Chicago from the Air
Every day, Chicagoans travel through their city by bike or car, on foot or public transit. But what would we learn if we examine our city from the vantage point of a bird? In Chicago from the Air, we do just that. Seeing the city from above provides a brand-new perspective, enabling us to discover new things about how our city is designed, how it works, and how the city’s motto — Urbs in Horto — plays out today... Read more
What You'll See from the Air
On and Off the Grid
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The Loop
Chicago’s central business district is where the city’s grid system begins.
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State Street and Madison Street
The city’s grid system is calculated from the starting point at State and Madison streets. Read more.
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Halsted Street
Halsted is one of the city’s large arterial streets, running north from West Pullman all the way to Lakeview.
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43rd & Wallace and North Avenue & Pulaski
While Chicago is laid out on an even grid, every now and then there’s a hiccup, like at 43rd and Wallace or North Avenue and Pulaski.
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North, Milwaukee, & Damen
Diagonal streets like Milwaukee cut through the right angles of the grid. Most of them follow the path of former Native American trails.
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Rogers Avenue, Indian Boundary Park, and Indian Boundary Golf Course
The diagonal line of Rogers Avenue was established in an 1816 treaty that banished Native Americans to living north of it, reserving territory close to the Chicago River for white settlers. It bisects Indian Boundary Park and eventually hits Indian Boundary Golf Course.
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Ogden & North Branch, Ogden & Clybourn
From the air, you can still see where Ogden used to run diagonally across Goose Island and through Lincoln Park, although you might not recognize it at ground level.
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Clark & Armitage
The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre happened just a few blocks from where Ogden terminated at Clark Street.
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South Chicago
A row of houses in South Chicago follows an abandoned B&O Railroad right of way, adding a slant to the neighborhood.
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Old Bridgeport
Old Bridgeport, originally called Hardscrabble, predates the grid, hence its diagonal orientation.
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Eisenhower, Dan Ryan, and Kennedy Expressways
In the 1950s and 60s, large swaths of disproportionately immigrant, Black, and Brown neighborhoods were bulldozed to build these expressways.
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Beverly and Grand Boulevard
Many wealthier neighborhoods, like Beverly, have a lush canopy of trees. Meanwhile, neighborhoods like Grand Boulevard lack trees – a sign of inequity.
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Sandburg Village
Sandburg Village, at LaSalle and Clark Streets, replaced a Puerto Rican barrio nicknamed “La Clark.”
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Riverside, IL
West-suburban Riverside was one of America’s first planned suburbs, and was designed to look “natural,” with its sinuous streets.
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Rolling Meadows and Kenilworth
In some suburbs, developers laid streets in a curving pattern to differentiate from the urban street grid.
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Auburn Park
Auburn Park, with its scenic lagoon, is a remnant of the wetland that was drained to develop the rural retreat of a community in the late 1800s.
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Old Norwood Park
Norwood Park was envisioned as a resort area in the 1860s.
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Old Edgebrook
Old Edgebrook was built in the 1890s for officials of a nearby railroad, but plans to build a larger commuter suburb were never fulfilled, leaving the surrounding land to be bought up by the Forest Preserves in 1918.
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Scottsdale and Jeffrey Manor
Some neighborhoods within city limits were designed to feel like a suburb.
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Doin' Work
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Port of Chicago and Calumet River
The maritime industry moved here to the Calumet River on the South Side in the early 1900s.
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Exelon City Solar
Exelon claims this is the nation’s largest urban solar plant, producing enough to power 1,500 homes per year.
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Ford Assembly Plant
Ford’s oldest continuously operating plant opened in 1924 to produce Model-Ts. Now it cranks out Ford Explorers and Lincoln Aviators.
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Lake Calumet
Lake Calumet was once known for its natural beauty and abundant wildlife. After the anticipated opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway in 1958, the lake was deepened and long peninsulas were added to serve as slips for freighters.
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Big Marsh Bike Park
As part of a repurposing of industrial land for recreation and nature, the eastern shore of the Lake Calumet, formerly full of waste from steel mills, is now available for stunt bike riders.
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The 78 Parcel
This swath of land was once a tangle of railroad yards straddling a bend in the river straightened between 1928 and 1930. Now, developer Related Midwest is building a $7 billion mixed-use development.
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Major Taylor Trail
This Far South Side bike trail on an abandoned rail line is named for a Black cyclist who won the 1899 world championship who was routinely banned from racing in the United States.
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The 606
This popular trail is built on a rail embankment abandoned in the 1990s.
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Palmisano Park
This manmade canyon operated as a quarry for about 130 years before being turned into a landfill for construction debris in 1970. By 2009, it had become a new park designed by Site Design.
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Bubbly Creek
This notorious tributary to the Chicago River’s South Branch was once an open sewer running from the nearby Union Stockyards that bubbled due to the decomposing animal waste in it.
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Stickney Water Treatment Plant
This is one of the largest water treatment plants in the world, serving 2.3 million people.
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Goose Island
Chicago’s first mayor William B. Ogden created Goose Island in the mid-1800s by digging a channel east of the river.
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Thornton Quarry
This quarry in the far south suburbs is one of the largest in the world, used for stone that’s crushed up to make gravel and concrete.
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Marina City, Aqua Tower, and Vista Tower
These downtown skyscrapers make creative use of concrete.
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The Reliance Building, Merchandise Mart, Burnham Center, and AMA Plaza
What do these downtown buildings have in common? Metal frames.
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Willis Tower
At 1,450 feet, this was once the tallest building in the world. It’s still the highest peak on Chicago’s skyline.
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City Hall
Chicago has more than 500 green roofs, including on City Hall. They help clean the air and keep rainwater from overwhelming sewers.
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A City in a Garden
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Skokie Lagoons
The Skokie Lagoons were carved out of flood-prone swampland during the Depression by the Civilian Conservation Corps.
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Chicago Botanic Garden
Opened in 1972, the 385-acre Chicago Botanic Garden features 27 gardens, nine islands, and four natural areas.
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Jackson Park, Wooden Island, and the Sky Landing Sculpture
Landscape architects Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux designed this pleasure ground in the mid-1800s. Before it was finished it was chosen to host the 1893 World’s Fair. Only a few traces of the Fair remain, like the Wooded Island, which hosts a 2016 sculpture by Yoko Ono.
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Museum of Science and Industry
The Museum of Science and Industry is the last pavilion from the Fair that is still standing.
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Independence Boulevard
One of America’s first boulevard systems connects a chain of large parks on the South and West Sides dating from the mid-1800s.
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Garfield Park
William Le Baron Jenney, later credited with designing the world’s first skyscraper, was the chief landscape designer for Garfield Park.
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Garfield Park Conservatory
Opened in 1906, this is one of the world’s largest greenhouses, designed by Jens Jensen in the shape of a Midwestern haystack.
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Bahá’i House of Worship
The Bahá’i temple on the lakefront in Wilmette is one of only ten in the world, and the only one in the United States.
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North Shore Congregation
Minoru Yamasaki, architect of New York’s World Trade Center towers, designed this mid-twentieth century temple.
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Orland Park Prayer Center
Opened in 2006, this Islamic center is inspired by the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem.
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BAPS Mandir
This Hindu temple was literally shipped from India in 40,000 pieces chiseled by some 3,000 artisans.
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St. Mary of the Angels
Twenty-six angels surround a dome resembling St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome on this church built to serve tens of thousands of Polish immigrants.
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St. Stanislaus Kostka
The Kennedy Expressway was routed around St. Stanislaus Kostka, which is built in the so-called “Polish cathedral” style.
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Quinn Chapel
This church, founded in 1844, is home to Chicago’s oldest Black congregation. It was a stop on the Underground Railroad, and hosted famous speakers.
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First United Methodist Church
This unusual skyscraper was built in 1924 as a combination office building and church. It has a sanctuary at street level and a tiny chapel in the base of the rooftop spire.
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35th and 41st Street Bridges
These dramatic pedestrian bridges allow South-Siders access to the lakefront over Lake Shore Drive and the Illinois Central railroad.
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Douglas Tomb
Senator Stephen A. Douglas, a slaveholder, had an estate in Bronzeville, and his tomb and statue still tower over the Black neighborhood.
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Northerly Island
The Burnham Plan of 1909 called for a string of manmade islands connected by bridges to the lakefront park, but Northerly Island was the only one ever built.
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Soldier Field
The Burnham Plan of 1909 called for “athletic grounds,” where Soldier Field now stands.
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Museum Campus
After the northbound lanes of Lake Shore Drive were relocated to the west in 1996, the Field Museum joined the Shedd Aquarium and Adler Planetarium to form Museum Campus.
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Grant Park
For years, Grant Park was the stage for bitter battles over access to the lakefront.
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Millennium Park
In 2004, the last lakefront remnant of railyards was covered up with the completion of MIllennium Park.
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Lead support for CHICAGO FROM THE AIR is provided by BMO Harris Bank and The Negaunee Foundation.
Additional support is provided by AAA in partnership with Hertz, ComEd, ITW, Mark and Lisa Pinsky, Donna Van Eekeren, The Joseph & Bessie Feinberg Foundation, Judy and John McCarter, Ken Norgan, Joan and Paul Rubschlager, Chris and Priya Valenti, Carl Buddig and Company, and an anonymous donor.
