Kennedy-Encroaching Skyscraper Broaching the West Loop This Week
If you dig those Japanese car racing games where you speed through an idealized, canyonized, urbanized Celtic knot in the dark, there’s good news for your inner Speed Racer. The Kennedy Expressway is going to look a little more like Ridge Racer, and a little less like Chicago Ridge. December, 2020 rendering of 640 West Washington A public meeting has been called to discuss 640 West Washington, a 47-story skyscraper...
From the Air, the Jane Byrne Reconstruction Looks Fascinating, Not Frustrating
Not everyone who lives in or visits Chicago enjoys a car-free existence. And for them, there is the Jane Byrne Interchange. November 2020 construction at the Jane Byrne Interchange (Courtesy of YoChicago!) We haven’t talked about it much since reconstruction commenced on the intersection of the Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Ryan Expressways. Partly because it’s been going on for eight years, and mostly because you can get the...
Will The Circle Leave Us Broken?
Chicago’s famous Circle Interchange, or the Jane Byrne Interchange, as it was recently dubbed, is about to give drivers major fits. Granted, they’ll be weekend fits, but there will be chaos just the same. As part of the flyover structure work, ramps and lanes will be shut down to provide crews with a safe work envoronment for placement of curved steel beams that will connect I-90/94 (The Dan Ryan Expressway) to I-290 (the...
Plan to Turn Kennedy Expressway Into a Park Still Kicking
Remember that plan floated by Fifield Companies a few years ago to build a deck over I-90/94 through downtown and fill it with parks and restaurants and skyscrapers? While we haven’t heard anything about it in a while, it turns out to still be alive. It’s now the subject of this year’s Harold E. Eisenberg Foundation Midwest Real Estate Challenge: The 2015 Challenge will focus on the “Cap the Kennedy” Project over...
![[Interactive] Circle Interchange Reconstruction Faces Little Opposition From Neighbors](https://www.chicagoarchitecture.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Remnants-of-protest-before-IDOT-hearing1-240x240.jpg)
[Interactive] Circle Interchange Reconstruction Faces Little Opposition From Neighbors
The Chicago Blackhawks are the best professional hockey team in America. The Circle Interchange – a couple of miles from the United Center – is arguably the worst traffic bottleneck in the country. In fact a study by the American Transportation Research Institute ranks it the the slowest, most congested interchange in the nation. Now the Illinois Department of Transportation is getting ready to overhaul the interchange which links the...
What is Hubbard’s Cave?
Every day millions of people driving around Chicagoland listen to the local traffic reports on TV or the radio. Hundreds of times a day, traffic reporters reference a place in Chicago called “Hubbard’s Cave.” Travel times in and out of the Loop are calculated based on the location of this landmark. But remarkably few people really know what it is, or what it looks like. (The entrance [or exit] of...
