Wednesday, January 18, 2017

January 18, 1951 -- Wacker Drive Creeps Southward



January 18, 1951 – Virgil E. Gunlock, the Chicago Commissioner of Subways and Super-highways, announces that Herlihy Mid-Continental construction is the lowest of five bidders on the project to extend Wacker Drive between Madison and Washington Streets.  The company submits a bid of $1,076,493 for the work.  This will be the third of eight blocks in the 12.5 million dollar project to construct the two-level extension of Wacker Drive from Lake Street to its connection with the Congress Expressway to the south, which is itself in the final stages of construction.  The Market Street stub of the elevated line, pictured above, ran south along the route of Wacker Drive, formerly Market Street, and had to be removed in order for the project to be completed.

Also on this date from an earlier blog post . . .


January 18, 1945 -- Agreement is reached between Chicago and airline officials in a plan to build a new terminal building at the city airport, today's Midway International Airport. Scaled way back from what once was proposed as an elaborate $1,750,000 terminal, the new proposal called for a building about 1,400 feet long, costing $470,000. The airlines agree to bear the cost of the new building, along with loading areas, taxiways, and parking places, getting the city to repay the investment by remitting the cost of landing fees over a period of 10 years. The city architect, Paul Gerhardt, Jr., will design the building. Each of the eight airlines using the airport agree to rent space at $2 a foot, and a share of the cost of construction will be assessed each air line based on the ratio of its scheduled flights.

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