VIDEO: Ride the Brown Line Circa 1981

More than 32 years ago, WBEZ’s John R. Schmidt filmed a journey on the Brown Line, and the footage just hit the internet.

WBEZ recently posted the video, narrated by Schmidt, on its YouTube channel titled “Riding the Ravenswood Brown Line from Ravenswood to the Loop in 1981.” It was originally filmed because, much like the No. 11 Lincoln Avenue bus, officials considered shutting it down because the lack of use.

“The reason why I shot this video is it was taught that the Ravenswood Line, as it was called, was actually going to be abandoned,” Schmidt says in the video. “There wasn’t enough traffic on it.”

Watch the video and listen to Schmidt detail how some areas of the North Side transformed, both in terms of infrastructure and the “sketchy” areas like “war zones,” as he describes them.

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