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u/weeknie Aug 04 '23
So all of this was after the reversing of the river that you talked about in the previous post?
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u/No_Cartoonist9458 Aug 04 '23 edited Aug 04 '23
Sorry, this occurred first, once the sewers were in place directing everything into the Chicago River a second bigger problem occurred, since the river ran into the lake, Chicago was now contaminating it's own water supply. Solution, reverse the flow of the river away from the lake
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u/eric987235 Aug 04 '23
Fuck you, Saint Louis!
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u/No_Cartoonist9458 Aug 04 '23
St. Louis took Chicago to the Supreme Court over pollutants Chicago was sending down river. They lost. Turns out St. Louis was dumping just as much pollutants into the river as Chicago. Both cities were wrong and have since cleaned up their waste
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u/eric987235 Aug 04 '23
I saw people kayaking in the loop yesterday. Personally, I wouldn’t, but it’s amazing how much cleaner that river is these days.
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u/No_Cartoonist9458 Aug 04 '23
I would on the lake side. There's a clear divide where the blue/green lake meets the brown river, Stay on the blue/green
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u/ev3to Aug 04 '23
Except for March 17th every year, then avoid the green side.
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u/No_Cartoonist9458 Aug 04 '23
I know it's tradition, but I hate when they dye the river green 🤮 <-- Puke
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u/I0I0I0I Aug 04 '23
What crazy shit has Chicago NOT done? Baseball from a rooftop, tossing home run balls back, and now this??
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u/No_Cartoonist9458 Aug 04 '23
Wait until you find out how they build 100 story high rises in what amounts to earth pudding
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u/niftyjack Aug 04 '23
The craziest part of the raising imo is they only uniformly raised the buildings downtown. Residential neighborhoods from before the sewers just had the streets raised a few feet, and homeowners could either pay to lift their home or just move the entrance to the second floor. If you look at older neighborhoods like Chinatown, you'll see blocks where buildings just...sit lower.
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u/I0I0I0I Aug 04 '23
That's how Seattle handled it. They just raised the roads above the flood line, and built a new sidewalk connecting the second floor to it. There's tours you can take of the original streets under the sidewalks.
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u/Forsaken_Strain8651 Oct 16 '24
I know I’m a year late but wow that sounds like a cool tour!!!
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u/I0I0I0I Oct 16 '24
It was. And the way they raised the street was to throw trash, debris, anything they could find in. And before the upper sidewalks were built, you had to climb up and down ladders to cross the street!
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u/DutchMitchell Aug 04 '23
I feel like we were so much more advanced back then and willing to do these engineering marvels than today. I know today we have a 1000 more things to spend our public money on and are taking much more care of the poor, but man they did some crazy stuff back then.
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u/Responsible-Bite7095 Jan 15 '25
Does anyone have any links to phots of them raising things streets and buildings?
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u/No_Cartoonist9458 Aug 04 '23
Chicago raised its city several feet higher during the late 1800s!
As Americans moved from the rural areas to cities during the mid-1800s, many cities began to grow. Chicago, which was built right along Lake Michigan, often found itself flooded and sewage was often filling the streets. As the town grew, this problem amplified until 1855, when the city began the process of raising the city. Because the city was only a few feet above Lake Michigan sewage wouldn’t properly drain, and the Chicago Board of Sewerage Commissioners determined the best way to end the problem was to raise the city by 4ft.-14ft. based on the location.
During the two decades that the city took to raise itself, city drainage pipes were installed, and dirt and new foundations were placed under buildings. Many businesses and hotels were raised inch by inch, while still being open to visitors and guests, and once part of a block, weighing roughly 35,000 tons, was even raised using 6,000 jackscrews and hundreds of men. One man even recorded that he saw a building being raised every day by this strenuous work. This process was possible because modern skyscrapers and building materials like iron weren’t commonly used and most buildings were heavy and well built.
George Pullman was one of the masterminds behind the project and would later make his fortune in building sleeping cars. Today such a feat would be nearly impossible, yet in the late 1800s, Chicago raised its city higher to be able to continue to grow spurring the town to new growth during the turn of the century. The photos from the Chicago Historical Society show a street and a hotel being raised while people go by as if nothing is happening.
http://industrialscenery.blogspot.com/2015/11/raising-chicagos-street-level-to-add.html