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Originally Posted by denizen467
This conjures up images of the amazing 1950s photos of the original swath of site clearance when Congress Expressway construction was underway. Kind of makes you wish similar right of way were available in parts of the city that could really benefit from upgrades of mass transit, high speed rail, and the like; I think about 10 miles west of here there is a situation like that.
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Are you suggesting a vigorous program of "Suburban Renewal"? Now that gets me off! How excellent would it be to see mass demolition of poorly built auto oriented suburban corridors being replaced with dense, pedestrian oriented development? I mean many of the suburbs are starting to approach the point where they need significant rebuilding of infrastructure, perhaps we will see large projects to eliminate parking lots around office towers and replace them with retail and parking decks? If they could ram the Blue Line back through it's original Western corridor I think that would create a huge impetus for such projects.
Quote:
Originally Posted by HowardL
^^ I had no idea the corners were curved glass. Those two images make me SO happy.
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Curved glass is so tight. This Apple store is going to be the sexiest in the world and is really going to blow up the Riverwalk. Honestly people have no idea what the Riverwalk is going to do for Chicago. It's already approaching an Millennium Park level of tranformative power downtown. But if we start getting massive retailers to locate along it like Apple and see it expanded up and down the North and South Branches, we are going to have a public space that will stand with the boulevards of Paris or Central Park. The power of having continuous River Walk from Ping Tom Park to the Finkl site to the Bloomingdale Trail to the Lake would be immense. Remember that growth travels along corridors, we would be opening up direct routes of growth radiating outwards from downtown. Screw the high line, Chicago could eventually have a network of such spaces sprawling out through our old industrial corridors spreading redevelopment as they go.