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| Christine Prairie commented on MWRD's post |
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| BDBRCPC posted The Chicago River and the Michigan Avenue Bridge on July 17, 1923. Raymond Kunst shared MWRD posted Dennis DeBruler "The Chicago River and the Michigan Avenue Bridge on July 17, 1923." You can see part of the addition to the Wrigley Building being constructed on the right. And to the right of the boat you can see boxcars in C&NW's State Street Yard that used to be along the north side of the river. Raymond Kunst posted The Chicago River and the Michigan Avenue Bridge on July 17, 1923. Raymond Kunst shared Robert C. Wise: The Mart is yet to be built. |
Development of North Michigan Avenue (Magnificent Mile) began after the bridge opened in 1920.
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| Mark Conti posted The Chicago Tribune Building, still under construction. Tom Vollman Both the Trib Tower and Old Republic building in the background were completed in '25. 333 N. Michigan, still an empty lot here, not til '28. |
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| Growing up in Chicago posted 1970s - Michigan Ave Bridge Paul Jervert shared Bridge is UP ! |
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| Glen Miller posted Chicago detectives Tuohy and Klatzco were out patrolling the northside when they saw Vincent Drucci, a member of the Northside gang drive by. He was wanted for jumping bail after blowing up a safe in a failed attempt at robbing a tea parlor. They started after Drucci. Not wanting to be an overnight guest of the police, Drucci stepped on the gas. As he approached the bridge, a steamer was headed down the river and the bridgetender started to raise the bridge. The bells are ringing, the lights are flashing and the gates are down, but Drucci kept coming. Crashing the gate, speeding up the north leaf, he jumped the already four foot gap and landed on the south leaf in one piece. Not willing to let the escaping criminal off the hook, Touhy and Klatzco take the daring leap as well. Drucci however, is stopped by traffic on the other side and attempts to flee on foot and Chicago's finest nab him. You probably thought this was only done in a " Blues Brothers" movie but this was 1922 on the Michigan Avenue bridge. Renamed the DuSable Bridge in October, 2010, the spectacular Beaux Arts-style bridge was designed by Edward Bennett with work started in 1917. It opened with much ceremony, fireworks, a parade and a few marching bands on May 14, 1920 but a near mishap was avoided when the bridgetender started to raise the bridge to let a lumber steamer pass. Four cars were inadvertently left parked on the bridge and police fired their weapons in the air to garner his attention. This engineering marvel is known as a double-leaf, double-deck, fixed counterweight, trunnion bascule bridge. Have to read that twice? Me too! The counterweights keep each of the four leaves perfectly balanced when being raised except for once in September of 1992 when the bridge was being resurfaced. The north half of the bridge was raised and then lowered for a couple of sailboats when the southeast side, which was supposed to be locked down, suddenly sprang up and catapulted debris and sent a 40 ton crane parked on the bridge leaf crashing down and bouncing a 285 pound iron ball down Wacker Drive into the back seat of bridge maintenace worker Jesus Lopez's Ford Escort. He wasn't even scratched and the car? Not so much! It came smashing through the rear driver's side window of Lopez's car, mangling the door, roof, rear quarter panel and back seat. Six CTA bus passengers received bumps and bruises from the other debris flung into the air. The bridge leaf was also heavily damaged as it was ripped from its bearings and fell into the 40 foot deep counterweight pit. It was left sticking straight up into the air, the crane wedging it in place. Amazingly they had the bridge repaired by December of the same year just a few weeks before Christmas. The cause of the accident? Heel locks not engaged fully, that and the fact the city had fired most of the experienced public works employees after the fiasco with the underground tunnels flooding. There were no qualified engineers working as bridge inspectors at the time. Oops. If you're ever one of the daily 30,000 pedestrians that cross the bridge you will be interested to know that the northern end of the bridge passes over part of the Jean Baptiste Point Du Sable homesite and the southern half of the bridge is over the site of Fort Dearborn. The Fort is commemorated by a large relief above the entrance of the London Guarantee Building, and brass markers positioned in the sidewalks on the south side of the bridge outline the original blockhouse. In the photo, the Great Lakes steamer, City of Grand Rapids passes underneath the recently completed Michigan Avenue Bridge and the brand new Wrigley Building in 1922. The other half of the Wrigley building would be completed two years later in 1924. |
But first they had to build Michigan Avenue!
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| BDBRCPC posted Chicago 1915 - Widening of Pine St., which would be renamed Michigan Ave. in 1917. This portion would become known as the "Magnificent Mile". Jeff Bransky The road was widened to the right (west) which helped it line up better with Michigan Ave. south of the river. The Michigan Ave. Bridge still had to be built on an angle to connect north and south. Jeff Bransky Looks like a pine tree is still standing in the road down the way. You can judge where the old side west parkway was. Martin Tangora Are we looking N or S? I don't see any clues -- in particular, I don't see the Water Tower. Jeff Bransky Martin Tangora Lookin south, taken from the Water Tower. Ever notice how Michigan Ave. has to jog around the Water Tower? It was a landmark in the way. Abimael Gallardo Did houses have to be torn down for the street widening? John Schulien The buildings to the right appear to be the back sides of the next block, so I'm guessing that they tore down a row of houses that were facing to the left. Raymond Kunst shared David Phillips oh my god, look at all that horrible gentrification! Neil Gale It is certainly NOT Gentrification David Phillips. Gentrification is the process of renovating and improving a district so that it conforms to the middle-class. Pine Street was occupied by the Chicago elite, and the very wealthy. David Phillips the process of repairing and rebuilding homes and businesses in a deteriorating area (such as an urban neighborhood) accompanied by an influx of middle-class or AFFLUENT people and that often results in the displacement of earlier, usually poorer residents. Neil Gale Not acceptable. Pine Street project was not deteriorating in 1915, nor did it ever deteriorate. The project was a street widening. Which happened to many streets in Chicago, and those neighborhoods did not get "gentrified" because the street was widened. Again, David Phillips, the neighborhood DID NOT change the class of people. Look at the photo. Many of the homes on the east side of Pine Street were only moved a few feet east. Admit it, David, you used the wrong word in this situation. Perhaps you'd like to read my article about moving houses in Chicago. https://drloihjournal.blogspot.com/.../moving-houses-was... Enjoy. [David did use the wrong word, but he would not admit it. Another called Neil toxic because he evidently has a pattern of being a stickler. But I consider it important to know that the city doesn't "plow" just poor neighborhoods in the name of progress.] Raymond Kunst shared another BDBRCPC post Before the Michigan Avenue Bridge was built, Pine Street north of Ohio St. was called Lincoln Park Blvd. The Mag Mile plan was introduced in 1947 with Bonwit Teller being one of the first retailers. |
This map clearly shows why they chose to remove the buildings on the west side of Pine Street.
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| Jon Roma commented on a share 1894 Sanborn Map |
The bridge was renamed the DuSable Bridge on October 15, 2010 in honor of Chicago's first non-native permanent resident. The southwest bridge tender house contains a museum concerning Chicago's movable bridges. Scroll to the bottom of a Tribune article for a diagram of the machinery that lifts the bridge.
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| David M Laz posted FRENCH NAVY DESTROYER GUEPRATTE visiting Chicago in 1963 with the Michigan Ave bridge raised. |
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| David M Laz posted Raised south spans of the Michigan Ave Bridge shows that the bridge is actually 4 individual spans, two on the north and two on the south. |
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| Paul Jevert shared VintageChicago The formal opening of the Michigan Avenue Bridge in 1920. City officials traveled across it but the bridge towers were not quite finished. Xavier Quintana posted a similar photo From Vintage Tribune: The Michigan Avenue Bridge, a marvel of architecture, engineering and urban planning, opened to traffic on May 14, 1920.⠀⠀ By linking the Loop and the Gold Coast, the 256-foot span laid the groundwork for the eye-popping flagship stores and five-star hotels of today’s Magnificent Mile shopping mecca. The long-term significance of the bridge, an official city landmark, is beyond dispute. It is now named the DuSable Bridge.⠀⠀ This picture shows opening day ceremonies with city officials riding in the first automobile across the bridge. Note, the bridge towers wouldn't get their famous sculptures until 1928. (Vintage Tribune) |
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| VintageTribune The freighter Medusa Challenger on the Chicago River Dec. 17, 1972. The ship remained at this spot by the Michigan Ave. Bridge for more than 6 hours because the bridge wouldn't open on account of the cold. Photo by William Kelly. |
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| Neil Gale posted
Final Purchase of Land for Bridge at Michigan Avenue. 1919
February 27, 1919 -- The final three pieces of real estate necessary for the construction of the Michigan Avenue bridge are secured. The city pays $719,532 to the estate of W. F. McLaughlin for a piece of property on the east side of Michigan Avenue fronting the south side of the river. $62,500 goes to John S. Miller for a triangular piece of land across Michigan Avenue from the McLaughlin property. $91,760 goes to Levy Mayer for a small piece of property directly south of the McLaughlin holding. With these three transactions ($12,124,460.00 today) the city is ready to build the bridge that would change the north side of the city forever.
The photo shows the three pieces of property on each side of Michigan Avenue south of the river.
[I'm glad he added the current value of $12M. I was wondering.] |
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| Glen Miller posted Chicago 1952, the hustle and bustle of the big city. Only problem is that everyone is hustling in and bustling out at the same time. [This shows the cluster of buildings that sprung up around the bridge in the 1920s after the bridge was built in 1920. Before this the north side of the Main Stem was railroads, warehouses and plants such as soap factories.] |
I put this picture here instead of the State Street Bridge posting because it shows that much of the development north of the Main Stem happened in and after the 1970s.
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| Ravko Giderewisc shared Dennis Popiela's photo Karen Operabuffa Before the IBM Building went up. I remember watching them excavate for the foundations.Victor StLawrence Empty skyline for River North and Mag Mile.Bob Russell That's probably right about when I started working at the Chicago Sun-Times / Daily News in June of 1970. It was at 401 N. Wabash. This is the State Street bridge looking north. The Hancock was completed in 1969. |
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| Richard Pitchford posted |
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| Neil Gale posted The Goodrich Docks, now the site of the Michigan Avenue Bridge, Chicago. 1899 |
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| MWRD posted The Michigan Ave. bridge over the @Chicago River on October 9, 1923. |
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| Living History of Illinois and Chicago posted 1948 view of North Michigan Avenue in Chicago. Great view of the Wrigley Building, Allerton Hotel, and Tribune Tower. [You can faintly see the Water Tower near the end of the avenue.] |
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| Raymond Kunst added to an album 1921 Aeroplane View of the New Boulevard Link and the South Tower of the Wrigley Building. The Site of Old Fort Dearborn Is on the South Bank of the River Immediately Adjacent to the New Boulevard Link Bridge. MWRD shared Jeff Bransky Pine Street and Michigan Avenue became one Street with the completion of the bridge. Both streets were widened in such away that they aligned better. They added on to the west side of Pine and the east side of Michigan resulting in the less severe angle the bridge takes which can be seen here. The Rush Street swing bridge, on the left, was about to be removed. |
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| Historic Chicago posted Wrigley Building and the Rush Street Bridge (1921) The Rush Street Bridge is the open swing bridge in the middle of the river. It would be permanately open until it was removed because it has been replaced by the Michigan Avenue Bridge behind it. |
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| Kevin R Doerksen commented on the above post. A view from overhead from 1920 |
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| Raymond Kunst added to an album A bird’s-eye view of the construction of the Tribune Tower (1924). |
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| Zachary Taylor Davis - Chicago Architect posted The (1920) Michigan Ave. Bridge, which was engineered by the Chicago Department of Public Works, Bureau of Engineering - with Edward H. Bennett as the consulting architect and William A. Mulcahy the chief engineer of construction. Graham, Anderson, Probst & White’s (1922) Wrigley Building is in the background. (The 1924 Wrigley Building North Addition has yet to be built.) |
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| Xavier Quintana posted Lower Michigan Avenue Bridge, 1927. (Vintage Tribune) [Horses were still being used in 1927.] VintageTribune |
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| Todd Protzman Davis shared Zachary Taylor Davis - Chicago Architect postThis southwest view of the Edward H. Bennett designed (1918) Michigan Avenue Bridge was taken shortly after it opened in 1920. This bridge (originally conceived as part of Daniel Burnham's 1909 Plan of Chicago) is an early example of a fixed trunnion bascule bridge |
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| Patrick McNamara commented on Todd's share Bennett's graceful symmetry delighted Chicagoans from the bridge opening in 1920..... |
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| Patrick McNamara commented on Todd's share ...a quiet oasis in every Season..... |
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| Patrick McNamara commented on Todd's share ...until destroyed and replaced with commercial trash with zero public input because of a dirty Alderman. |
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| One of eleven photos posted by Jacek Boczarski From the archives: On the Transformers-Transformers film set: Dark of the Moon, Chicago 2011 Photo: JB [Given that they have to adjust the counterweights after a bridge has been repainted to rebalance it, I wonder what those cars did for the balance of the bridge. The bridge must have had good brakes to keep the leaf up with that extra weight. It looks like they raised the bridge and then placed the cars on it with a crane. So at least the weight of the cars has a short radius from the trunnion.] Jacek Boczarski shared |
MWRD posted eight photos with the comment: "Various views of the DuSable Bridge, originally named the Michigan Avenue Bridge, during construction and after it was opened 100 years ago."
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| 1 View showing the south cofferdam for the Michigan Avenue Bridge on August 21, 1919. Jon Roma Even more interesting than the bridge wok is the Bevo advertisement on the roof at right. Bevo ("bee-vo") was a malted, non-alcoholic beverage brewed by Anheuser-Busch during the first few decades of the 20th century. Prohibition began in the United States in January 1919, so this picture would have been taken during the first months of that 13-year drought. Today, the beverage would have been called "near beer", but Prohibition regulations did not permit the word "beer" to be used in product marketing and labeling. The word "bevo" is a play on the word "pivo", which means "beer" in various Slavic languages, and also incorporates the first part of the English word "beverage". Wikipedia has a picture of a similar ad for Bevo in Trenton, NJ: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bevo... |
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| 2 View showing work on the north leaf of the Michigan Avenue Bridge on November 19, 1919. |
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| 3 Looking west at the Chicago River showing lowering of the Michigan Avenue Bridge on April 9, 1920. |
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| 4 Another view to the west showing the Michigan Avenue Bridge and the Rush Street Bridge in background on April 9, 1920. |
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| 5 Looking east showing new work at south abutment on the southwest side of Michigan Avenue Bridge on June 13, 1922. MWRD posted |
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| 6 A view of the Chicago River and the Michigan Avenue Bridge in July 1923. Historic Chicago posted Chicago River and the Michigan Avenue bridge. (1923) [A comment on the Historic Chicago post includes a colorized version of this photo.] |
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| 7 Another view of the Michigan Avenue Bridge open on July 17, 1923. |
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| 8 A view to the east at the Chicago River and the Michigan Avenue Bridge on October 9, 1923. |
We can see the north leaf in the raised position.
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| Historic Photographs posted In 1953 , the 600-foot-long, 70- foot-wide Marine Angel transited the Chicago River. Steven Phillips: Ok, I just read about it. The short version is, it was working as a bulk cargo hauler on the Mississippi and was switching to the Great Lakes. The St. Lawrence Seaway didn't open till '59, so up the Illinois river to the Chicago river it was. It was also 620' and had 7" of clearance on each side in this turn. Bill Meech shared |
MWRD posted on Dec 25, 2022, two photos with the comment: "The Chicago River at Michigan Avenue on July 17, 1923, plus an additional view from out on Lake Michigan looking west toward the mouth of the Chicago River on the same day."
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Neil Gale postedA Freak Michigan Avenue Bridge Accident Occurred in Chicago on September 20, 1992.The southeast leaf sprung open unexpectedly, wreaking havoc. I've included photos and a pictorial to visually explain this. CLICK TO READ ─► https://drloihjournal.blogspot.com/.../freak-michigan... |
Neil Gale posted:
From plans to completion the Michigan Avenue Bridge was opened in 25 months. The City of Chicago had to purchase properties that faced the south side of the river and were on the east and west sides of Michigan Avenue. A great history filed with famous Chicagoans. A rare photograph is included.
CLICK TO READ ─► https://drloihjournal.blogspot.com/2020/02/history-of-chicagos-michigan-avenue-bridge.html in my Digital Research Library of Illinois History Journal™
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| MWRD posted on Apr 1, 2023 A view of the Chicago River at the DuSable Bridge on Michigan Avenue in July 1923. [An April Fools joke. The Blues Brother's car jumped the 95th Street Bridge.] |
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| Shoreline Sightseeing posted Chicago bridge lifts mean summer is soon ! |
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| Vanished Chicago posted Mike Franklin: Photo is backwards. Jesse West: Back in 1963 the river had barges moving on it all year around! |
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| Photo is flipped [I presume the freighter in the foreground is moored up for the winter.] |
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