Yerkes wouldn't hear of it, and he dug in his heels. He even went so far as to threaten to operate the Union Loop without any southern section, asserting that, "with or without the Van Buren street link, the Union Loop will be ready for service within a month." (Actually, it wasn't until six months later that the first trains began to operate on the first portion of the Union Loop to be used, the Wabash Avenue section.)