This will totally (have to) happen in Amsterdam within the century.
Raising of Chicago
11–20 of 42 posts
Re: Raising of Chicago
#12Ah man - this is one of the cooler things i've ever heard of. I first heard of it in PBS doco "Chicago: City of the Century". That documentary - is one of the finest chronicles of modern society i've ever seen. The insights into psychology, civil engineering, and history are second to none. Most profound to me were the "design" of suburbs with the trappings we dont think very much of these days - libraries, pools, shopping centres and so on - were created to push "ideal lives" which were basically the dangled carrots of real estate empires. Brilliant stuff.
Re: Raising of Chicago
#13Apparently Sna Francisco also has the tradition of moving houses, most recently in 2021 https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/feb/22/victorian-ho...
The Guardian also has an article written back then: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/feb/23/san-francisc...
Re: Raising of Chicago
#14I feel like only in places like Chicago could this have worked. It's like the water system in Chicago, just massive. And everyone just shrugs and says, "Dig 100 miles of deep tunnel and massive reservoirs? Yep. Let's get 'er done." A lot of places I've lived, things like that wouldn't fly. I was equally amazed at Phoenix with their, what I can only call a "strategic water reserve". A lot of thought and money goes int…
They massively re-landscaped most of downtown seattle, in one phase by using hoses to blast hills down and extend the waterfront. In another phase they built the streets up like 12' or more. I think stuff like this happened in many places. Really it still does. I'll trigger many bostonians by invoking the dig. Seattle has bored some massive tunnels recently and re-scaped its waterfront
I think there is a misunderstanding of the engineering challenges in some of these projects.
The Big Dig was less than 10 miles, never deeper than roughly 100 ft. TARP is over 100 miles always deeper than 100 ft. And because of intended use, it all has to be dug through solid limestone bedrock. The engineering challenges are non trivial in both, but one is on a massive scale that the other is just not.
Speaking to the Seattle example, the reason for building the streets higher is that, in Seattle, people would have revolted if they had decree'd "All shalt raise thine buildings 12 to 24 feet as did the multitudes in Chicago." That's what I mean. Seattle is the example that proves the rule. No one had the political capital to force a Chicago style raise on Seattle.
That said, between you and me, as an engineer, I would have done things the Seattle way and left the buildings at ground level. Raised the streets and then turn the formerly ground level floors into basements. It's not the end of the world if basements flood from time to time. And some drainage might even help with that. Chicago, on the other hand, wanted the "complete" solution. They were done with dealing with floods. Even in basements, they were intent on eradicating flooding. Which is a laudable goal, and Chicago has been much better off because of it. But the risk and the cost is just a whole lot higher than I would have felt comfortable with given the tech available to me at the time.
Re: Raising of Chicago
#15Ah man - this is one of the cooler things i've ever heard of. I first heard of it in PBS doco "Chicago: City of the Century". That documentary - is one of the finest chronicles of modern society i've ever seen. The insights into psychology, civil engineering, and history are second to none. Most profound to me were the "design" of suburbs with the trappings we dont think very much of these days - libraries, pools, sh…
I just came across American Experience for the first time over the last week. What I've seen so far is incredible.
This is their YouTube profile: https://www.youtube.com/@AmericanExperiencePBS/featured
Unfortunately, the doc you mention isn't on there. They do have the transcript on their site tho: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/chicago/
Re: Raising of Chicago
#16Are all the raised areas sitting on top of the jackscrews (where used) from 170 years ago? That itself is astounding.
Re: Raising of Chicago
#17Are all the raised areas sitting on top of the jackscrews (where used) from 170 years ago? That itself is astounding.
No the Jackscrews would have been removed for reuse after the lift.
By the way you can still buy jacks like these. They're considered safer than hydraulic jacks and are often called "house jacks":
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Jet-20-Ton-Screw-Jack-441320/306...
Re: Raising of Chicago
#18I don't know if this was during the same time period or not, but in some parts of the city (mostly residential or smaller commercial areas) they didn't bother raising the buildings, they just built the streets up higher and added flying walkways from the new sidewalk height to the new front entrances on the second story of the houses. Many of them had stairs that went down to the old ground level and I think in most…
My family is originally from the Pilsen neighborhood, you can see examples all over the place of houses lower than the street. Example: https://maps.app.goo.gl/F39JxUPZoobGMgiq9
I know between Division and North there’s some remaining blocks like that too: https://maps.app.goo.gl/NHriGdh1cvL193487
Though so many are gone now and replaced with new construction.
Re: Raising of Chicago
#19The whole concept is bonkers! By this i mean that i can not imagine many officials would even have the will to even try something so big and audacious nowadays. Also, my favorite note in the wikipedia entry (besides the whole article being awesome!), is this one: "Many of the city's old wooden buildings were considered not worth raising, so instead the owners of these wooden buildings had them either demolished or el…
> I can not imagine many officials would even have the will to even try something so big and audacious nowadays.
How about renaming 567 streets on a single Friday?
Re: Raising of Chicago
#20I like that in the drawing of the men lifting the hotel, there's people in the hotel. I would be so pissed at them lol