Welcome to Chicago!*
As you tour my fair city and inspect proposed locations for the various events, please don't give the minor sports short shrift.
Specifically, I believe Chicago is uniquely positioned to catapult the awkwardly-named "Competitive Spackle and Fluffernutter Road Giant Urban Slalom" from its current standing as a little-known demonstration sport into Major Event Status if it is situated in the just right venue. So please, take a few moments out of your very busy schedule to consider this list of some of our largest and most impressive examples of local municipal thoroughfare cratering and potholery, as well as a few, helpful, site-specific safety tips you should observe when poking around underground during your inspection:
Half the bridges in the city (Mind the trolls)
Belmont
Webster (Mind the freelance Biosphereians)
Grand
Milwaukee (Mind the shoe fetishists)
Addison
Western (Mind the copper miners)
Ogden
Broadway (Mind the passed-out-drunk Loyola juniors)
Lawrence
Irving Park (Don’t believe the locals when they say the potholes are “Underground Cubs Parking" and try to charge you $20)
Touhy
Sheridan (Mind the Evil Sewer Clowns)
Green
Lincoln (Mind the feral Scientologists)
Jersey
Ridge (Mind the militias)
Estes
Devon (Mind the underground meth lab complexes)
Winthrop
Hollywood (Mind the Mole People)
Bryn Mawr
Clark (Mind the gay club DJ wars)
95th
Lawrence (Mind Montresor, because he does NOT have a cask of Amontillado down there.)
Jeffrey
Washtenaw (Mind the vampires)
18th
Fullerton (Mind the CHUDS)
16th
Logan (Mind the Green Party headquarters)
Racine
Cicero (Juss pay da man an dere won’t be no trouble)
Loomis
State (Mind the shrimp farms)
2/3 of all highway on- and off-ramps
Canal (For Chrissake, Don’t Pay The Ferryman!)
Madison
55th (Mind the schools of half-economics-major-half-tubeworm grad students living off the heat and nutrients the U of C’s underwater volcanic vents; their bite causes minor skin irritation and their policies will destroy your economy.)
Division
Archer (Mind Resurrection Mary)
115th
North (Mind the families of laid off real estate brokers)
74th
Chicago (Mind the ghost of Nelson Algren)
Cottage Grove
Of course these are just off-the-top-of-my-head suggestions of some of my sentimental favorites; a more comprehensive list available here.
Thanks, IOC, and good hunting!
Your pal
driftglass
*Photo taken by Kurt Schmielau at Belsy Court and Wabansia Street and borrowed from this site.
3 comments:
You don't mean none a this in a bad way, though, do ya?
Um, can you describe what is actually happening in that photo? Are the streets in Chicago so nasty that they mold, encompass and consume vehicles? Or so caustic they melt them?
75th and South Chicago. Those aren't potholes, they're Panzerzerstorers. The viaduct darkness adds to the scene. I've been gone twenty years, and at no time in subsequent visits has it been fixed.
Of course, no one on the Committee is going that far south.
PS: does the Skyway still fall off in chunks?
Don't forget Lake Shore Drive, where the holes between the lanes are so big that if you try to change lanes, you will be swallowed up and never seen again.
The Romans built roads that lasted for centuries. How is it that this city can't get it right?
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