Chicago's Underworld

 
[Wacker Drive, Chicago, September 7, 2009 /Image & Artwork: designslinger]

Cities are constantly changing and evolving organisms, sometimes through specific
planning and sometimes haphazardly. Chicago city planners decided to clean up the city's dingy, dirty riverfront in the early part of the 20th century. The Wacker Plan was an offshoot of the great Chicago Plan of 1909, and was designed to remove the unsightly movement of freight from the rivers edge as well as the decorative portion of the new upper roadway.

 
[Lower Wacker Drive ramp /Image & Artwork: designslinger]

It was a pretty innovative idea at the time: take the delivery of goods and locate them
to the lower levels of the buildings along a service road. So a double-deck, road bed was constructed adjacent to the main and southern branches of the river, as well as the new (we're talking 1920s here) Michigan Avenue retail corridor.

 
[Lower Michigan Avenue /Image & Artwork: designslinger]

It's hard to believe that this was once the ground level of Michigan Avenue, then known
as Pine Street. The forest of steel now supports the pedestrian and auto traffic of the boulevard above.

 
[Intersection of Michigan and Wacker /Image & Artwork: designslinger]

Although it is dark and kind of creepy, I love the ethereal quality of the light.

[Stairway to Michigan Avenue with the Intercontinental Hotel in the background /Images & Artwork: designslinger]

From the shadowy depths, you climb into the bright light of Chicago's Magnificent Mile.

 
[Billy Goat tavern, 430 N. Michigan, Lower Level /Images & Artwork: designslinger]

In Michigan Avenue's basement, you will find one of the city's most popular landmarks,
the Billy Goat tavern. Immortalized by Chicagoan John Belushi in a classic Saturday Night Live skit with the line, Cheezborger, Cheezborger, Cheezborger, No Coke! Pepsi! The Billy Goat was once primarily a hangout for Chicago Tribune newspapermen, until Belushi, SNL and the arrival of the tourist.
Posted by designslinger at 9/16/2009 2:20 AM
Categories: Architecture, Urban Planning
Tags: Billy Goat tavern Wacker Plan Wacker Drive Lower Michigan Avenue
 

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  • 9/16/2009 7:19 AM Adam wrote:
    Great photos and a very interesting subject. It reminds me a lot of the La Defense district of Paris.

    I'm afraid I don't understand the Belushi skit, but I like the idea of an underground tavern!
    1. 9/16/2009 2:17 PM designslinger wrote:
      John Belushi did a repeating skit on the television program Saturday Night Live where he played a Greek tavern/diner owner modeled on the owner of the Billy Goat. The phrase, done in a parody of an English/Greek accent, became a cult classic in the U.S. in the 80s.

  • 9/16/2009 9:43 AM unlikelymoose wrote:
    Call me a dork, but I think it would be so incredibly super duperly awesome if the City of Chicago put a life-size bronze statue of Batman hidden in the shadows of Lower Wacker.
    1. 9/21/2009 7:34 AM designslinger wrote:
      Spectacular idea. Since we're Chicago newbies, who do we contact, petition, or hound to death, to get the ball rolling???

  • 9/17/2009 10:17 AM Kelvin wrote:
    Does the Billy Goat tavern get much in the way of walk by traffic? It's amazing that a tavern could survive in a subterranean environment like that.
    1. 9/21/2009 5:49 AM designslinger wrote:
      While down there taking pictures we saw several people going in and coming out. Think the SNL fame is still working its magic. How else would people know how to find the Goat's door? They do have a website, so that may help.

  • 10/19/2009 9:48 PM David C wrote:
    Thank you
    1. 10/20/2009 4:53 AM designslinger wrote:
      You're welcome!

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