Top Art Images

This is a view of Michigan Avenue looking south from where it intersects with Grand Avenue. In the left foreground is Tribune Tower and, at right, is the Wrigley building, just north of the Chicago River. This was probably photographed from the top of a nearby hotel in 1930.

 

The skyline of Chicago in 1930, as seen from the west, looking east towards Lake Michigan was terrific even then. The gray building in the middle of the picture, on the north bank of the Chicago River was built on the site of the home that belonged to one of Chicago's first mayors. That home was built on the site of the very first Chicago settler, a black Haitian trader named Jean-Baptiste Pointe du Sable, who established the first trading post at the mouth  of the Chicago River with the  local Native American tribes. If he had only known what it would become, he might have held out for a higher price......... 

 

This dark, hazy, Gotham-like photo of Chicago, taken in 1929 on the eve of the Stock Market Crash reflects the mood of the times. It is shot from the bridge over Michigan Avenue, looking west.  The building on the corner of Wabash and Wacker, near the center-left part of the picture, had a speak-easy on the upper floor frequented often by Al Capone.  

 

Shot in 1930, this excellent photo shows the array of bascule-style bridges that span the Chicago River, looking east towards Lake Michigan from what is, probably, the roof of the Chicago Merchandise Mart. No two bascule bridges are the same and make for an interesting study in bridge engineering. The bridges were made from two, pivoting halves that are counterweighted. In the 19th century, before these were built, bridges tended to be anchored in the middle to a pivot and were swung parallel to the river when ships would want to pass. The bascule bridges allowed more ship traffic to pass and did not congest the river bottom. It is a lovely spectacle when all the masted sailing ships come up the river towards the lake on Saturday mornings in the late Spring to take their mooring places at the various lakefront harbors. All the bridges are raised in sequence as the flotillas pass by. This is repeated again in the fall as the sailboats head back downriver in groups.