Short Division

photograph: Bob Johnson (click images for larger view)

It stood for over a century, and was gone in an instant.

Constructed in 1903, the East Division Street Bridge over the North Branch Canal at Goose Island was the direct result of the investigations of Chicago City Engineer John Ericson to find an alternative to the city's traditional swing bridges, whose center piers had become navigational hazards as commercial traffic on the river intensified.   Inspired by London's Tower Bridge of 1894, Ericson and his team came up with what became known as the double-leaf bascule, with two movable segments raised and lowered by motorized equipment at each bank, leaving the center of the waterway unobstructed.

photograph: Library of Congress

The bridge at Division, designed and built by Jules E. Roemheld and John J. Gallery, was one of the first to follow this new design strategy, replacing a swing bridge that had been constructed in 1870.   240 feet in total length, each of the two leafs was supported by 101-foot-long steel trusses. (You can read more about the bridge's history on the indispensable  Historic Bridges website.) When fully opened, it freed up a clear channel 80 feet wide. Instead of the usual sharp-angled end structures, those on the Division Street were arched, resulting in the bridge being bookended at either end by graceful rounded curves.

photograph:Bob Johnson

The National Park Service's Historic American Engineering Record on the east Division Street Bridge noted how “since the movable leaves were counterbalanced, relatively little power was required to open and close the bridge . . . a single, direct-current, 75-horsepower motor mounted, along with the rest of the lifting machinery, on an inclined steel platform spanning the abutment and first pier beneath the approach roadway.”

photograph: Library of Congress

Work began on the bridge in June of 1900. Roemheld and Gallery had secured the right to build it with a $133,000 bid.  Problems with leakage resulted in the coffer dams having to be rebuilt, and additional excavation punctured a water tunnel under the canal.  The bridge was finally opened to traffic in February of 1903, at a final cost of over $194,000.

For much of its life, the area around the bridge was home to coal and lumber yards, and during World War II the bridge again proved its worth as river traffic boomed.  After the war, however, shipping entered a steep decline.  The coal and lumber yards closed down, leaving vacant land.  By the 1970's, the city called for closing many bascule bridges that were seldom lifted and expensive to maintain.  The East Division Street bridge rose for the last time in the 1990's.  $6 million has been budgeted to demolish the bridge and replace it with a “temporary” span.

I was at the bridge on the morning of May 16, 1992, when legendary Chicago author Studs Terkel was joined by Mayor Richard M. Daley, Mike Royko and others in dedicating the bridge to the author whose landmark book, Division Street: America chronicled the thoroughfare as a microcosm of Chicago history.  The bridge was re-dedicated in 2012, in what would have been Terkel's 100th year, and there's already a move afoot to make sure the replacement bridge also bears his name.

No one ever mistook the East Division Bridge for a romantic construction, but there was a surprising bit of ornament.  Along the steel of the bridge's overhead bracing, there were repeating punches of the Chicago “Municipal Device”, the Y-shaped civic symbol that represents the merging of the three branches of the Chicago River at Wolf Point.    Their use on the structure can be seen in Urban Remains Eric J. Nordstrom's documentation on the destruction of the bridge here, here, and here.

As has been a constant since the 19th century, funds for maintaining the city's infrastructure were often been sparse, and time had not treated the East Division Street Bridge kindly, with major renovations widely spaced in the early 30's, 1969, and then again in the 1980's. Recently, it's members had been painted pink.  In April of this year, trucks and buses were prohibited, and on June 30th, the bridge closed to traffic for the last time.

As can be seen at the photograph at the top of this post from our indefatigable correspondent Bob Johnson, the wreckers made quick work of it.  By the time I got there it little more than a week ago, the imposing metal structure that had dominated the view down the channel for 117 years had completely vanished.  You could almost imagine it had never existed, if it weren't for those giant concrete moorings on either bank, standing like some mysterious ancient ruin whose meaning still awaited deciphering.

The Ages of 830 South Michigan

courtesy Chuckman's Collection - click images for larger view

In December of 1876, thirteen women got together to establish Chicago's first Young Women's Christian Association. By the time of 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, the YWCA had grown so quickly that they built an eight story structure at 833 South Michigan. Designed by John Mills van Osdel II, son of Chicago's first architect, it towered over neighboring homes, stores and offices.

The graceful red brick facade, with Italianate detail, was topped off with two floors of elegant bay windows, while an open air loggia at the second floor provided cooling breezes and handsome views of the Chicago lakefront. The new facility would be a safe haven for young women coming to the big city for study or work.

Chicago Daily News negatives collection, DN-0003451. Courtesy of Chicago History Museum

It was here that a young Ruth Crawford Seeger stayed when she came to Chicago in 1921 for her musical education, paying $9.50 a week room and board, plus another $1.25 for piano rental. In 1912 another resident, Margaret Anderson would remember the hotel as a place of "bad food, uncomfortable beds, and sap-green walls." In 1914, Anderson would go on to found The Little Review, which would publish the works of Eliot, Pound and Joyce. Ruth Crawford Seeger - Pete's step mom - would in her too brief life become a modernist American composer and musicologist.

courtesy, Chuckman's Collection

In 1929, the building became the 830 South Michigan Hotel. In the 1970's, the hotel was purchased by Johnson Publishing Company and converted into offices.

By 2005, 830 was among several parcels acquired by a developer for a $200 million, 376-unit condo tower. Designed by Pappageorge/Haymes, the Park Michigan, 80 stories and 855 feet high, would be built behind 830 South Michigan, which would serve as the entrance to the new tower. 830's facade and key architectural features would be restored.

Alas, the Park Michigan didn't even have to wait for the financial collapse of 2008 to die. In March of that year, the project's lender filed for foreclosure on the site, and in November, 830 South was sold to a venture associated with Matthew Pritzker for $17.6 million. After the crash, prospects evaporated.

Left to rot for decades, the now blue-faced building was a boarded-up museum of decay: collapsed walls, water damage, rotting boards and piles of debris. It had become a threat not only to itself, but to its neighbors, with taggers breaking into the structure to spray graffiti on adjacent buildings. In an article in the Columbia Chronicle, Lisa DiChiera of Landmarks Illinois reported that in addition to the ravages of neglect, 830 South also suffered from problems that went all the way back to the original construction, including a too-shallow foundation and a facade that was not properly connected to the structure.

With even preservationists sadly admitting defeat, the new owners filed for a demolition permit, which was granted after the city declared the building dangerous in November of 2009. Early in 2010, 830 was wrecked and the site cleared. Urban Remains went through the building and collected artifacts, including key fobs for the hotel, blocks of foliate terra cotta from the base of the facade's pilasters, and cast iron elevator grill cartouches.

 So now we come to what 830 is today: nothing. An empty lot. A raw abscess in the landmark Michigan Avenue street wall. It's testimony to how fragile Chicago's protection of its landmarks can be. The only positive legacy of 830's sad tale is the void it's left behind, an accusatory scar demanding we not waste this last opportunity along the civic showcase that is Michigan Avenue with anything less than the best.

The Final Curtain: Urban Remains selling the Esquire Theater sign

click images for larger view

Even though it's been closed almost four years, the distinctive profile of the Esquire Theater, its marquee and soaring sign, remained Oak Street's most iconic landmark.  Designed by architect William L. Pereira and opened in 1938, it was a unique and indispensable alternative to the Baroque fantasy movie palaces of the 1920's, done in a streamlined Art Moderne style as elegant as an ocean liner.

Of course, our crack Commission on Chicago Landmarks never lifted a finger to protect it.  The 1,390 seat auditorium was destroyed in 1989, re-engineered for retail on the ground floor and above it a two-level multiplex with ungainly shoebox theaters that were already obsolete the moment they were built.  A proposal to replace the building with a 10-story hotel went nowhere when then Alderman Burton Natarus refused to support the necessary upzoning. After the collapse of the real estate market, the property was foreclosed on last November, and eventually wound up in the hands of currency trader Donald Wilson, Jr., obviously not a man of excess sentimentality.

But a big piece of the Esquire can now be yours.  The sign is being sold by Urban Remains.

So the building that gave Oak Street it's character is trashed and destroyed.  What else is new?