Knee deep in one of my Google Maps adventures (it’s a black hole), I came across a weird angled street that doesn’t exist.
YOU: A street that doesn’t exist? You mean, like, an alley? Or the L?
ME: Ehh not really, kinda. It’s N Lakewood Ave, so it’s a street. But, then suddenly at Belmont Ave, the street ends, but the buildings make it seem like it keeps going. Let me explain.
It’s show-and-tell in class today, so I brought visual aids.
Image courtesy of Google Maps
Do you see what I’m saying? That weird, angled void of building traveling southwest to northeast, basically running into the bottom of Wrigley Field. I guess it sort of looks like a street at this scale. Not doing myself any favors. Let’s zoom in.
Hopefully this helps. So, after seeing this and being confused, I decide to investigate on foot. It isn’t much of a trek, since I live very close by. Nonetheless, I threw on the trench coat and grabbed the magnifying glass. At street level, it looks like some developer or architect just wanted to put a funky angle on some of the building(s). But, I know that I saw a greater pattern when looking at the bird’s eye view. There’s more to this story. As I walk south, a set of old railroad tracks emerges in the middle of the street! Ah-ha! A break through. Just call me Sherlock. With more information at hand, I go back to my place to dive deeper.
It turns out that N Lakewood Ave is an old railroad track. (Should I have said spoiler alert earlier? Oh well). I found an old Rand McNally map of the Chicago Railroads from both 1901 and 1921. (Look at the North-South railroad line that has the “Belmont” station).
This isn’t some great revelation of history. I didn’t find the catacombs of Chicago, nor did I find the true source of the Great Chicago Fire. But, this is a small example of how design legacy is shown in our urban fabric. Our actions - our designs - can and will impact the future. The folks who laid out the network of railroads inevitably had an impact on where and how current Chicagoans live. In this instance, history allowed us (maybe forced us) to break the grid - creating an exciting and fun twist in Chicago’s latticework.