Raising of Chicago
en.wikipedia.org
Raising of Chicago
1–10 of 42 posts
Re: Raising of Chicago
#2I 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 of them they had been converted to separate apartments.
My dad's small commercial building in Pilsen looked normal, but if you peeked into the holes in the sidewalk out front you could see a vaulted space underneath where the old sidewalk used to be, which was kind of unnerving when you realized the sidewalk was crumbling. You could even access it from the basement of his building (which I suppose used to be the ground level?), but he never let me go down there as a kid.
I also know of one or two old homes from around this time period in the neighborhood I grew up in (which wasn't part of Chicago at this time) that were later moved off what became the main avenue through the area to new locations about a block away. I think that happened much later though.
Re: Raising of Chicago
#3I 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 into stuff like that.
I get the strong sense that in most American cities if you would have told the population that we all need to undertake a massive public work, (Oh, and pay for it by the way), they would yank you from office and tell you to go F yourself.
Re: Raising of Chicago
#4I 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.
Re: Raising of Chicago
#5I 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…
It was done in other cities. Boston flooded a bunch of towns 60 miles to the west to build a water supply:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quabbin_Reservoir
New York City built three long aqueducts to bring in water:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_water_supply_sys...
I doubt you could get anything even resembling those projects built today due to environmental concerns.
Re: Raising of Chicago
#6I 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…
>I feel like only in places like Chicago could this have worked
the original downtown of Seattle got moved up 1 floor: they didn't raise the buildings, they raised the street, the old 2nd floors became first floors.* You can still visit the underground Seattle in some places.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_Underground
* carefully worded to also work on European floor number systems.
Re: Raising of Chicago
#7I 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
Re: Raising of Chicago
#8I 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…
It was done in other cities. Boston flooded a bunch of towns 60 miles to the west to build a water supply: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quabbin_Reservoir New York City built three long aqueducts to bring in water: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_water_supply_sys... I doubt you could get anything even resembling those projects built today due to environmental concerns.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_Water_Tunnel_N...
Likely not as greenfield development but they’re still building.
Re: Raising of Chicago
#9I 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…
To be fair, it took an epidemic that killed six percent of the city's population for them to take it seriously.
Re: Raising of Chicago
#10The 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 else placed on rollers and moved to the outskirts of Chicago. Business activities in such buildings continued, as they were being moved." Just crazy!