12 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



THE CITY'S CHIEF ASSET ALSO ITS 

 GREATEST HANDICAP 



When a survey of the city preliminary 

 to the creation of the Chicago Plan was 

 made, it at once became obvious that the 

 railroads were the municipality's greatest 

 handicap as well as its greatest, asset. In 

 times gone by they had been allowed to 

 get control of almost any land in the city 

 they desired; and the competition be- 

 tween them was such that each played 

 for the best position. When the game 

 ended, it left the metropolis little more 

 than a series of oases of residence and 

 trade in a desert of railroad terminals 

 and freight yards. 



The central business section, broadly 

 bounded by the Chicago River on the 

 north and west, the lake on the east, and 

 Twelfth Street on the south, is hemmed 

 in on all sides by terminals and yards, 

 which even thrust themselves inside this 

 area and leave only about a quarter of 

 a square mile of territory absolutely free. 



The immense amount of trackage in 

 the heart of the city simply made the 

 original street system a scrap of paper. 

 North and south, streets became lost here 

 and there in the great maze of railroad 

 trackage. Wabash Avenue is a through 

 street for less than a third of the length 

 of the city ; Dearborn disappears for sev- 

 eral solid blocks ; La Salle is closed for 

 six blocks at one point and for shorter 

 distances at other places ; similar condi- 

 tions prevail with reference to the three 

 remaining streets east of the south branch 

 of the river, while conditions as serious 

 obtain beyond that stream. 



With east and west streets a similar 

 situation prevails. From Twelfth Street 

 northward, Eleventh, Ninth, Seventh, 

 and Congress streets have been unable to 

 break the steel barrier, while Quincy gets 

 lost at the river. 



HOW THE RAILROADS ARE HELPING 



So the first problem was to plan for 

 the creation of new railway terminal and 

 yard layouts, permitting the east and 

 west and north and south streets to pur- 

 sue their orderly way. At first the rail- 

 roads were against the proposals, but 

 latterly they have fallen in with them. 



The railroads west of the Chicago 

 River agreed to a reconstruction of their 

 terminals. The Northwestern has already 

 finished its monumental depot, and the 

 roads entering the Union Station, led by 

 the Pennsylvania, have laid out a termi- 

 nal system and prepared plans for one of 

 the finest railroad structures of the kind 

 in the world. These plans involve the 

 construction of streets and viaducts for 

 the benefit of the city valued at six 

 million dollars, and the payment of a 

 million and a half dollars additional into 

 the municipal treasury. 



Likewise, the Illinois Central is pre- 

 paring to build a magnificent new station 

 of monumental type, south of Twelfth 

 Street, and large enough to take care of 

 all the railroads now entering the city 

 from the east and south that are not in- 

 cluded in the Union Station group. This 

 great terminal will be two miles long and 

 from six hundred to seven hundred feet 

 wide. It will provide twenty main tracks 

 and accommodate trains on three levels 

 in the station itself. One of these levels 

 will take care of the electrified suburban 

 service. 



CHICAGO RIVER TO BE STRAIGHTENED 



Coincident with the vast improvements 

 that are destined to grow out of a re- 

 vision of the city's railroad layout will 

 come a straightening of the south branch 

 of the Chicago River. It is proposed to 

 cut out a big bend in the channel, thus 

 redeeming 194,000 square feet of ground, 

 worth enough, at prevailing real-estate 

 values, to pay for the improvement. Such 

 an improvement would permit the exten- 

 sion of four principal north and south 

 streets through the railroad district. 



In order to relieve the unsightly situa- 

 tion of a freight transfer yard at Chi- 

 cago's front door, the Illinois Central has 

 agreed to establish a great freight ter- 

 minal at Markham. This will leave only 

 a local freight station on the water front 

 and will largely eliminate one of the city's 

 worst eyesores. 



The general idea of the Chicago Plan 

 is not only to develop the Lake Front as 

 the front yard of a great metropolis, and 

 to secure new traffic channels leading into 

 and out of this business district, but also 



