Under the Kinsie Bridge (Watch Out!)...
This weekend is Great Chicago Places and Spaces. We (Michael and I) arrived at the CAF (Chicago Architecture Foundation) Event Site this morning at 6:50 AM to stand in line for nearly an hour for tickets to tour the Auditorium Theater (coming Monday) and the Kinsie Street Bridge.
On the tour of the Kinsie bridge (famous for the starting point of the great flood of 1993, and also for a certain bus driver of a certain band which dumped crap on a tour boat last year, and has had way too written about it), we got to go up into the bridge house to see the switching used to raise and lower the bridge, and then we also got to go under the street to see the mechanics of how the bridge is raised.
Underneath the street is what amounts to lots of gears and grease. It was utterly fascinating to watch and hear the city crew turn on the signal bells, lower the gates, and then raise the bridge. Here is one of the main gears used in raising the bridge.
Another one of the giant gears used to raise and lower the bridge. These things are enormous and very greasy!
The view of the outside from under the bridge while in the up position.
This is actually part of the gigantic gear that is on a large horizontal pivot to which the bridge actually lifts.
On the tour of the Kinsie bridge (famous for the starting point of the great flood of 1993, and also for a certain bus driver of a certain band which dumped crap on a tour boat last year, and has had way too written about it), we got to go up into the bridge house to see the switching used to raise and lower the bridge, and then we also got to go under the street to see the mechanics of how the bridge is raised.
Underneath the street is what amounts to lots of gears and grease. It was utterly fascinating to watch and hear the city crew turn on the signal bells, lower the gates, and then raise the bridge. Here is one of the main gears used in raising the bridge.
Another one of the giant gears used to raise and lower the bridge. These things are enormous and very greasy!
The view of the outside from under the bridge while in the up position.
This is actually part of the gigantic gear that is on a large horizontal pivot to which the bridge actually lifts.
posted by Devyn at 7:50 PM
2 Comments:
great site! Youre doing great at capturing Chicago from other perspectives. The greatest part about urban living is that you can walk the same section of city and see it different every time. I especially like your unknown streets section.
Thank you for the complement! There are still at least six more unknown Loop streets to go, and after that I plan to feature follow ups on other parts of the unknown streets already featured, as well as other secret places in the Loop.
>D<
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