Make exhibition. Squeezed into the museum last winter in consequence of an opening in the side of the building, the coach caesuras on a steel-reinforced floor. The intent is to recreate 1893 -- "when Chicago came of age and announced itself to the world" end its World's Fair, said chief curator Libby Mahoney.

"It's a summer evening and you're forward the way to the fair. We're trying to create a magical be wrought up from another time," said Mahoney.

The transit fare back then was 5 cent to White City in Hyde Park. Admission to the fair was half a beau; gay for adults, a quarter for kids.

STATUES FOR PLATFORM

Three cast statues will be installed in succession the platform. Wisconsin teenager Mabel Treseder shows the millions of excited fair visitors and museum officials tapped into her diary, discovered by means of Dairy State historians, to report her story. An anonymous German iron worker, said to have worked in succession the construction of the iconic World's Fair Ferris wheel, "represent all the immigrants who came here to help remake Chicago into a great city," Mahoney said.

Then there's the statue of Ida B Wells, a feisty civil rights activist who famously affirmed the exclusion of African-American achievements from Expo exhibits. Ragtime music, which was played through composer Scott Joplin on the fair's Midway Plaisance, will roll down from the museum platform's loudspeakers.

popular SENSIBILITIES

The L platform, while evoking the Chicago of parasols and petticoats, won't be an exact replica. The museum wasn't able to find exact measurements of L stops of the time and curators distressed the exhibit to reflect 21st hundred years sensibilities: it features a ramp for visitors with disabilities, Mahoney said.

aherrmann@suntimes.com

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