Belmont station (Metra)

Belmont (also known as Belmont Valley) is a former village and unincorporated community in Lisle Township, DuPage County, Illinois, United States. It was first settled in 1835. It was incorporated as a village in 1980 and disincorporated in 2004, after which portions of the area were annexed into nearby Downers Grove. It is typically defined as the area west of Denburn Woods and east of I-355, in between Downers Grove and Woodridge. The Belmont Train Station is in the town. St. Joseph Creek, a tributary of the DuPage River, runs through the town. Prior to 2008, Belmont had a small business district along Belmont Road, most of which was demolished in order to make way for a new underpass beneath the train tracks. A post office under the name "Belmont Valley" with the ZIP Code 60516 was once located on Belmont Road, and closed on October 1, 2004. The community and surrounding valley are served by the Northwest Belmont Water Improvement Association, which in 2009, reported 3,075 people in their service area. In 2019, the community had an estimated population of 5,250.

The Illinois State Toll Highway Authority (ISTHA) is an administrative agency of the U.S. state of Illinois charged with building, operating, and maintaining toll roads in the state. The roads, as well as the authority itself, are sometimes referred to as the Illinois Tollway. The system opened in 1958 in the Chicago area, and has subsequently expanded to include the eastern and central sections of Interstate 88 (I-88) extending into the northwestern part of the state. Beginning in 2005, the system was reconstructed to include more lanes and open road tolling, the latter of which uses I-Pass transponders to collect revenue as vehicles pass antennas at toll plazas or designated entrance or exit ramps. As of 2017, ISTHA maintains and operates 294 miles (473 km) of tollways in 12 counties in Northern Illinois.

The Avery Coonley School (ACS), commonly called Avery Coonley, is an independent, coeducational day school serving academically gifted students in preschool through eighth grade (approximately ages 3 to 14), and is located in Downers Grove, DuPage County, Illinois. The school was founded in 1906 to promote the progressive educational theories developed by John Dewey and other turn-of-the-20th-century philosophers, and was a nationally recognized model for progressive education well into the 1940s. From 1943 to 1965, Avery Coonley was part of the National College of Education (now National Louis University), serving as a living laboratory for teacher training and educational research. In the 1960s, ACS became a regional research center and a leadership hub for independent schools, and began to focus on the education of the gifted. The school has occupied several structures in its history, including a small cottage on the Coonley Estate in Riverside, Illinois, and another building designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. It moved to Downers Grove in 1916 and became the Avery Coonley School in 1929, with a new 10.45-acre (4.23 ha) campus designed in the Prairie and Arts and Crafts styles, landscaped by Jens Jensen, who was known as "dean of the world's landscape architects". The campus has been expanded several times since the 1980s to create more space for arts, technology, and classrooms. Avery Coonley was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2007, citing the "long-lasting influence on schools throughout the country" of the educational program and the design of the building and grounds. The progressive legacy is still evident in the modern curriculum, which retains many traditions and educational activities dating back to the beginning of the school. Students work a minimum of one year above their current grade level, and explore broad themes allowing them to learn across subjects and engage in creative and collaborative projects, using instructional technology extensively. Opportunities to build on classroom studies are offered through a range of extracurricular activities. Admission is competitive and an IQ score of at least 124 is required. ACS is notable for its record of success in academic competitions at the state and national levels in mathematics, science, geography, and other subjects. ACS was recognized as a Blue Ribbon School by the United States Department of Education in 1988. Avery Coonley attracted national media attention in 1994 when the school was banned from competition in the Illinois State Science Fair after winning for the fourth year in a row. Although the decision was later reversed, the controversy was decried by the press as an example of the "dumbing down" of education and the victory of self-esteem over excellence in schools.

Downers Grove is a village in DuPage County, Illinois, United States. It was founded in 1832 by Pierce Downer, whose surname serves as the eponym for the village. Per the 2020 census, the population of the village was 50,247. It is a southwest suburb of Chicago located between I-88 and I-55.

Northern Seminary is a private Baptist seminary in Lisle, Illinois. It is affiliated with the American Baptist Churches USA.

Downers Grove North High School (DGN; sometimes Downers North or North; formerly Downers Grove High School) is public high school situated in the city of Downers Grove in the Illinois state of the United States. The school was established in 1928.

Downers Grove Main Street (also known as Downers Grove or Main Street) is one of three railroad stations on Metra's BNSF Line in Downers Grove, Illinois. The station is at Main Street, 21.1 miles (34.0 km) from Union Station, the east end of the line. As of 2018, Downers Grove Main Street is the sixth busiest of Metra's 236 non-downtown stations, with an average of 2,492 weekday boardings. The local police department and library are nearby. Parking lots are managed by the Village of Downers Grove. The station has connections to multiple Pace Buses, including the Commuter Shuttle lines.This station was the site of the 1947 Zephyr train wreck that killed 3 and injured more than 30. The station went under a $1.1 million platform replacement project, which finished in the summer of 2015.Many trains on the BNSF run express to or from Downers Grove. This is common during the morning and evening rush hours, in an effort to get passengers to the busier stations quicker.

Doerhoefer Park is a public park located in the Orchard Brook neighborhood of Downers Grove, Illinois in the United States. The park was originally established in the 1960s, and in 1971 was named after Edward J. Doerhoefer, a former Park Commissioner and Board President. Its grounds, covering 14.02 acres, provide spaces for specific sports and activities, such as a turf field, basketball courts, tennis courts, and baseball fields. There is a football team, named Panthers. All of these areas have lighting available until 11:00 pm. Doerhoefer park also houses a playground, which is designed for children aged 5 years old through 12 years old. The playground is ADA compliant, and offers seating areas surrounding it. There are three parking lots surrounding the perimeter of the park, as well as parking along Venard Road, which is the western border of the park. The park is just north of Ogden Avenue, which is a main thoroughfare in the town of Downers Grove. It is positioned between Venard Road to the west, and Saratoga Avenue to the east.

The Tivoli Theatre is a movie theater built in 1928 and is located at 5021 Highland Ave, Downers Grove, Illinois. The theatre was designed by Van Gurten and Van Gurten architects, and has 1,012 seats. First opened on Christmas Day, 1928, this theatre was the second in the US to open with sound movies (the first being the Brooklyn Paramount inaugurated in November). Since its opening the theatre has been meticulously remodeled to resemble a "French Renaissance-style" theatre. The Tivoli is a rare large one-screen theatre. Most of these older theatres have been "cut up" in order to offer more screens, but the Tivoli is still intact. The building also includes a residential hotel, a bowling alley, and some other store fronts. Owned by Classic Cinemas since 1976, the theatre has an old look but new equipment.The theatre shows both first- and second-run movies, and has live professional performances throughout the year. Bands that have performed include Blue Öyster Cult, Los Lobos, Poi Dog Pondering, Big Head Todd and the Monsters, Neko Case, and The Wallflowers.

The Downers Grove train wreck happened on April 3, 1947, at the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad station in Downers Grove, Illinois. The Twin Cities Zephyr, a high-speed inter-city passenger train, struck a tractor that had fallen from a freight train only seconds before. Three died and over thirty were injured in the wreck. The Twin Cities Zephyr had left Minneapolis at 5:10 PM with EMD E5 #9914A pulling a seven car trainset called "The Train of the Goddesses". The train carried many college students and others traveling for the coming Easter weekend and was due at Chicago's Union Station at midnight.At 10:41 PM, approaching the Downers Grove station at about 75 miles per hour (121 km/h), the eastbound Zephyr struck a heavy caterpillar-type tractor which had just fallen off a westbound freight train. The engineer, who later died from his injuries, told rescuers that he saw the tractor fall and immediately applied the brakes. At impact the locomotive went airborne, broke away from the trainset, landed on its side, skidded through the station, and caught fire. The first two cars jack-knifed into an empty office and waiting room of the brick masonry station building, which by chance had been closed early for the night. The freight train had just cleared the scene when all three tracks running through the depot were torn up.The response was fast. A signalman from the nearby tower went east and used flares to stop a westbound freight while a brakeman from the Zephyr climbed out a window after the crash and went west to flag a following local passenger train. The fire department, police, and townspeople (along with a Boy Scout troop) quickly began giving aid. Police from nearby towns also came to help, along with state police. After being given first aid at a doctor's office across from the station or in the lobby of the Tivoli Theatre, the injured were taken to the Hinsdale Hospital or Copley Memorial Hospital in Aurora. Two died and more than 30 were injured, the train's engineer died three days later.Unlike the Naperville train disaster less than a year earlier, there was no question of wrongdoing at the scene. On May 8, 1947, a DuPage County Coroner's jury found that International Harvester (the shipper) and the Burlington were negligent in loading and inspecting the tractor.

Downers Grove South High School, or DGS, and locally referred to as "South", is a public four-year high school located at the corner of Dunham Road and 63rd Street in Downers Grove, Illinois, a western suburb of Chicago, Illinois, in the United States. Its principal is Arwen Lyp. It is part of Community High School District 99, which also includes Downers Grove North High School. The South campus draws students from Downers Grove (south of 55th St.), the majority of Woodridge, half of Darien (west of Cass Ave.), and small sections of Bolingbrook and Westmont.

The American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ASGE) is a professional organization of physicians dedicated to improving endoscopy. The ASGE is made up largely of gastroenterologists from the United States. Included in its membership are endoscopists from other medical specialties as well as from other countries. ASGE publishes the medical journal Gastrointestinal Endoscopy. "The core purpose of the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy is to be the leader in advancing and promoting excellence in gastrointestinal endoscopy."