Omonia metro station

Omonia is an underground Athens Metro station located below Omonia Square, in the center of the city. It serves as one of two transfer stations between Line 1 and Line 2. It took its name from Omonia Square and the surrounding area of the same name.

The first station opened in 1895, but was relocated underground and redesigned by the Hellenic Electric Railways (which operated Line 1 at the time) in 1930. In January 2000 the additional platforms for Line 2 were opened.

History

Outdoor station (1895)

The first station «Omonia» was inaugurated on May 17, 1895, the same day as Monastiraki station, and was a part outdoor and part semi-underground station, of the open trench type, at the intersection of Lykourgos and Athinas streets, 100 meters before Omonia Square. The extension of the line to the north was done in order for Athens itself (the current center of Athens) to acquire railway stations, because Thiseio station was then at the southern end of the capital, as the urban fabric then started north from the Ancient Agora, from Monastiraki and after. The choice of tunnel construction in the Monastiraki - Omonia section was made in order to avoid the division of the urban fabric of Athens and in fact it was the first chronologically tunnel and remains the oldest tunnel in the total of the current 3 lines of the Athens Metro network.

Initially, when the relevant studies started, there was a dilemma whether the line should be extended to Omonia Square or to Klathmonos Square, with the intermediate station in Monastiraki having been decided to build from the beginning, regardless of the choice of the terminal point. Finally, it was decided that the construction of a station in Omonia would be a more correct choice, as Omonia was already clearly a more popular meeting point for the residents of Athens.