Loop Alleys and L Tracks

The intersection of North Wabash Avenue and East Lake Street sits directly beneath a sharp, right-angle turn in the elevated railway tracks that defines the geometry of the Chicago Loop. The iron structure of the L train system creates a…

Couch Place is a narrow, nondescript alley in the Loop, positioned directly behind the James M. Nederlander Theatre. Today, it functions as a service corridor and pedestrian shortcut, but it is known historically as the site of a disaster…

Calhoun Place is a narrow urban alleyway stretching through the city blocks of the Loop. It is named for John Calhoun, a pioneer printer who moved to Chicago in eighteen thirty-three and founded the Chicago Democrat, which was the city’s…

The Quincy station is a striking fixture of the Chicago transit network, recognizable by its late nineteenth-century exterior featuring pressed metal wreaths and fluted columns. Originally opened in eighteen ninety-seven, it stands as one…

The Chicago Board of Trade Building anchors the end of LaSalle Street with a gray Indiana limestone facade that rises in dramatic, vertical tiers. Completed in nineteen thirty, the forty-four story skyscraper was designed by the firm…

Federal Plaza is defined by the stark, black steel-and-glass towers of the Chicago Federal Center, which rise above a broad, granite-paved square. Designed by the architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, the complex adheres to a rigid grid…

Hero Coffee and Bagel Bar occupies a tiny, three-story brick building at the end of Pickwick Place, a narrow alleyway tucked just east of State Street. Measuring only nineteen feet wide and nineteen feet deep, the structure dates back to…