Before Dan Ryan Expressway (I-90+I-94)

(Satellite)
14 lanes of traffic, local and express shoulders, a rapid transit line in the median, and ramps wiped out a lot of homes. (In the case of the Eiesenhower (I-290), it destroyed not only homes but neighborhoods because it split the neighborhoods.) You can tell that road building in the 1950s and 60s did not have to write an Environmental Impact Statement. Actually, at the time this destruction of homes was viewed as urban renewal, and the decision makers thought they were doing the residents a favor by building high-rise housing and "clearing the slum." I think all of the high-rise housing, in turn, has been "cleared." The high rise apartments with long halls turned out to be a social experiment that failed. I've read that the elevators were not maintained. It got to the point where police and paramedics did not want to go into the buildings.

Bob Kalal posted
Track-side tenements on the south side of Chicago. (1944) You can see Comiskey Park in the background

Jim Arvites posted
View of a Rock Island passenger traveling through the southside of Chicago with the old Comiskey Park in the background circa 1945.
(Old-Time Baseball Photos)
[There are quite a few comments about the coal haze.]

The smokestacks and water towers in the background west of Comiskey indicates that there used to be quite a bit of industry over there. Comiskey Park Homeplate shows the new White Sox ballpark was built south of the old one. Google Maps has the new name for the ballpark, Guaranteed Rate Field, but it still labels all the parking lots as US Cellular Field.

John Smith posted
old sox park the good one before the built that ugly one .. 1950