If you told a Chicagoan
100 years ago that a tour of
the Chicago River would one day top
every visitor's list, you would have been
laughed out of town. But what was
once a meandering weed-choked stream turned smelly
industrial channel is now lined with
soaring skyscrapers and jammed with tour boats kayakers,
and water taxis. And today the Chicago
River is more popular than ever, with a bustling Riverwalk, new architectural gems and even entire
neighborhoods rising along the
river's edge. I've had a pretty
good view of it all. I'm Geoffrey Baer and I've
been giving boat tours of the Chicago
river since 1988 as a docent for the
Chicago Architecture Foundation. Hands down the most
iconic downtown views are from a boat
in the river. But there are many more
miles to this story, stretching south into the
gritty Sanitary and Ship Canal Thats a low bridge coming
up there. What do you have to do? I'll have to drop the wheel
house down. and winding north through
the Chicago Botanic Garden and Skokie Lagoons. And there's more to the
river than scenery. The railroad tracks went dowen
into the river here. And thats how they pulled the
boats out. This story is loaded
with river lore. It's been re-engineered
on a massive scale It's had tragedies and given us
one-of-a-kind characters. Today, people live, work
and play along the river Yay. Salute! and yes even swim in it! Jump! Get set for a
journey on the river that gave birth to one of
America's great cities, Chicago. It's the Chicago River Tour. Major funding for
The Chicago River Tour is provided by: BMO Harris Bank Additional support is provided
by: Judy and John McCarter The Susan and Stephen Baird
Foundation AARP Chicago ITW People's Gas, a proud funder of
arts and culture in Chicago And by the following. The story of the
Chicago River is really the story of Chicago And to truly
learn that story, channel your
inner tourist, That's good. For the first
part of our voyage we board Chicago's
First Lady, the flagship of a fleet
of modern tour boats [HORN BLOWS] inspired by 1920s
wooden cruising yachts like the former
presidential vessel Sequoia. We shove off from a dock just east of Michigan
Avenue Bridge. This is a good place
to start our tour Hi everyone! because it's arguably the
place where Chicago began. Right over there, in the
shadow of Tribune Tower, is the place where
Chicago's first permanent resident, Jean Baptiste
Point DuSable, built his frontier home, not long after the
American Revolution. For many decades, his importance
in Chicago history was really underappreciated because he was black. We know that DuSable was
a successful trader and farmer in frontier Chicago. But his roots have
been hotly debated. Was he from Haiti? Was he from
Southern Illinois? Was he the son of slaves? Mixed race? Sources disagree. We might not know
much about DuSable, but it's obvious
why he settled here. Location,
location, location. Back in the 18th century, this spot was just a few
steps from the lakefront. Today Lake Michigan is
a good half-mile to the east, but all that was
added to the lakefront over the course
of a century as the city grew. So, it wasn't just the
lakefront location that made this place
special and historic, it was also a little
weed choked stream that meandered
around a sand bar before trickling
into Lake Michigan. The Native Americans
called it "chick-AH-geww", which was their word for
the smelly wild onions that perfumed the
shores around here. It's a good thing
the city was named before we built
the stockyards. Oh how funny, I never
heard that before. Before long, the U.S. Government built Fort Dearborn right
across the river from DuSable's home. The hilltop garrison, recreated here for the
1933 World's Fair, was our young country's
westernmost outpost. If those early
settlers and soldiers could see this site today, they wouldn't
believe their eyes. A 21st century
trading post stands on the very
site of DuSable's home. The Apple Store
completed in 2017 is Chicago's
first building by acclaimed British
architect Lord Norman Foster. Foster's design
also includes a sweeping grand stairway that opens up North
Michigan Avenue to the riverfront. The roof, perhaps
not coincidentally, is shaped like an iPad. Michigan Avenue Bridge,
completed in 1920, opened up North
Michigan Avenue to become our
Magnificent Mile. Bronze markers
near the bridge show where Fort
Dearborn stood. Although, they're easy
to miss in rush hour. The bridge was officially
named for DuSable in 2010. Not long after
it was completed four great gateway
buildings framed the bridge. The earliest of the four
is the Wrigley Building, completed in 1921 by architects Graham,
Anderson, Probst and White. Chewing gum magnate
William Wrigley was a master of brand promotion. So he had the
building clad in shiny white
glazed terra cotta, to make it stand out in an otherwise industrial
area north of the river. The building was
designed in an era when classically-inspired
architecture was all the
rage in the U.S. It was called the city
beautiful movement. The clock tower was
loosely modeled on the 15th Century
Cathedral of Seville's Giralda Tower in Spain. But the Wrigley
Building is also famous for what's in
its basement. Cheezborger, cheezborger,
cheezborger. No fries, chips. No Pepsi, Coke. Double cheese the best. Next The Billy Goat restaurant. Beloved as a hangout
for reporters, from Tribune Tower
across the street and the old Sun-Times
building next door what it meant to a young
city news reporter. columnists like Mike
Royko made it famous "I don't want a
cheeseburger, it's too early for
a cheeseburger. It's too early for
a cheeseburger? Look, cheeseburger,
cheeseburger, cheeseburger this skit from Saturday
Night Live immortalized it, and made its
owner Sam Sianis a Chicago legend. Right across the river from the Wrigley
Building on Wacker Drive is another
neo-classical edifice, the former London
Guarantee building from 1923 by architect
Alfred Alschuler. It's festooned with
historic ornament from the triumphal
arch at the base, to the classical
temple on the roof. This former
office building has been completely
repurposed as a fancy boutique hotel called the London House. The rooftop bar offers an
irresistible view. The hotel is named for
the legendary jazz club that once occupied
the ground floor. perfo, with my high
school prom date. The third building
framing the bridge is Chicago's iconic
Tribune Tower, completed in 1925. The design by architects
Hood and Howells of New York was the winning entry in one of the most famous architectural design
competitions in American history. In 1922 the Tribune's
bombastic publisher, Col. Robert McCormick offered $100,000
in prize money to design
nothing less than the most beautiful office
building in the world. Entries poured in. More than 250 of them
from 23 countries This one from Adolph Loos
represented a newspaper column. Others were
startlingly modern, like the submission
from Walter Gropius of Germany's famous
Bauhaus design school. But in the end it
was a design inspired by the medieval cathedrals
of Europe that won. Like the great cathedrals, flying buttresses
leap skyward from a terrace that
rings the 25th floor. The exterior walls are
embedded with fragments of famous buildings
from around the world, procurred on
McCormick's orders by Tribune foreign
correspondents. The Great Wall of China, The Pyramids of Giza The Roman Coliseum, and the Parthenon
in Athens and more recently,
the Berlin Wall and the Twin Towers
destroyed on 9/11. The entry that
came in second in the Tribune
Tower competition was by the
Finnish-born architect Eliel Saarinen. But he got quite a
consolation prize. Look over there, Saarinen's entry
inspired the design of the skyscraper right
across the river. 333 North Michigan Avenue. This slender tower by
Chicago architects Holabird and Root is a classic example of
the sleek art deco style of the late 1920s with its low
relief ornament and tapering
profile to emphasize the buildings
soaring height. Like all of our
downtown bridges, the bridge at Michigan
Avenue opens and closes for boats that are too
tall to fit underneath. It's a legacy of the days when the Chicago
River was one of the busiest
ports in the world. [warning bells ring] Today the bridges
are rarely opened except in the spring
and fall for recreational sailboats going to and from
lakefront harbors. [warning bells ring] One of the historic
Michigan Avenue Bridge houses has been converted
into a museum of river history
by the non-profit Friends of the
Chicago River. And a part big part of
that history is bridges. The city's very first
moveable bridge was erected just west of
here at Dearborn Street in 1834. It got stuck so often that citizens chopped
it to pieces with axes. Swing bridges were
the state of the art in the second
half of the 1800s. They pivoted around a post in the middle
of the river. In 1863 a herd of cattle crossing the swing bridge
at Rush Street panicked and ran to one end, tipping the bridge and
the entire herd into the river. We finally got it right with a type of drawbridge
invented in Chicago called the trunnion
bascule bridge. Each leaf of these bridges is like a giant
asymmetrical teeter-totter that rotates around an
axel called a trunnion. Visitors the the
Bridgehouse Museum can go into the gloomy
subterranean realm to see the mechanics of
the bridge in action. Many of the bridge
houses along the river are like little
neo-classical temples. They're part of a
complete transformation of the river's edge, starting in the 1920s. Up until then the river was lined with
a jumble of docks and wharves, bustling with cargo
and passenger ships. In 1909 city planners Daniel
Burnham and Edward Bennett proposed replacing
all of that with the elegant,
double-decked Wacker Drive, as part of their sweeping "Plan of Chicago." The upper level is loaded with city beautiful
trimmings like balustrades and
obelisk-shaped light fixtures. Heading west on
the main stem we'll focus on
buildings to our right on the north bank. Later when we return
to the main stem we'll talk about buildings
across the river, and our new riverwalk. In a city famous
for politics, it's safe to say that
there has maybe never been a building more political than Trump International
Hotel and Tower. The 92-story tower is the second
tallest in Chicago. It's by architect
Adrian Smith, of Skidmore,
Owings and Merrill And contains more
than 800 condos and hotel suites. It was completed
nearly a decade before its owner became President of the
United States. The building was praised for its blue glass façade and tapering profile that respects the scale
of neighboring buildings. But 5 years after
it was completed, Donald Trump squandered
that good will by attaching his name to the side of
the building in 20-foot-tall letters. The sign elicited a
firestorm of criticism led by Pulitzer
Prize-winning Tribune architecture
critic Blair Kamin. This sign is grotesquely
over-scaled. Why did this sign
have to go up? Everybody already
knows its Trump Tower. Trump hit back with
the kind of Tweet that later
became a fixture of our daily news cycle, calling Kamin a
third-rate critic. City council quickly
passed an ordinance banning such signs
in the future. If Trump Tower is
about self-promotion, the building
right next door is a model of
understatement. It's AMA Plaza, originally the
IBM building by an architect who
was famously fond of the "Less is
More" philosophy. Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe had been director
of the avant-garde Bauhaus School in Germany, but came to America as the Nazis
were taking power and headed the
architecture department at the Illinois
Institute of Technology. He became one of the most
influential architects of the 20th century. His designs stripped
away the ornamentation leaving only
steel and glass. Now it might look
devoid of decoration, but Mies Van Der Rohe had a trick up his sleeve. The thin vertical I-beams
between the windows make the walls
of the building appear to change
from all glass to almost solid metal as we move around
the building. Mies liked to
place his simple, dark buildings on
wide open plazas, like works of
minimalist sculpture. If Mies loved rigid
glass and steel, the architect of the
building right next door loved curvy concrete. I wonder if he also
loved corn on the cob. Bertrand Goldberg who had studied
at the Bauhaus and admired Mies, worried that boxy
modernist buildings weren't good for
the human spirit. He called them
psychological slums. This is Marina City. One of the tallest concrete
structures in the world." I love Marina City because it was a
quarter century ahead of its time. It was conceived as a
city within the city including the cylindrical
apartment towers, shopping, a movie theatre, bowling alley, skating rink and an office building. There was ample parking and of course, a marina. But when it was built
in the early-1960s people were fleeing cities for the sprawling
post-war suburbs. And even if you
remained in the city the last place
you'd want to live was along what was then the smelly, industrial
Chicago River. The building was
commissioned by the Janitor's Union in part to stop the exodus and save their jobs. Marina City was intended as glamorous
modern housing that average Chicagoans
could afford. The apartments were
converted to condos in 1977 over the objections
of many tenants. Goldberg later lamented that this undid the
business model. By 1988 Marina City's
commercial property had begun a six year
bankruptcy saga and deferred maintenance
was taking its toll. The Chicago Tribune
described the complex as a "seedy,
crumbling wreck." Finally in 1996 developer John L. Marks bought the commercial property
for $3.35 million and the rebirth of
Marina City began. The old movie theater
building was given a makeover as the House of Blues. And the former
office building was converted
into a hotel. Today Marina City
stands proudly along a vibrant river in the heart of a
24-hour downtown. And we can imagine
Bertrand Goldberg, who died in 1997 saying, "I told you so!" Alright, which commercial
building in Chicago was touted as the
largest in the world when it was completed? The Merchandise Mart! Merchandise Mart, yeah. Right over there. Good. The art deco style
Merchandise Mart all 4 million
square feet of it opened in 1930. Marshall Field built it
as a wholesale operation, but the Great Depression
took its toll on that business. In 1945, Joseph Kennedy
bought the building for $13 million about a third of
the original cost. The current owner
claims it's still the nation's largest privately-held commercial
building. Today the Mart is home to manufacturer's
showrooms for high end home design
and stylish décor. Today and tomorrow, we'll
be really aggressive, in terms of reaching out, But it's also evolved
into a 21st century technology and
startup hub, including the tech
incubator 1871. Crossing under the last
bridge on the river's main stem we come to the place where the three
branches of the river meet A Y-shaped
intersection, known since Chicago's
frontier days as Wolf Point. Have you ever
noticed a "Y" shape in municipal
logos around town? Well it represents
the confluence of the three branches
at Wolf Point. Look around. You'll spot the symbol in
familiar and surprising places. So, Wolf Point
was the social hub of frontier Chicago. There was a tavern
on each bank. And then there
was a ferry boat, so you could bar hop. The most famous and historically
important of the three was the Saugansh Hotel, It stood where this modern green glass tower
is located today. 333 West Wacker
Drive from 1983, by New York architects
Kohn Pederson and Fox. The innkeeper Mark
Beaubien used to say, "I plays de fiddle
like de debble and I keeps
hotel like hell". But he did
something else well, he had 23 children
by two wives. In those days, Chicago was a rowdy
fur-trading town with a mix of
French Canadians, Yankees and Native Americans. Flash forward
a few decades aren't the only onesettles who'd be amazed by
Wolf Point today, I think we're all amazed by the tall towers that
have sprouted here. On the north bank this glassy apartment
tower from 2016 by Chicago's
bKL architects is the first of a
three-building development master planned by the
renowned Connecticut firm Pelli, Clark, Pelli, on a prime piece of land that for decades was
just a parking lot. There's a lovely
landscaped walkway at the base. That's because since 1999 most new developments
along the river have to provide
public access to the river's edge. This is just part of
a whole set of city guidelines designed to reshape
the riverfront from an industrial eyesore to an asset for
everyone to enjoy. On Wolf Point's west bank the 52-story River
Point office tower was completed in 2017. Here architects
Pickard Chilton set the building on a
two-and-a-half-acre park. It sits high
above the river, over railroad tracks
that line the west bank. These holes contain
fans to vent exhaust from the train engines. Those tracks continue
south of Lake Street for blocks hidden beneath the buildings on
the west bank. This is a boon
for the railroads, because they also own the
air above their tracks. So in a hot real estate
market like Chicago, The first building we pass on the South Branch found a gravity-defying
solution to deal with those
railroad tracks. It's 150 North Riverside, a 53-story office building completed in 2017. Architects
Goettsch Partners and their structural
engineering wizards Magnusson Clemencic
Associates concocted a design that
anchors the tower on a narrow plot between the tracks and the river, and then widens
out dramatically to provide much
larger floors above. Wind tunnel
tests on a model of this top heavy building showed that it would
sway in the breeze. So, engineers
minimize this with giant tanks near
the top of the building filled with 200,000
gallons of water. When the wind pushes
the building one way, the water sloshes
the other way. It's called a
tuned mass damper. Under the Boeing Building completed in 1990 there are so many tracks that there was nowhere
to put a column to support the building's
southwest corner. So that corner
literally hangs from these giant trusses
on top of the building. Architect Ralph Johnson
left the trusses exposed it sort of celebrates
the steel construction that makes Chicago
buildings possible, and also the iron works
of our beautiful bridges At the end of
the roaring 20s, Chicago utilities
baron Samuel Insull built a spectacular opera
house for the city, and put an office
tower on top to help subsidize it. As a young man,
Samuel Insull worked as a secretary to his
hero, Thomas Edison. He was a fast learner. Insull eventually
became president of Commonwealth Edison and made electricity
affordable to the masses. But the Depression
ruined Samuel Insull, along with thousands of
his small investors. He fled the country, but was arrested and tried
on securities fraud. Despite being acquitted his reputation
was destroyed. He moved to Paris
where he died on a subway
platform in 1938. Insull's glistening
Opera House by architects Graham, Anderson,
Probst and White opened in 1929 just days before the
stock market crashed. But the design
gave no hint of the gloomy
times to come. It has a four-story lobby seating for
more than 3,500 and a fire
curtain designed by the famous
artist Jules Guerin. The theatre once used
water from the river for the hydraulic pumps that raised and
lowered the stage! The opera house
has been home to the internationally
acclaimed Lyric Opera of
Chicago since 1954. When viewed
from a distance the building looks
like a giant throne. Why? Well as skyscrapers were
growing taller and taller in the early 20th century city leaders worried
that downtown streets would become dark,
airless canyons. So they passed an
ordinance in 1923 Requiring buildings
taller than 263 feet, to step back
from the street. And this throne
shape was a popular response to that rule. There's another
giant throne directly across the river! This is the old Chicago
Daily News Building from 1929 by architects
Holabird and Root. The arms of this throne
embrace something unheard of back then,
a riverfront plaza. Amid all the
architectural treasures on the south branch, is a building from 1971 that we used to
cruise right by without a second look. But today it's
a 36-story tall testament to how
differently we view the river. When the building
was constructed the river was
considered a back alley, so the architects
put a gigantic blank concrete
wall on that side So in 2014, the new owners
of the building realized that people like us, thousands of
people everyday, were passing
this bare wall. So they decided to
give us all something a little nicer to look at. The mural by ESI Design is a map of the river. The building is
represented by a shiny red "you are here" rectangle. This curious
little structure right at the river's edge is an ice factory. Here Enwave Chicago makes five thousand
tons of ice each night while
electric rates are low. During the day
the ice melts, creating chilled water that's pumped to buildings
throughout the Loop for air conditioning. Chicago architect
Walter Eckenhoff designed the building. This mammoth art
deco style edifice by architects Graham,
Anderson, Probst and White is probably best
known for the fact that you drive
right through it when entering or leaving
downtown Chicago on the Congress
Expressway. This was said to be the
largest post office in the world when it opened in 1921. But by 1996 modern mail sorting technology
had made the gargantuan
facility obsolete. That's the year a new, highly automated post
office opened a block south, designed by Knight
Architects. It contains enough
linear feet of conveyors to stretch to St. Louis, according to the Chicago
Architecture Foundation. So what happened to
the old Post Office? It was vacated and purchased at auction by a reclusive
British developer with outlandish
plans for the site, that never got
off the ground After more than 20 years a new owner began
a $600 million renovation in 2016 to create a vast office
building with amenities that include a 3-acre
park on the roof with a running trail
through landscaped meadows. So, why did Chicago
build the world's biggest post
office anyway? Well decades before
Amazon dot com, Chicago was the home of
America's mail order mega-companies Montgomery Wards, Speigel, and...Sears. In 1974 Sears
built the world's tallest skyscraper
in Chicago. The 110-story building
tops out at 1,451 feet. Sears moved out in 1995 and the building was
renamed Willis Tower in 2009. The architect,
Bruce Graham of Skidmore,
Owings and Merrill famously used a
fistful of cigarettes to illustrate his idea for the building's
staggered profile. He was meeting with his
engineering partner Fazler Kahn at the Chicago Club and there was a jar of
cigarettes on the table. Graham used them to build
a little model of the tower. Essentially a series
of slender tubes that bundled together would stiffen the building
against wind forces. This building long ago
lost its world's tallest title as countries in Asia
and the Middle East build ever
taller declaring their importance
to the world, just as Chicago
did in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. But whether you call it
Willis Tower or Sears, whether you're a
tourist or a local, it still reigns
supreme in Chicago. It offers
spectacular views of our iconic downtown, and vast swaths of the
city to the north, west and south. And it also offers
something for thrill seekers! Are you brave enough
to step out here on the Ledge? These four retractable
glass boxes allow visitors
to step four feet outside the walls
of the building. They were installed on
the side of the building that has no setbacks, So the view
under your feet goes all the way
down, 103 stories, straight to the sidewalk. You can also see
something else from here way down the south
branch of the river almost over the horizon An ancient portage. It was the key to
Chicago's very existence. And it's where
we're headed next! Now here's something most Chicagoans
have never seen. But this monument
depicts maybe the most important event
in the city's history, an event that led to
the birth of Chicago! It's Hidden in a
forest preserve off of Harlem Avenue
on Chicago's far southwest side, On this spot in 1673
native Americans supposedly showed
the explorers Jacques Marquette
and Louis Jolliet a soggy portage between
the Des Plaines River and the Chicago
River's South Branch. It was affectionately
known as Mud Lake. So why was this portage
such a big deal? Well the explorers
figured out right away, this, was the
only missing link in what could one day
be the most important trade route on the
whole continent. You see, if a canal were
built across that portage, it would connect the
waters of the Great Lakes with the Mississippi over
a continental divide. This would create an
uninterrupted waterway from the East Coast
to the Gulf of Mexico! And a city built at the
mouth of that canal would be poised
for greatness. Flash forward 150
years to the 1830s. Construction finally began and the land boom was on. Property values soared. And the little frontier
village of Chicago, became the fastest growing
city in the world. A newspaper
reporter wrote, "every man who
owned a garden patch stood on his head and imagined himself
a millionaire". The Illinois and Michigan
Canal opened in 1848, after years of
financial delays and the deaths of many
immigrant workers. The canal saw heavy
use in its early years, but eventually the railroads put
it out of business. Much of it's
been filled in, and the Stevenson
Expressway runs right on top
of parts of it. In 1900 a much
larger canal opened right next to
that older one. It's the Chicago
Sanitary and Ship Canal. And here come's my ride. Hello gentlemen. Do I have to wear
one of those? I do? Alright. We'll follow this waterway through Chicago's
south side aboard the tugboat
Chicago Trader. It's part of the American
Commercial Barge Lines fleet. So this actually
goes up and down. Are we doing that - oh man, there we go! (alarm buzzes) Look at that! That unsettling
moment for me is routine for tugboats
on the Illinois Waterway because today instead
of bridges going up, the wheelhouses go down, while business as usual
proceeds overhead. You'll see plenty of
barges and tugs on this canal. But the waterway was built for an even more
important reason -- to save the
population of Chicago from the ravages of
typhoid and cholera. How? Well, it reversed the flow
of the Chicago River. Before this
canal was built, the Chicago River carried
the city's sewage out into Lake Michigan. The lake was the source of
our drinking water back then, just as it is today. So, as the
booming city grew, there were more
and more outbreaks of waterborne diseases. Yuck. By the 1890 the city
said enough was enough. [explosion] The newly-formed Chicago
Sanitary District began digging this
massive new canal across the
continental divide. The plan was to
drain enough water from the river to make
it lower than the lake. This would cause
the lake to flow into the river, reversing it, and sending our wastewater
down the Mississippi. A taste of Chicago. Of course that
didn't sit very well with towns downstream,
like St. Louis. As the canal
neared completion, the trustees worried Missouri
would file an injunction to prevent it
from opening. So without any
fanfare or ceremony on the morning of
January 2nd, 1900 they gathered to break
open the temporary dam at Kedzie Avenue as a few
unauthorized reporters watched. The dam was frozen solid and after even dynamite
failed to breech it, the trustees
themselves attacked it with their ceremonial
shovels until quote, "perspiration streamed
down their brows" in the words of
one reporter. Finally a trickle of
water started flowing into the new canal. Once it started, the
trustees reasoned, no court would stop it. The American Society
of Civil Engineers named the river reversal one of the seven
engineering wonders of the U.S. And by the way, the U.S. Supreme Court eventually decided
in Chicago's favor. Thankfully
since the 1930s, treatment plants have
been built to clean Chicago's wastewater
before it's released into the river system. I can smell one right now. The Metropolitan Water
Reclamation District or MWRD says this one
along the canal in southwest
suburban Stickney is the world's largest. It can handle nearly a
billion-and-a-half gallons of wastewater daily. It's not like a tiller
on a sailboat, is it? I'm driving a boat! Haha, take your time. Safety. With my less-than-able
assistance, Captain Derrick has
piloted us across the continental divide and past Damen
Avenue following the old portage route. Could you imagine
setting up a campsite right here? Father Marquette
did just that when he returned in 1674, a year after
his first visit. He was hoping to continue
across the portage. But with his
health failing, he was forced to spend
the winter at this spot. 150 years after
Marquette camped here, this is right where
workers started digging the Illinois
and Michigan Canal. They were poor
and unskilled, mostly immigrants, many from Ireland They basically dug
a 96-mile ditch with picks and shovels -- and more than a
little blasting powder. They were paid
a dollar a day for up to 15 hours of
backbreaking work. And that sum
was often paid in a nearly worthless kind of promissory note called Canal scrip. Their only other
compensation was a quarter-pint
of whiskey daily called a gill. Many died of malaria
and waterborne diseases channeling through
the swampy lowlands. Still others were
killed or maimed in work-related accidents. Many canal builders
lived on the site of an old shantytown
called Hardscrabble. Today we know it
as Bridgeport. Bridgeport was once
looked down upon as a "river ward." Historically only the
poorest and lowest on the ladder would
live near the river. But patronage jobs made
them loyal voters, and the neighborhood
became a power base for Chicago's
democratic machine. Vote Democratic,
vote for Chicago. Five Chicago mayors
came from Bridgeport, including both Daleys. The Irish have not
been a majority in Bridgeport for decades, as other European
immigrants settled there and more recently immigrants
from Mexico and China. For a century, this little tributary
flowing out of Bridgeport was infamous for
its frothy surface, not to mention the smell. That's because it flowed
from the Union Stockyards, and was essentially
an open sewer for slaughterhouse waste. The decomposing
animal matter released gasses that
foamed and bubbled, so people took to
calling it Bubbly Creek. Upton Sinclair
immortalized it in his novel "the Jungle". In his words, "Here and there the grease
and filth have caked solid, and the creek looks
like a bed of lava; chickens walk about on it, and many times an
unwary stranger has started to stroll
across and vanished temporarily." "Hog butcher to the world, now closed forever." Even though the
Stockyards closed way back in 1971, the creek is
still bubbling! Look at that, look at
that, right there. Look! It's disgusting. Upton Sinclair might write
a totally different story about Bubbly Creek today. Bridgeport is attracting
artists and hipsters. Two enormous warehouses have been converted
into art centers, offering space for artists
to practice their craft and exhibit their work. Maria's Packaged Goods
and Community Bar captures both the
burgeoning alternative art and nightlife scene and what the Chicago
Tribune called Bridgeport's "South Side,
tough-guy attitude." At the mouth
of Bubbly Creek a boathouse
opened in 2016 designed by one of
Chicago's leading architects Jeanne Gang. The Eleanor Boathouse is one of several built
by the park district to encourage the sport
of rowing on the Chicago River. It's a base for
several rowing groups that range from
competitive high school and college teams, to a non-profit for
underserved youth, and another for women
diagnosed with breast cancer. Across the river to the
north of Bridgeport is a well-known Mexican-American
community, Pilsen. The name actually comes
from Bohemian immigrants who settled here
in the 1870s. Mexicans began moving
into the neighborhood in the 1950s and 60s. On the streets, murals celebrate
Mexican heritage and advocate for workers'
and immigrants' rights. The National Museum
of Mexican Art has one of the
largest collections of its kind in
the country. It expresses the spirit
of a neighborhood known for activism and a
focus on social services. As far back as the 1970s East Pilsen has been home
to an artist's colony. While Pilsen's
Mexican-American identity is as strong as ever, it's also now famous
for its breweries, trendy restaurants and music venues
like Thalia Hall, an 1892 Bohemian
community hall beautifully
restored in 2013. Pilsen's riverfront, not exactly scenic, unless you're into
industrial archaeology. The area was once
heavily industrialized and you can still
see remnants like giant boat slips
where barges used to tie up. And two ghostly
coal-fired power plants. They were
shuttered in 2012 after years of complaints
from residents of Pilsen and the neighboring Latin
American community of Little Village. The bridge just
ahead at Cermak Road is one of a kind. It's Chicago's last
surviving rolling lift bridge. A type invented here in
1893 by William Scherzer. Instead of pivoting on an
axel as bascule bridges do, these leaves roll
back on runners like a giant
rocking chair! Lawrence's Fisheries
at Canal St. is a relic from the days
when commercial fishing flourished on
Lake Michigan. Fishing boats used to
bring their daily catch of chub, perch and other fish from Lake Michigan here
to be smoked and sold. It was one of several
commercial fishing operations on the river. Here you go,
have a nice day. The last one closed
in the late 1990s. I've been coming
here 50 years. I love it, I love it. Lawrence's restaurant
is still going strong. Can I see some I.D. please? oh, I.D. But one look at the menu tells you the fare
no longer comes from Lake Michigan. Today's lunch, shrimp from the
Gulf of Mexico, and ocean perch! Just ahead is yet another
type of movable bridge And it's my favorite. It's a vertical lift
bridge dating from 1915. That's a
272-foot-long span, it weighs 1,500 tons, and it rides up and down on these
20-story-tall towers. Just past the
bridge is Chinatown. It looks, feels and definitely
tastes like China. Chinese began
migrating here in the early 20th century from an earlier
Chinatown in the Loop. They built this exuberant
community center in 1928. Today it's called
Pui Tak Center. For all its convincing
Chinese design, the architects were
Norwegian-Americans because there were no
Chinese architects in Chicago back then. The neighborhood's famous
gateway was built in 1975. And a lovely new library designed by Skidmore,
Owings and Merrill opened in 2015. Its rounded shape
derives in part from ancient Chinese
design principles of Feng Shui. Thank you very much. Thank you. Here in Chinatown, you'll find one of the earliest examples of the evolution - really the revolution -- in how we think
of and use the river Ping Tom Park. It showed how old
industrial land could be transformed
when it opened in 1999, on the site of a
former railroad yard. Chinatown had been
desperate for open space since expressway
construction obliterated the only parks in
the neighborhood. In the words of the
Chicago Park District, "Two full generations of
children in Chinatown grew up without access
to a neighborhood park or any recreational area." Chinatown business
leader Ping Tom was the driving force
behind creating the park, but he died in 1995 before it became
a reality. The prominent Chicago
landscape architects Site Design headed
by Ernie Wong sculpted the terrain and
added native plants. The centerpiece is a
pagoda-shaped pavilion. The park has been
such a huge hit that beginning in 2002 it was expanded to the
north under 18th Street bridge on more vacant land. Site Design created
a winding boardwalk in bright Chinese red that extends out over a
new river edge wetland. It leads to a boathouse designed with
a Chinese flair by Johnson and Lee
Architects of Chicago. The boathouse is for
canoes and kayaks. But once a year a much
more exotic flotilla appears in Chinatown for the Dragon Boat
Race for Literacy. Businesses and other
groups from around Chicago field teams, often made up
of novice rowers who get a same-day
crash course in how to paddle a
huge dragon boat. When it's not overrun
with dragon boat racers, this pier is a
frequent stop for Chicago water taxis. Let's hop aboard
one and head north toward downtown Chicago. This is Sunliner,
built in 1962. I bet I rode on this very
boat back in the sixties on a second grade field
trip I remember to this day. It's the oldest vessel
in the Wendella fleet of tour boats
and water taxis. All that vacant land, extended south of what we
now call the South Loop was once filled with
railroad lines. Why? Well if you
think about it, it was the only real
way for the railroads to get in to the city, which is otherwise
surrounded on three sides by water. In the heyday of
intercity passenger rail, this place must
have felt like O'Hare Airport does today. Nearly a hundred trains arrived and departed daily at magnificent terminals that lined the south
edge of the Loop including Grand Central, LaSalle Street, Dearborn, and Central Station
on the lakefront. Intercity rail travel
began a steep decline in the late 1950s, today most of this
land is vacant. In 2017 the
high-profile developer Related Midwest
bought the land south of Roosevelt and began planning
a vast development that could take a decade
or more to complete. Just past Roosevelt Road is River City, it pioneered the
redevelopment of this old railroad land when it was built,
way back in 1986. If it reminds you a little of the corncob-shaped
Marina City towers that we saw on
the main branch it's no wonder. They were both designed
by the same architect. Just like Bertrand
Goldberg's Marina City, River City stands on
stilts above a marina. The lower floors are
commercial space, topped by apartments. The residential
units are accessed from an inner atrium that the architect likened
to a winding street. But not everyone
lives inside. Most people just
think were nuts. Some boat owners actually
live on their boats in the marina year round. They call themselves
"River Rats." We'll have some
friends over and we'll just take an
hour cruise up the river. We love doing
stuff like that. The water is aerated
to prevent freezing so these boat
owners can live off the land
all winter long. We like simplifying
our life, having a very finite
amount of space. And you really learn
pretty quickly what actually
matters in your life. Just north of River City ground was broken in 2016 on another stretch
of old railroad land. It's a development
called Riverline. The master plan
by architects Perkins and Will and landscape
architects Hoerr Shaudt includes a naturalized
river edge and a half-mile-long
riverwalk alongside 3600
residential units and street-level
retail in 10 buildings. Just west of here
once stood a barn in an small
Irish shantytown that forever changed
Chicago's history. October 8th, 1871 was
unseasonably hot. That day's edition of
the Chicago Tribune carried this
ominous warning. "The absence of
rain for three weeks had left everything
in so dry and inflammable
a condition that a spark
might set a fire which would sweep from
end to end of the city." Within hours, just such a spark set fire
to the O'Leary family's barn and the dire prophecy
was fulfilled. Fanned by fierce winds
from the southwest, the fire jumped the
river's south branch and wiped out the
entire downtown including city hall and
almost all city records. Then it jumped
the main stem devouring neighborhoods as
far north as Fullerton Avenue. More than 17,000
buildings were destroyed. Some 250 people
were killed and nearly a hundred
thousand were left homeless, thirty percent of
the population. More than a century later, Chicago City Council
exonerated the woman and the cow long blamed for
starting the fire. Catherine O'Leary had
claimed all along that she was in bed
when the fire started. But in a city of
anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic
sentiment she made a good scapegoat. The hearing that lead to
Mrs. O'Leary's pardon was held here at the
Chicago Fire Academy in 1997. It stands on the very site of the O'Leary family barn
where the fire began. But the story we so often
hear about the fire isn't about the
destruction. It's about the amazing
rebuilding of the aftermath. Before the ashes
had even cooled, Chicago vowed to rebuild. Within days burned
out merchants were establishing
makeshift stores in the still-smoldering
rubble. In a matter of weeks more than 5,000
temporary buildings had gone up. So, in the aftermath
of the fire, one of the co-owners of
the Chicago Tribune, a guy named William Bross, heads to New York to try to drum up support
for the ravaged city. And according to this
historian Donald Miller, he gets up on a
soapbox and proclaims, "Go to Chicago now! Young men, hurry there! Old men, send your sons! Women, send your husbands! You will never again have
a better chance to make money!" Architects
drawn to Chicago by the opportunity
to rebuild invented an entirely
new kind of city. A city of skyscrapers. These revolutionary
buildings were supported not by
their exterior walls, but by metal skeletons. Instead of heavy
stone walls, School. In the decades
that followed Chicago became the
nation's leader in architectural
innovation. And today the
riverbanks downtown are lined with
skyscrapers. But would you
believe that parts of the Chicago River
look like this? I can. Because that's
where I grew up! Welcome to north
suburban Deerfield. This was my
childhood home. Mom and Dad have
aged gracefully And as for me... I haven't changed a bit. I can remember
you were talking probably at the
age of six months and I think you
haven't stopped since. when we heard
a train go by, you didn't say just train Oh didn't I
correct somebody? Didn't they say
that's a choo-choo, and I said no that's a commuter train. Ha ha. I know. You thought you were
watching a show about the Chicago River. So why are we here? Follow me... Just a half a block
from our house was Trail Tree Park, or as we called
it "the Woods." And in the "woods," we had "the path," which lead to - well, it's the reason
I'm bringing you here. Ladies and gentlemen - the Chicago River. We just called
it "the creek." We had no idea this flowed all the way down in to
Chicago and beyond. Here in the north suburbs, the Chicago
River is actually three separate
streams or forks, they rise from wetlands
and meander south through parks, forest preserves and golf courses
in suburbs like Northbrook, Glenview, and Niles, eventually
joining up to form the Chicago River's
North Branch. The East Fork is probably the most well-known
of the three, because it flows through
a North Shore icon, the Chicago
Botanic Garden. It's a manmade eden that opened in 1972. And has been
growing ever since. It's a gorgeous
place to visit, with 27 gardens and
four natural areas. But just as important
is what goes on behind the scenes. Dozens of scientists
work to save the planet by
saving plants at the Plant Conservation
Science Center and nearly a hundred
low-income teens each year learn
skills at urban farms the garden operates in
the city and suburbs. Continuing south from
the Botanic Garden, the East Fork which is also known
as the Skokie River flows through the
Skokie Lagoons. You're going to push me? Full service. I've asked the most
avid paddler I know to explore them me. My longtime WTTW colleague and sometime doppelganger Jay Shefsky. You know, I think in all
the years we've worked together, this is the first time
we've ever appeared on camera together. You know, the truth
can finally be told. We are not the
same person. Skokie is a Native
American word meaning "big marsh," that's exactly
what was here before the Civilian
Conservation Corps drained the land and dammed the Skokie
River in the 1930s. During the Cold War, there was a Nike
missile base on the shore
of the lagoon. It was part of a system
that ringed Chicago and other U.S. cities to defend against Soviet
aircraft attacks. When I was a kid we would be driving down
the Eden's expressway and every now and then, the missles would be up
and pointing at the sky. Well I can't convince
Jay to play hookie from WTTW any longer so let's head
downstream a few miles to the Chicago northwest
side neighborhood of Edgebrook. The three forks
have joined into one now and we've come to a
large piece of property that once belonged
to Billy Caldwell. His Native American
name was Sauganash. The U.S. government gave
him 1600 acres here in exchange for his help in negotiating treaties with his
fellow Native Americans. Today in this area you'll find
Caldwell Avenue, Caldwell Woods
forest preserve, Caldwell Golf Course and a Chicago neighborhood
called Sauganash. Continuing south the river passes under
the Edens Expressway and then through
several prairies, parks, and wetland
restoration areas. And then winds alongside
Bohemian National Cemetery, final resting
place of many who died in the sinking
of the steamship Eastland in the Chicago
River in 1915. I'll tell you
that sad tale when we get back to the
main branch downtown. Also interred here is
Mayor Anton Cermak. He was killed in 1933
by an assassin's bullet intended for President-elect
Franklin Delano Roosevelt His tomb bears his
supposed last words to Roosevelt after the shooting, "I'm glad it was me
instead of you." A little farther south, the river passes Von
Steuben High School, and the campus of
North Park University established in 1910, by Swedish Covenant church
for a college and seminary. And finally we come
to what looks like a waterfall in
the Chicago River. It's actually
just a low dam. Rapids in the
Chicago River? Well actually
there's just been a lot of rain lately so the river
is really high. So that's the north branch that we've been following
for the last little while, and this is the confluence where the north
branch meets up with the man-made north
shore channel over there, and all that water
comes together and heads right down into
the heart of the city. In a minute we'll continue
down the North Branch. But first a quick look up
the North Shore Channel which opened in 1910. The Chicago
Sanitary District built it to divert North
Shore sewage away from Lake Michigan. On the banks of the
channel in Skokie is a 2-mile long
sculpture park, set along a bike path. whoo hoo! The Skokie Northshore
Sculpture Park was started in 1988 to improve the banks of
this neglected channel. It's like a slalom course made of abstract art. It's lined with more
than 60 sculptures on loan from the artists. Like most of the
Chicago River system, the North Shore channel
serves a function we don't like
to talk about, but we can't live without. It's a wastewater channel. The O'Brien
treatment plant on the Chicago-Evanston
border zaps waste water with
ultra-violet light to disinfect it before releasing it
into the river. The process reduces, but doesn't eliminate
pathogens in the Chicago river. Another process recovers
phosphorus pollutants which are sold
as fertilizer to make a little
money for MWRD. A little upstream, the channel takes
an eastward bend, slicing through Evanston, and ends at a
beautiful harbor on the lakefront
in Wilmette. Overlooking the harbor is a legendary North
Shore landmark, the Baha'i House
of Worship. One of only nine
in the world. The founder of the faith was the Persian
prophet Baha'u'llah. He preached the oneness of the
world's religions and people. The building was designed
by Louis Bourgeois in 1909. But it wasn't
finished until 1953! Sadly the architect
didn't live to see it. He died in 1930. Today, worshipers
of every faith come to marvel at
the temple's beauty. We're back at the
confluence of the North Branch and the North
Shore Channel and ready to make
our way south into the heart
of the city. We'll travel aboard the
historic wooden yacht Lady Grebe, built in 1961. At the helm is
Captain Bob Agra. His grandfather started
the company in 1935. There was us, Agras, Wendella and Borstroms, and then there was the
Martin-Collopy family out on the lakefront. Those families are Chicago tour boat royalty. And the competition
between them hasn't always
been friendly. Decades ago
family patriarchs would stand on opposite
sides of Michigan Avenue bridge with megaphones, trying to out-shout each
other for customers. Living along the river is a new trend downtown, but here in the Ravenswood
Manor neighborhood it's an age old tradition! Many of these
property owners have private docks
in their back yards, even though the
edge of the river is not their property. During the Great
Depression, a lot of people lived
right on the river just a little
south of here around Irving Park Road. That stretch was lined
with makeshift houseboats. It was a floating
squatters camp for people who lost their homes - or just didn't want to
pay real estate taxes. Just north of
Belmont Avenue we come to the birthplace
of this very boat! This was once the site of Grebe and
Company Boat Yard. Grebe's built many
private yachts, but was better known
for military vessels, especially minesweepers. They turned out more than
one a month during WWII. The company built its
last boat in 1970. Now right across
the river here, If you're a Chicagoan
of a certain age, is a patch of
land that holds some of your favorite
childhood memories at Belmont and Western. This was the home
of Riverview Park from 1904 to 1967. Legendary for its
roller coasters, especially the Bobs, the funhouse called
Aladdin's Castle and the heart-stopping
parachute ride. I always wondered, where did they get
that water from. Like, did it come
from the river? I don't know, because the river wasn't
that good back then. know, I'm saying! The park closed for
the season in 1967 and with no explanation, it never re-opened. At Diversey we come
to the Julia C. Lathrop Homes. one of the nation's first
public housing projects. It was built in the 1930s when the riverfront was
not exactly considered a desirable place to live. Preservationists saved
the historic complex from the wrecking
ball in 2006. But it was mostly vacant and boarded up by 2016. That's when Related
Midwest and partners began a redevelopment which includes 60 percent
public and subsidized housing. The complex will
be re-orientated to embrace the river. The river passes next through the Lincoln
Park neighborhood. Here, multi-million
dollar homes have replaced most
of the cottages built for the workers
who labored in nearby factories. In the 1860s and 70s, the North Branch was home to Chicago's
first steel mills, long before the industry
moved to Gary, Indiana. The last steel mill
on the north branch, Finkl Steel closed in 2014. You know that car you
traded in a few years ago, that refrigerator
you got rid of" Passing under North
Avenue bridge, we come to Goose Island. And like so much of the
river we know today, this island is manmade. Chicago's first
mayor, William B. Ogden, created it between
1853 and 1873. Over the generations, many different
immigrant groups came to work in
the steel mills and other factories
near here. The overcrowded area
around Goose Island became known as
"Little Hell." During WWII, the Chicago
Housing Authority bulldozed the
rundown neighborhood and began building the
Cabrini-Green housing project After a trouble-plagued
half century, Cabrini-Green itself
was demolished as the area gentrified. Here at the north
end of Goose Island is an industrial
relic called a bobtail swing bridge. It rotates around a
post that's on shore instead of in the river. Or I guess I should
say, "rotated". It hasn't
operated in years. Today it's used
as a bike path that connects with a trail along the manmade channel on Goose Island's
east side where lots of
gentrification is happening. Goose Island and other
industrial zones are changing, after the city
rewrote zoning laws to allow commercial
and even residential construction on land that was once
reserved for industry. At the southern
tip of Goose Island is a huge complex
of buildings built as the headquarters
of the catalog giant, Montgomery Wards. Aaron Montgomery Ward
invented modern mail order. To help win over
skeptical customers, he offered an unheard of
money back guarantee. By 1908 his business
had grown so big that he built
what was then the largest reinforced
concrete building in the world to serve as his warehouse, here along the river
at Chicago Avenue. It was designed with
Prairie Style flourishes by architects Schmidt,
Garden and Martin. The floors were so vast it was said workers used
roller skates to get around. Ward died in 1913. But the company
lasted 129 years. It finally went out
of business in 2001 And developers jumped on the coveted
riverfront site. Years of paint
were removed from the old
warehouse to reveal how the architects
made reference to the flowing river in the long horizontal
red brick stripes. The building's huge floors are now home to Groupon and other 21st Century
tech companies. Right next door is another former
Montgomery Wards building. An art deco style tower by Willis McCauly
completed in 1930 as the company
headquarters. It's been converted
to residential. Developers preserved my favorite
feature of the building, a statue perched
on one foot, atop a beautiful
ziggurat shaped tower. She's called The
Spirit of Progress. As we approach the
heart of downtown south of Goose Island we pass through
trendy River North, once a grimy industrial
area nicknamed Smokey Hollow. In the 1970s artists looking for cheap
and sunny square footage moved into some of
the dilapidated old warehouses. Within ten years, River North was Chicago's
hottest gallery district. Today it's home to
high end art dealers, designer furniture
showrooms, popular restaurants, and nightclubs. But as the
neighborhood changed, a lot of historic
buildings were bulldozed for huge condos
towers perched atop multi-story
parking garages that did a lot to
kill street life and led then-mayor Richard M. Daley to declare "no more ugly buildings!" This is the
East Bank Club, one of Chicago's
swankiest health clubs. The club opened right
on the river in 1980. But back then the
river was seen as a liability, so the architects put up a
giant windowless concrete wall up against it. How much have things
changed since then? Look right
across the river! These townhomes
were built in 2002 and they open up
right onto the river. Unimaginable when their
neighbor across the river was built just two
decades earlier. To its credit, the East Bank
Club long ago embraced its
river edge site. In fact the club
now has a dock, here we bid farewell to
Bob Agra and Lady Grebe, There's our next ride. and switch to kayaks
from Water Riders, a company run by my buddy Charlie Portis. Always be aware of
your surroundings. This is one of the busiest
stretches of commercial waterways in the U.S. Oh no! People always ask, does
the Chicago River smell? Well around here, a lot of times it
smells like chocolate. Back in industrial days, about the only pleasant
smell in this area came from the Blommer
Chocolate factory nearby, which still perfumes
the air here today. This family-owned
business founded in 1939, sells chocolate wholesale to major confectionaries
worldwide. They won't disclose
their clients. But it's safe to say
that when you snack on popular candy bars, you're indulging in
Blommers chocolate. On the south branch we saw the starting place for
the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. Up here on the
north branch is the place where the
Great Chicago 1992 began. A crew was pounding
pilings into the riverbed, when they fractured
an all-but-forgotten network of defunct
freight tunnels that ran 40 feet below almost every major
downtown street. A torrent of river
water surged in, flooding basements
throughout the loop. It took days to
plug the leak, and weeks to drain
the buildings. Damage was estimated at
more than $1 billion. Today the tunnels
are back in use for utility and
telecommunications lines. But wherever they pass
beneath the river they're tightly sealed. One of the things I love
about the Chicago River is when you happen upon the archaeological remains
of the old industrial town. This huge steel
bridge from 1908 once served the railroads that lined the north
bank of the main branch. Below the bridge, are four nautically
themed river cottages from 1988 by architect
Harry Weese, who loved sailing. We've all seen how
popular it is to live along the Chicago
River today. But back when the river
cottages were built, you had to be a
real urban pioneer to want to live along
the smelly, dirty, Chicago River. Those urban pioneers must have really
loved them because none of the
original owners sold one until
nearly 30 years after they were built. It went for $2.25 million. Next-door is another
Harry Weese project. It's a relic from
industrial days, a old cold storage
warehouse from 1898 that Harry Weese converted
to condominiums in 1981. The 4-foot
thick walls were insulated with
cork and horsehair. It took six months to
thaw out the building before it could
be converted. So here we are
coming up to the beautiful Wolf Point, where the three branches
of the river come together. We'll follow
the main branch all the way out
to the lake now, and we'll start
with the biggest river improvement project
since Wacker Drive in 1920s. It's the Riverwalk, completed in 2016. Whooo! It has literally brought
the river edge to life. It's lined with
restaurants, family-friendly
attractions, native plants and
wildlife habitat and even places to
dock pleasure boats. The Riverwalk allows
people to stroll at river level beneath the bridges all the way from Wolf
Point to the Lakefront. Something that was
impossible before. You see lovely
double-deck Wacker Drive was always a
beautiful boulevard, but its way up there, high above the river. Anybody that wanted to
stroll along the river for more than a block
down here at river level, couldn't do it, there was no way to get
underneath the bridges, because of the giant
bridgehouse foundations. The solution was
to build these so-called
under-bridge passages designed by prominent
Chicago architect Carol Ross Barney. But it required an
act of congress. You see, the Chicago River is a federally
regulated waterway, so inserting
these walkways underneath the
bridges required permission from
the Washington to narrow the
shipping channel. Barney covered
the passages with shiny canopies. They shield pedestrians
from falling debris above. And reflect the
rippling water below. The sections of
the Riverwalk between each bridge
are conceived as separate rooms, each with its own theme. We'll explore these
new urban spaces in the heart of downtown. And the skyscrapers that
line the river's south bank, as we make our way
to the lakefront for a grand finale. Alright everbody,
here we go! Back aboard
Chicago's First Lady in the River's main stem. The transformation of our
old industrial waterway into a dazzling
new waterfront is on full display. Alright, it's the home
stretch of our tour. As we head east from
here towards the lake, we'll explore not only
the towers that soar above the south bank, but also each of the so-called
rooms of the Riverwalk. starting with a stretch
called the Jetty between Franklin
and Wells Streets. Here floating wetlands
rise and fall with the river level. The plantings are
meant to give fish places to feed and spawn. Aquatic life in
the Chicago River? Yes! Just like people, more and more
fish are moving into the neighborhood. In fact some 70
species of fish now live in the river, up from just
10 in the 1970s thanks to improvements in
water quality and habitat. Mayor Richard J. Daley boasted one day office workers
would catch their lunches in the river. Ah, the people of Chicago can be assured that
our water supply is the best, probably, of anywhere in
the country. Today people are indeed
fishing in the river, though we don't know if they're eating
what they catch. One group that's been
working for decades to upgrade the
river is called Friends of the
Chicago River. Each year the
organization leads an army of volunteers for a big spring cleaning
called River Rescue Day You found worms? Are they grossing you out? My own daughters
lent a hand planting flowers, and picking up trash, just like at home, right? Friends of the
Chicago River was founded in
1979 in response to an article that ran
in Chicago Magazine called "Our
Friendless River." The group also lobbies for
river protection laws, helps restore
natural riverbanks, I'm going to put
mulch in every row. creates walking trails, and even stocks the river with fish and tracks
their survival. Will the river
someday be clean enough to swim in? Friends and other
water quality stewards like MWRD have made that their goal And to prove it, Jump! leaders and local
politicians took the plunge into the
South Branch in 2017. The water, actually,
was amazingly warm. 1,2,3. They caution that
swimming in the river is still not recommended. But the water is
now much cleaner than it's been in
more than a century. It's awesome! Amazingly, even when the
river was much filthier, dozens of swimmers
every year, competed in
something called the annual Chicago
River swimming marathon while as many as
a hundred thousand spectators lined
the banks to watch. The 3-mile event
was held every July from 1908 until the 1930s. Hollywood Tarzan
and Olympic champ Johnny Weissmuller
won several of them in the late 1920s Passing under the
Wells Street bridge, we enter the next "room"
in the Riverwalk, the Water Plaza Here children and
families can get wet, no, not with
Chicago River water. It's a zero depth
fountain and splash pad. One bridge ahead we come to the site of the deadliest disaster
in Chicago history. More than 800 people lost
their lives on this ship, the S.S. Eastland on
July 24th, 1915. Making it the worst
shipwreck ever on the Great Lakes. And It happened
less than 20 feet from shore in the
Chicago River. That morning, 2500Western
Electric employees boarded the Eastland
for a company picnic in Michigan City, Indiana. Many were young
Czech immigrants. The Eastland had a
longtime reputation as an unstable ship. It had been remodeled
several times to accommodate
more passengers. And then in the wake of
the Titanic disaster tons of lifeboats
were added. Each of these things made the ship
more top heavy. Just moments
before the Eastland was scheduled to
leave the dock, the huge vessel
rolled over on its side in
the Chicago River. Some top deck
passengers scrambled onto the slippery
metal hull and awaited rescue. But many ended
up in the river. Some drowned, others clung to floating
objects thrown by passersby. Rescuers cut holes to
try to save passengers trapped below decks but many of them
drowned or suffocated. Lawsuits dragged
on for 20 years, but in the end, not a dime was ever
paid out in damages. The Eastland lived on. It was righted
and converted into a Navy
training vessel. It was finally
scrapped in 1947. This is my favorite
section of the Riverwalk. It's called the
River Theater. It opens up this entire
block of Wacker Drive to the river with this
cascade of steps. The steps double
as bleacher seats where people can watch
waterborne spectacles, or just enjoy the
theater of life. A wheelchair
accessible ramp cleverly zigzags through this grand stairway, with lights that create
a beautiful pattern at night. Soaring above the
River Theatre, 111 West Wacker
Drive is a building with a secret hidden
deep within its walls. This tower is built on the partially
completed skeleton of what was supposed to be
an ultra-luxury 90-story hotel and condo tower. Only about 25 floors of that building's
concrete frame were finished before the
developer went belly up. Finally in 2012
a new developer, Related Midwest
resumed construction. Their architect
Gary Handel cleverly used the
existing frame to support an entirely
different design. The 60-story rental
apartment tower features a recessed ribbon that winds around
the building representing the
Chicago River. The Greek temple on
steroids next door, by Catalan architect
Ricardo Bofill is an example of
post-moderism, a playful style
that emerged as a sort of antidote to the austere modernism
of the 1960s. This section of
the Riverwalk has bars and restaurants, and also a place for boats
to tie up in the river, which was impossible
before the river walk was built. The Cove and The Marina are quickly becoming the most popular rooms
on the Riverwalk. Yay, salute! Crowds gather for drinks, for dinner, That's actually
pretty good. Geoffrey we're big fans. and celebrity photo ops! Thank you! Oh, that's a good shot. Towering above the Marina, this building by
Pritzker Prize-winning architect Kevin Roche, is the birthplace
of Tony the Tiger, the Pillsbury Doughboy, and the Marlboro Man (cough) because it's the home of
the advertising agency Leo Burnett. Listen to that roar! But the Leo Burnett
building itself became a celebrity in 2014 when high wire
legend Nik Wallenda used its roof
as the end of a nationally televised
tightrope walk across the river
from Marina City. Most people know about the famous Vietnam
Veterans Memorial in Washington DC. But did you know we also
have one in Chicago? It's the next section
of the Riverwalk. It was dedicated on
Veterans Day 2005, more than a decade
before the rest of the Riverwalk
was completed. The memorial wall honors 2,900 Illinois
service members killed or missing
in Vietnam. Above this stretch
of the Riverwalk, is the ornate domed Jewelers building
from 1926. The architects
Giaver & Dinkelberg included elevators
for cars. Must have been
a great amenity for jeweler tenants
who carried v aluable merchandise
in their automobiles. There was a restaurant
below the dome called the
Stratosphere Lounge that was rumored
to be a speakeasy during Prohibition. Look at all that life
along the river's edge. Love it! A little bubbly anyone? The Carbide and
Carbon building from 1929 by the
Burnham Brothers clad in lovely dark
green terra cotta, features a gold leaf crown that the architects
said was inspired by the cork in a
champagne bottle. The Seventeenth Church
of Christ Scientist from 1968 is a low rise
modern architectural gem surrounded by
soaring towers on a very prominent site. It was designed by
architect Harry Weese. Heavy concrete walls create a serene
skylit space, amid the hustle and
bustle of the city. We're back at
Michigan Avenue, and if we were
taking this tour, say 250 years ago, this is where
we would end. Because remember, this
was the lakefront. So now as we
continue east, all of the land on
both sides of the boat is manmade land. The process of adding
land to our lakefront began in the early 1800s, when soldiers
from Fort Dearborn cut a channel
through the sandbar that blocked the
mouth of the river. But the channel
quickly began filling up with
sand again. So to keep it open they extended a
pier into the lake. Prevailing winds
and currents piled up sand
against the pier forming a new
parcel of land. It didn't appear on maps, so it quickly became a
lawless squatters camp and vice district known as "the Sands." Enter a Chicago character you could not make up, even if you tried. He was a circus promoter, a hapless boat captain, and all-around
ne'er-do-well named, George Wellington
Streeter. In 1886, Streeter ran his
leaky steamboat aground on "the Sands"
near the spot where the John Hancock
Building stands today. He decided to
live right there and opened an unofficial
city landfill around his boat. Within a few years he was sitting
on 186-acres of newly created land, which he claimed
for himself. He declared that
local authorities had no jurisdiction there. He and his wife
defended the property with a shotgun and
a meat cleaver. Streeter sold lots cheap, and welcomed squatters. This horrified his wealthy and influential neighbors
in the Gold Coast. They launched
legal actions, and staged police raids, including several full
blown armed battles. Streeter was
jailed many times, but held on for
over 30 years until he was evicted
for good in 1918 after being arrested for selling liquor
without a license. Today Streeterville
is some of the priciest real
estate in Chicago. While Streeter
gets the credit for creating a
lot of this land on the north bank
of the river, It was the Illinois
Central railroad that created this huge
parcel of land to the south. Their train line ran
right up the lakefront into downtown Chicago, and then fanned out into a giant railroad yard and freight terminal at the mouth of
the bustling, industrial Chicago River. Today that industry
is long gone here. Replaced by a
self-contained city of modernist towers connected by
cold consourses called Illinois Center, master planned by Mies
Van Der Rohe's office. The 1960s concept
in urban planning was justifiably criticized for its isolation from
the surrounding city. Vehicle traffic
circulates underneath, on multiple bewildering
levels of roadways. Thankfully in recent years the complex has been
opened up to the streets. The Chicago
Architecture Foundation gave it a big vote
of confidence, by moving their offices
and tour center here, overlooking the Chicago's
First Lady docks. This landscaped path, east of Michigan Avenue, turned island
party paradise, was built years
before the Riverwalk, to mask the ugly elevated
roadways of Illinois Center. Across the river from
Illinois Center, the former Equitable
Building from 1965, is different from all
those other boxy, modernist towers,
in one key way. It was designed
by a woman. Natalie de Blois worked
at Skidmore Owings and Merrill. An SOM partner wrote that
the firm's male architects often got credit
for her work. You might think NBC Tower is a 1920s art
moderne skyscraper, with its vertical
stripes of stone, tapering profile, and rooftop spire. But it's actually an
homage to that style from 1989, by Adrian Smith formerly of Skidmore
Owings and Merrill. On Columbus Drive bridge, is a relief sculpture
by Milton Horn, that was resurrected
from a scrap heap. Horn created it in 1954 for a city parking garage. When the garage was
demolished in 1983, the sculpture was ditched in a dry park district
swimming pool, and later moved
to a salvage yard. It layed there forgotten, until it was rediscovered
in the 1990s. It was restored and given a new place of
honor here in 1998. Hey environmentalists... here's one way
the Chicago River has been going
green for decades. It's Chicago's
one-of-a-kind St. Patrick's Day ritual, in which plumbers
union dyes the river. The head of the union
got the idea in 1962 when he thought
about the green dye plumbers use to
trace sources of pollution in the river. The Mayor, who was a
friend of the union boss, gave his approval. That first year, they used a hundred
pounds of dye and the river stayed
green for a week. Since then, the crew
has used forty pounds, just enough to last a day. Ahead of us, is a show that lasts more than one day a year. A giant arc of water spouts out of
a water cannon for five minutes at
the top of ever hour. Wait a minute! What time is it right now? It's part of
the Nicholas J. Melas Centennial Fountain by architect Dirk Lohan. It began spouting in 1989 to honor the
hundredth birthday of the organization that reversed the flow of
the Chicago River, cleans our wastewater, and controls flooding, the Metropolitan Water
Reclamation District. Across the river, the Aqua tower
by Jeanne Gang became an instant icon when it opened 2009. It contains condos, townhomes and the swanky
Radisson Blu Hotel. Gang says the
wavy balconies were inspired in part by limestone outcroppings around the Great Lakes. Nearby another Jeanne
Gang skyline standout broke ground in 2016. In fact, Chicago's
third tallest building, Vista Tower. The design includes
high-priced condos and a luxurious
Chinese-owned Wanda Hotel. The 83rd floor
originally slated to be a pricy penthouse, is instead empty to allow wind to blow
through the building and reduce sway. Vista and Wanda are the highest-profile
buildings in a massive $4
billion development, called Lakeshore East, built on the
former railyard between Illinois Center
and the Lakefront. And it couldn't be more
different from Illinois Center. Instead of minimalist
modernism, it's full of
human-scale variety, from modern glass towers to townhomes, stores
and a private school, all built around
a six-acre park. Across the river
in Streeterville, a forest of residential
towers and hotels, has risen on old
industrial land since the 1980s. Amidst all these
new buildings on the river's north bank is one relic from
industrial days. This old shipping
terminal, built around 1900, fronts on a manmade side
channel to the river, called Ogden Slip. It once extended east almost to the lakefront, before it was chopped off, to build Lake Shore Drive. Today loft residences in
this historic building, offer one of the
most intimate waterfront
settings downtown. Ahead of us, the last
bridge on our tour, is this huge
double-decker, with beautiful art
deco bridge houses. It carries Lakeshore
Drive across the river. At the dedication of
the bridge in 1937, Franklin Delano Roosevelt gave his controversial
"quarantine" speech. "It seems to be
unfortunately true, that the epidemic
of world lawlessness is spreading." In it, he proposed that the U.S. might give up isolationism, as the threat of WWII
intensified abroad. For decades, the bridge connected with
Lakeshore Drive to the south via a notorious S-Curve, that went right through
what is now Lakeshore East. Thankfully that was
straightened out in 1986. Passing below
Lake Shore Drive we cross a
sacred boundary. As many Chicagoans know,
all the land along the lakefront, belongs to all of us. It can't be
privately owned, thanks to a notation on one of the city's
first plat maps, declaring that the lakefront
should be public ground, free of all buildings. But there is one
private building east of Lake Shore Drive. It's the curvaceous
Lakepoint Tower, once the tallest apartment
building in the world, from 1968 by George
Schipporeit and John Heinrich. So how did it end up here? Well, land near the
mouth of the river was exempt from the ban
on lakefront buildings, to allow construction
of harbor facilities. That loophole was closed after Lake Point
Tower was completed. Just ahead is the lock that separates the
river from the lake. It was built in 1938 after the U.S. Supreme court ordered Chicago to reduce
the diversion of water, from the lake
into the river. Other Great Lakes states were getting
concerned about the amount of water
we were permanently draining from
Lake Michigan. et per s! The lock reduces that flow to a little over 3,000. Beyond the lock we see a living
reminder of the days, when Chicago was
a great port city. The old Chicago Light has been guiding sea
captains into the harbor since 1893. Sterling Bemis, Looking out
towards the lake, another tall structure
grabs your attention. A 20-story Ferris wheel. It's the star player in Chicago's biggest
lakefront attraction, Navy Pier. The Ferris wheel
was inspired by the world's
first Ferris wheel, built in Chicago, for the World's
Fair of 1893. Navy Pier was envisioned in the 1909 Burnham Plan, to alleviate overcrowding in the bustling
Chicago River. It was designed by
Charles Sumner Frost, and opened in 1916. It served as a naval
training center during WWII. And as the University
of Illinois, following the war. After U of I moved out, The city staged the
legendary ChicagoFest concerts there, to keep the rotting
pier alive. It was reborn
in the 1990s, as a multi million dollar lakefront pleasure ground. If you left Navy Pier to
the tourists years ago, you'll actually
be very surprised at the changes that
have taken place since the Pier's
centenary in 2016. Gone is the clutter and
kitsch of the 1990s. A major facelift has
opened up views of the city, and given us the
swooping "wave wall," that doubles as seating for lakefront attractions, like the fireworks. Let's give that skyline a curtain call
to end our tour. (Passengers applaud) It's hard to believe
this post card view is the same river as that rugged
industrial channel to the south and that little creek behind my childhood home miles to the north. As a kid I had no idea this river would
play such a big role in my life. But in fact it plays a huge role in all of our lives. It's the reason
Chicago is here. For more than a century most of its important work was behind the scenes and much of it still is. But more and more it's taking center stage. And that evolution
will continue for generations to come. Because although this
river flows backwards, it's always moving forward.
