WBEZ’s Curious Metropolis solutions questions from listeners about Chicago and the area. We embrace the general public in our storytelling, making journalism extra clear and interconnected.
On its face, the phrase “double-decker road” sounds distinctive and progressive. However when you truly enter the bowels of Wacker Drive, it may well lose its attract rapidly. Like the highest degree, Decrease Wacker winds alongside the curves of the Chicago River. Add within the dim lighting, minimal signage and nonexistent GPS sign and also you’re in for a much more daunting journey than you anticipated on a visit downtown.
If Chicago’s basement has ever left you mystified — and infrequently terrified — you’re not alone. Curious Metropolis has obtained a number of questions from listeners about Decrease Wacker through the years, most of them tinged with tones of confusion and marvel.
So, we’re going to reply as many questions as we will about this mysterious underworld of downtown Chicago.
What’s the historical past behind Decrease Wacker? Do different cities have streets like this?
It began with metropolis planner Edward Bennett and Daniel Burnham, the chief architect behind Chicago’s 1883 World’s Honest. Collectively, they created the 1909 plan of Chicago, which was the primary complete city plan ever carried out within the U.S.
“Daniel Burnham had this imaginative and prescient of making a leisurely, leisure degree, road degree for folks, however then shifting the mechanics of the town under and underground,” mentioned Jennifer McElroy, a docent with the Chicago Structure Middle.
Development of Wacker Drive as a double-decker road started within the Twenties, and its kind has modified over time. Nonetheless, the operate has remained fixed: alleviate visitors and maintain the higher degree lovely. That meant reserving constructing loading docks, parking, waste administration and worker entrances for the decrease bowels of the town.
“The entire concept at the moment was the ‘metropolis lovely’ motion, that individuals had the appropriate as folks, as people, to dwell in a fantastic metropolis,” McElroy mentioned.
This separation is exclusive to Chicago. Take, for instance, the Holland Tunnel beneath the Hudson River in New York Metropolis or the Massive Dig in Boston. McElroy mentioned these “straight pictures” don’t examine to the complexity of Wacker Drive.
“It’s not an underground community, underground expressway,” she mentioned.
Decrease Wacker appears like a basement, however is it underground?
No, Decrease Wacker and Decrease Decrease Wacker are literally at water degree and above. Which means Wacker’s high degree — what’s thought-about the road degree — is three tales above floor.
“Town is sort of constructed on a swamp,” McElroy mentioned. “So, we don’t actually have the chance or the choice to construct down into the bedrock, into under Chicago.”
Nonetheless, there’s at the least one space of Decrease Decrease Wacker that dips under water degree: on a quick stretch of Beaubien Court docket, the place it intersects with East Decrease Wacker Drive. It’s lined with loading docks and concrete pillars, with dumpsters between a few of them.
“5 or 6 years in the past, folks used to dwell between these pillars,” mentioned photographer and documentarian Lloyd DeGrane. He has been participating with and documenting unhoused folks in Decrease Wacker for about 10 years.
Although Decrease Wacker isn’t underground, it actually appears like a basement. It’s darkish and hidden away, so DeGrane mentioned a lot of of us arrange home right here for extra privateness. Nonetheless, they’re taking a danger.
“The predators come in search of the weak right here,” he mentioned. “It’s like a jungle.”
This brings us to the query of security.
Is it protected to stroll round Decrease Wacker?
Due to the dim lighting, minimal sidewalks, no crosswalks and few visitors lights, it isn’t really useful to stroll round Decrease Wacker.
Nonetheless, folks do. In the course of the day, it’s principally service staff, loading and unloading deliveries to buildings. They park and stroll alongside South Water Road, which has much less automobile visitors and parallels Decrease Wacker.
“It’s just about enterprise through the day,” mentioned DeGrane. “At evening, Decrease Wacker transitions to the those who keep right here.”
DeGrane mentioned as a result of many unhoused folks battle with addictions, those that promote medicine are additionally widespread. The truth is, an incident with a infamous drug supplier modified how folks dwell right here in 2018.
Previous to that point, an space known as The Triangle was a densely populated homeless encampment. Then, Shomari Legghette, a well known and feared drug supplier, shot and killed Police Commander Paul Bauer after an incident that began in The Triangle.
Afterward, the town cleared out that encampment and different areas the place folks had been dwelling in Decrease Wacker. They added a floor-to-ceiling steel fence round The Triangle that also stands to today.
“The inhabitants of Decrease Wacker has dwindled from 5 years in the past — about 150, 160 folks — to perhaps 20 or 30 folks proper now,” DeGrane mentioned.
What about Decrease Decrease Wacker?
Often known as Sub Decrease Wacker Drive, that is an excellent deeper degree of Wacker. It’s additionally more durable to entry. However there’s one cause Chicago drivers discover themselves right here yearly: the Central Auto Pound.
Discovering out your automobile has been towed is one factor. However navigating to the hidden entrance of the impound lot generally is a totally different sort of unnerving. Michael Lacoco, deputy commissioner of the town’s Bureau of Site visitors Companies, says there’s truly a staircase within the Swissotel that leads right here. However for most individuals, taking an Uber or taxi is one of the best guess.
Over a decade in the past, Sub Decrease Wacker was additionally a go-to for drag racing. After a deadly crash in 2015, the town took measures to place all racing to an finish, together with velocity bumps and better police presence.
Why doesn’t my GPS work down there?
It’s the layers of concrete above that trigger the issue. While you’re on the highest degree downtown, within the open air, your system can entry the alerts from GPS satellites that orbit the Earth. However dense constructing supplies like concrete (versus extra porous supplies like wooden) block that sign, particularly Wacker Drive’s a number of concrete layers.
In 2018, the town of Chicago labored with the navigation app Waze and the parking app SpotHero to spice up the GPS sign. They put in 400 navigational beacons each 100 toes, alongside the town’s 5 miles of multilevel roads.
However CBS Information examined their navigation apps after the set up, and so they concluded that the beacons didn’t assist a lot. Odds are you’ve come to the identical conclusion.
Since Decrease Wacker coincides with the river, it’s unlikely it is going to ever really feel much less maze-like. However McElroy has some recommendation in the event you fear about getting misplaced: If there’s daylight, she mentioned, go towards the sunshine.
However what in the event you’re misplaced down there at evening? McElroy mentioned there’s all the time a approach out: “Simply go up. When you simply go up, you possibly can orient your self and also you’re tremendous.”
Why does Decrease Wacker have such an attract?
Decrease Wacker has lengthy been a highway much less traveled by for drivers who’re courageous sufficient, which makes it a sooner route from one nook of downtown to a different. However the aesthetics of this seeming netherworld have drawn consideration from exterior the town as properly.
Twenty years in the past, Decrease Wacker was known as the Emerald Metropolis, as a result of there have been inexperienced fluorescent lights put in down there. Town thought it might assist drivers see.
That, together with the hidden basement vibe, has attracted Hollywood field workplace hits. Scenes from The Darkish Knight and The Blues Brothers have introduced vacationers from all over the world.
Today, there’s a mix of UV and yellow sodium vapor lights put in, not inexperienced. However DeGrane says this slight change of surroundings doesn’t make it any much less alluring: “[The yellow lights] are my favourite down right here, as a result of it makes issues so mysterious.”
Erin Allen is Curious Metropolis’s host.
