WTTW News Explains
WTTW News Explains: The History of Lower Wacker Drive
Ahh, the streets of Chicago. Sure, the traffic can get rough, but with the exception of some pesky diagonals, at least it’s a nice, orderly grid and easy to navigate.
Except, of course, for Lower Wacker Drive — the bane of the uninitiated Chicago motorist. Its upstairs sibling is no picnic either.
Daniel Burnham of “make no little plans” fame first envisioned a dual-level roadway along the riverfront in his 1909 city plan. Designed by Burnham’s collaborator Edward Bennett, the idea was to create a double-decker roadway aimed at relieving riverfront congestion. It replaced the existing Water Street, a crowded hub for produce sellers and other wholesalers whose market would be booted over to the Near West Side.
The duplex design found a major champion in the chair of the Chicago Plan Commission — that would be one Mr. Charles Wacker — who helped sell the plan as “vital to the city’s future.”
Construction started in 1924 and it was a massive feat — buildings along the river were demolished, hundreds of workmen, steam shovel excavators, wreckers and lifters dug in and built up retaining walls to hold back the river, new sewer lines were carved out of the ground and tens of thousands of square yards of asphalt and granite block were brought in.
Crews excavated so much dirt it could have covered a full city block and stood 75 feet high.
All told, it racked up a bill of more than $20 million dollars — some $375 million in today’s money.
Ahead of its October 1926 opening, the Chicago Tribune waxed rhapsodic, calling it “a Champs d’Elysées in this city’s front yard.”
Uh, sure.
Chicago’s own Elysian Fields was extended a few times in the 20th century before getting a much needed overhaul and modernization in the early 2000s, and, of course, being immortalized in film by a certain caped crusader in 2008.
While some drivers bemoan the dark lower drive, others embrace it as a sort of locals-only short cut.
Love it or fear it, the massive undertaking is still one-of-a-kind and undoubtedly among the projects that shaped the downtown Chicago we know today.
