April 3, 2011
On the South Side of Chicago, operations began for a passenger train station built on 35th Street in the city’s Bronzeville neighborhood. This station is part of the Metra commuter rail system’s Rock Island District line.
The station was officially named not only for the street and neighborhood where it is located but also a longtime state lawmaker. This lawmaker was Lovana S. “Lou” Jones (1938-2006), a Bronzeville resident who served as a member of the Illinois House of Representatives from 1987 until her death. Construction on the 35th Street/“Lou” Jones/Bronzeville station had begun in 2009. This station was first one within the entire Metra network to be opened since 2006.
A formal inauguration of the 35th Street/“Lou” Jones/Bronzeville station took place a little over a month after trains first started stopping there. Those participating in this event included Bradford Walker, a brother of “Lou” Jones; Bobby Rush, a U.S. representative from that section of Chicago between 1993 and 2023; John Anderson, president of the nearby Illinois Institute of Technology; Rhonda Reed, deputy regional administrator for the Federal Transit Administration; and Alex Clifford, Metra’s chief executive officer.
A highlight of this event, along with a ribbon cutting, was the unveiling of a plaque that commemorates “Lou” Jones’ legacy. This plaque includes the following testimonial: “Lou used her political power and grassroots insights to fight for those traditionally locked out of economic opportunity and trapped in poverty . . . She helped to remove barriers to education, employment and opportunity for people throughout Illinois.”
Photo Credit: vxla (https://www.flickr.com/people/14812197@N00) from Chicago, US – licensed at Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en
For more information on the 35th Street/“Lou” Jones/Bronzeville station, please check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/35th_Street_station
Videos of this station can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ne0SsbyU0N0 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czX1YO0ekLk

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