The Loop

The structure that anchors Chicago. Every day Chicagoans rely on the loop of elevated train tracks to get to their jobs, classrooms, or homes in the citys downtown. But how much do they know about the single most important structure in the history of the Windy City? In engagingly brisk prose, Patrick T. Reardon unfolds the fascinating story about how Chicagos elevated Loop was built, gave its name to the downtown, helped unify the city, saved the citys economy, and was itself saved from destruction in the 1970s. This unique volume combines urban history, biography, engineering, architecture, transportation, culture, and politics to explore the elevated Loops impact on the citys development and economy and on the way Chicagoans see themselves. The Loop rooted Chicagos downtown in a way unknown in other cities, and it protected that areaand the city itselffrom the full effects of suburbanization during the second half of the twentieth century. Masses of data underlie new insights into what has made Chicagos downtown, and the city as a whole, tick. The Loop features a cast of colorful Chicagoans, such as legendary lawyer Clarence Darrow, poet Edgar Lee Masters, mayor Richard J. Daley, and the notorious Gray Wolves of the Chicago City Council. Charles T. Yerkes, an often-demonized figure, is shown as a visionary urban planner, and engineer John Alexander Low Waddell, a world-renowned bridge creator, is introduced to Chicagoans as the designer of their urban railway. This fascinating exploration of how one human-built structure reshaped the social and economic landscape of Chicago is the definitive book on Chicagos elevated Loop.