CHICAGO | Highrise Projects & Construction, v7

[denizen467]

I think we're talking about 2 different aspects of the grid. As far as the grid being the dominant feature and engulfing the horizon, I'm fine with that. That's what blows you away from the Sears Tower, or when your plane pops out of the clouds at night and all the first-timers get introduced to Chicago. It's probably the biggest, unrelenting grid in the USA. The aerial night view could be one of the Seven Urban Wonders of the country (somebody needs to make that list) that the media never extols.

Also, our grid is laid out along the 4 cardinal directions. None of this bogus 29-degree rotation like Manhattan or 9-degree skew like Philadelphia. When we ride or drive north, we are really going north, period. And when you see the grid from the sky, you essentially are seeing longitude and latitude lines. People in skewed grid cities probably lull themselves into thinking they're going n-s-e-w on a daily basis, when they're really not.

However, little pockets of variation, like a vein through a slab of granite, make things interesting. You could say they even accentuate the greater grid itself. Goose Island is an example. Matter of fact, even Goose Island harbors its own, rotated, grid, with streets like Hooker and Bliss (somebody needs to write that story).


Edit: Speaking of media, just found some more coastal media absurdity that ranks our grid ... 6th. You can guess who they put at Number 1. Obviously a very subjective list that basically is ranking fame and age, that lists no substantive criteria (ignoring that, for example, Western Ave was the longest street in the world for a very long time), and that isn't talking about actual grids anyway (they made Paris 2nd after all), it's more about street plans, but it lazily claims to discuss the grid subject as well. Obviously written by coastal editors who haven't seen Chicago at night and who found it easy to downgrade us by dropping in utterly irrelevant descriptions like "dysfunction, corruption, and homicide". Yes, those things affect how iconic our street grid is compared with the other cities.

Separately, Chicago's grid is not absolutely perfectly pointing to the North Pole, but it's close enough and we'll excuse the planners' lack of GPS while they trudged through the swamp of pungent onions.

[Mr Downtown]

Originally Posted by denizen467

When we ride or drive north, we are really going north, period.

Well, 1.3 degrees off. Close enough, unless you draw maps.

[emathias]

Originally Posted by denizen467

...
Yes, and even if someone put up a "classy" casino, there's no way to prevent it going way downmarket in the future, or to forestall a slippery slope of increasingly downmarket casinos proliferating nearby. Better to have tourism dollars flow to support higher entertainment arts like cuisine, or music, or sports.

Yeah, the should never have built Lawson YMCA since it turned into an SRO ...

Shoulda never built the Midwest Athletic Club because it declined into downmarket apartments ...

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by Mr Downtown

Well, 1.3 degrees off. Close enough, unless you draw maps.

What's the story there? Just a surveying error? The city is based on the Jeffersonian grid after all, which is universal and (in theory) perfectly aligned with the cardinal directions.

[denizen467]

Originally Posted by emathias

Yeah, the should never have built Lawson YMCA since it turned into an SRO ...

Shoulda never built the Midwest Athletic Club because it declined into downmarket apartments ...

You're mistaking apples for oranges. Your examples are of individual structures that were later repurposed (which is a universal phenomenon known everywhere). I'm talking about legislation and policy choosing to create a new right based on an expectation that a new category of structures will be built and operated in a certain desirable way, without realizing that, in practice, market and other forces would in fact eventually cause the category to stretch beyond recognition with further structures operated in an undesirable way. For example, suppose new laws created to allow medical cannabis dispensaries eventually get stretched so that recreational ecstasy kiosks begin dotting the landscape, etc.

Originally Posted by Mr Downtown

Well, 1.3 degrees off. Close enough, unless you draw maps.

This is why I had made my North Pole comment. Adding to ardecila's question, wouldn't 19th-century planners here have had technology adequate enough to find the precise geographic north? Or was magnetic declination actually 1.3 degrees here in the mid 1800s? Surely Jedediah Downtown, your fourth great-grandfather, would have been a finer cartographer than that?

[10023]

Originally Posted by HomrQT

The amount of underutilized land in and around downtown Chicago is crazy.

Cabrini has got to be ripe for development. They need to bring it all back onto the grid too.

I think direct access to the Kennedy spur into River North is a really bad idea though. It will just create congestion. Better to have an exit at Chicago Avenue to access this site.

[OrdoSeclorum]

Originally Posted by 10023

I think direct access to the Kennedy spur into River North is a really bad idea though. It will just create congestion. Better to have an exit at Chicago Avenue to access this site.

I will chain myself to a bulldozer if anyone tries to build another freeway offramp anywhere close to downtown. Every one that exists does significant damage for blocks around. And that's after decades to recover. I can only imagine how awful a new one would be. Never again.

[Vlajos]

Originally Posted by 10023

Cabrini has got to be ripe for development. They need to bring it all back onto the grid too.

I think direct access to the Kennedy spur into River North is a really bad idea though. It will just create congestion. Better to have an exit at Chicago Avenue to access this site.

Cabrini has mostly been redeveloped. Are you talking about the rowhomes?

[emathias]

Originally Posted by 10023

Cabrini has got to be ripe for development. They need to bring it all back onto the grid too.

I think direct access to the Kennedy spur into River North is a really bad idea though. It will just create congestion. Better to have an exit at Chicago Avenue to access this site.

I agree on re-gridding Cabrini. It will be difficult in places, but a few easy things could be done right away. The City should have bought that lot where Chestnut would naturally connect to Larrabee that had a condo building proposed for it. They should immediately connect Oak Street. Cars already do use the broken-down street to get between Sedgewick and Orleans, the city should just redo it already so it's not dangerous. The City should also get Moody to give back land for Locust and connect Locust to Delaware.

Chicago Ave kinda has a ramp - there's an exit for Ogden for people coming from the north. It pairs with exits at Augusta Blvd for people coming from the south.

What should probably be done is to re-establish an Ogden bridge to Haines St on Goose Island, and reconnect Augusta east of the Kennedy to August west of the Kennedy, and then connect August to Ogden, and Haines to Hobbie on the east side of the river. It'd be alittle complicated, but would improve traffic flow by giving people an option other than Division to get to Goose Island and the Cabrini area.

[10023]

Originally Posted by Vlajos

Cabrini has mostly been redeveloped. Are you talking about the rowhomes?

Most of the area between Orleans and Larrabee, between Division and Chicago Ave still needs to be developed, including restoring the street grid.

[HomrQT]

Originally Posted by OrdoSeclorum

I will chain myself to a bulldozer if anyone tries to build another freeway offramp anywhere close to downtown. Every one that exists does significant damage for blocks around. And that's after decades to recover. I can only imagine how awful a new one would be. Never again.

Anyone know of any examples of freeway offramps gracefully merging into the urban fabric of a major city?

[denizen467]

^ That's a brilliant idea for a thread. From Manhattan to Boston to LA and especially cities that have giant tunnels or bridges, there are a lot of interesting attempts. Most of them grotesque curiosities, but you can learn from them.

I have often thought of some improvements to the Ontario Feeder - the traffic from Grand has an unnecessarily contorted route to get onto it, and you could use up part of the Office Depot lot at the same time, adding landscaping as well.

I think improving the ramps out of downtown could have priority, to drain vehicles from the area efficiently, while inbound configurations could be left as they are.

---

Cabrini-Green definitely should have the grid run through it. It has no reason to be otherwise. And it's just in the way as it currently is.

[rlw777]

Originally Posted by HomrQT

Anyone know of any examples of freeway offramps gracefully merging into the urban fabric of a major city?

I don't know if it merges "gracefully" exactly but the part of i-93 in downtown Boston that was capped is an interesting merger of freeway and city. I believe it was the inspiration for the idea of capping the kennedy a few years ago.

[Mr Downtown]

Originally Posted by denizen467

wouldn't 19th-century planners here have had technology adequate enough to find the precise geographic north? Or was magnetic declination actually 1.3 degrees here in the mid 1800s?

Most of Chicago (between the Indian Boundary lines) is 1.3 degrees west of true north, for reasons now lost to history. Our area was surveyed proceeding northeastward from Downstate Illinois. The line of reference, Third Principal Meridian, runs due north-south near Decatur, but for some reason a lot of error had crept in by the time they got this far north.

You can view the original surveyors notes online.</a> The surveys all include notes indicating the variation from true north and from magnetic north, so the surveyors were well aware that the grid was skewed; they just didn’t think it was important to spend the time and effort required to run a new true meridian or rangeline. They apparently thought it was more important to make all the townships and sections equal in acreage—and proceed quickly to sale of the new farmland.

Meanwhile, the area southeast of the old diagonal Indian Boundary Line from Lake Calumet along I-57 to Frankfort was surveyed at a different time, as was the area between the Wisconsin line and Central Rd (Rolling Meadows)/Central St (Evanston)—and those surveys are on true north. As a result, ostensibly parallel Golf Road and Central Rd (extended) are nearly 1.5 miles apart in Elgin but only a half mile apart by the time you reach Evanston.

To further complicate things, when James Thompson surveyed Chicago's original townsite in 1830, he set the streets parallel to the Main Stem of the river, meaning that the area in between Kinzie and Madison, State and Desplaines is 1.1 degrees east of true north.

[VKChaz]

Originally Posted by 10023

Most of the area between Orleans and Larrabee, between Division and Chicago Ave still needs to be developed, including restoring the street grid.

It will come little by little. The Larrabee / Clybourn site from Hunt Development should break ground next year.

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by Mr Downtown

Most of Chicago (between the Indian Boundary lines) is 1.3 degrees west of true north, for reasons now lost to history. Our area was surveyed proceeding northeastward from Downstate Illinois. The line of reference, Third Principal Meridian, runs due north-south near Decatur, but for some reason a lot of error had crept in by the time they got this far north.

You can view the original surveyors notes online.</a> The surveys all include notes indicating the variation from true north and from magnetic north, so the surveyors were well aware that the grid was skewed; they just didn’t think it was important to spend the time and effort required to run a new true meridian or rangeline. They apparently thought it was more important to make all the townships and sections equal in acreage—and proceed quickly to sale of the new farmland.

Meanwhile, the area southeast of the old diagonal Indian Boundary Line from Lake Calumet along I-57 to Frankfort was surveyed at a different time, as was the area between the Wisconsin line and Central Rd (Rolling Meadows)/Central St (Evanston)—and those surveys are on true north. As a result, ostensibly parallel Golf Road and Central Rd (extended) are nearly 1.5 miles apart in Elgin but only a half mile apart by the time you reach Evanston.

To further complicate things, when James Thompson surveyed Chicago's original townsite in 1830, he set the streets parallel to the Main Stem of the river, meaning that the area in between Kinzie and Madison, State and Desplaines is 1.1 degrees east of true north.

You're like an encyclopedia of Chicago

[denizen467]

^ And is an encyclopedia of Chicago, having actually written bits of the Encyclopedia Of Chicago.

Does our organization have a succession plan in place, in case Mr Downtown pulls a Honte unexpectedly? We must ensure a continuous lineage of knowledge, from Jedediah McDowntown, to Mr Downtown, and on to Jaxon Downtown, or Jace Downtown, or Krystl Downtown, or whatever the next generation is going to be named. Else Chicago may fall.

[10023]

Originally Posted by VKChaz

It will come little by little. The Larrabee / Clybourn site from Hunt Development should break ground next year.

That's my point. Little by little is the wrong way to do it. They need to fix the street grid which means leveling everything (especially that hideous lowrise housing project) and starting from scratch.

[the urban politician]

^ "Leveling everything" and starting over from scratch has worked SO well for Chicago in the past....

[LouisVanDerWright]

Originally Posted by the urban politician

^ "Leveling everything" and starting over from scratch has worked SO well for Chicago in the past....

Well it was great after the fire. Leveling Everything just isn't a good blight fighting tool.