Halsted Street North Branch Bridge

View Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) Documentation For This Bridge

Bridge Documented: August 12, 2006

This extremely early and rare historic bridge is slated for demolition and replacement by Chicago Department of Transportation!

Heritage At Great Risk

HistoricBridges.org has normally considered Chicago to have one of the strongest commitments to historic bridges seen in any large city in North America. Chicago has chosen to preserve, maintain, and rehabilitate many of its historic movable bridges. However this exemplary track record is beginning to develop a serious crack, since with the exception of the Cortland Street Bridge, there appears to be a trend to demolish all of Chicago's earliest bascule bridges with the exception of the Cortland Street Bridge. With the North Avenue Bridge demolished, this Halsted Street Bridge slated for demolition, and the only other two bridges from this generation of bridge remaining in Chicago appearing to be in need of paint with no recent signs of rehabilitation visible, Chicago is at risk for losing one of the most important groups of historic bridges in the city. While the preservation of the nationally significant Cortland Street Bridge is to be applauded, the preservation of these earliest (pre-1910) bascule bridges should not be limited to a single example. Worse, when Chicago does choose to demolish these bridges, there is no effort to reincorporate the original materials into the replacement bridge. Instead, Chicago chooses to construct bizarre looking ultra-modern bridges that have no heritage value whatsoever and offer no interpretation of the history that has been lost. Furthermore, these bridges do not fit with Chicago, which is a city that has a stronger connection to historic structures than it does modern structures, one of the reasons why heritage tourism is a significant part of Chicago. A better solution, which would better coexist with Chicago's rich atmosphere of heritage, would be to place the historic trusses of the bascule bridge onto the replacement bridge as decorations. This has been done successfully with truss bridges elsewhere.

The proposed replacement bridge is shown below. As is clearly visible, the bridge looks nothing like the historic bridge, nor could it reasonably be described as "context sensitive" since its overly modern appearance conflicts with the broad, diverse collection of historic structures in Chicago.

About This Bridge

This bridge was the eighth bridge built to the first bascule bridge design seen in Chicago. Note that there are not eight bridges of this design remaining in Chicago however, thanks to things like the North Avenue Bridge. The superstructure for this bridge was built by the Jules E. Roentheld Company, and the substructure was built by the Fitzsimmons and Connell Company both of Chicago.

HABS HAER mentions that this bridge, when built, had a "displayed an aesthetic concern that was totally lacking." While the large, truss-filled bridge might have been considered an eyesore back in the early 20th century, I think the bridge can be considered very beautiful, and among Chicago's most aesthetic of bridges here in the 21st century. In a world where simplicity and lack of aesthetic concern is the order of the day in modern bridge design, this bridge displays a complex geometric art not seen even in the so-called aesthetic North Avenue Bridge replacement. From the curved shape of the overall bridge, to the truss configurations, to the extensive v-lacing and lattice on this bridge, the complexity is evident. As one of the largest of this early bascule design seen in Chicago, the bridge is even more impressive. While the complexity and massive design of the trusses might have not looked as good in a 1900s city filled with similar industrial features, today, the bridge stands out as a complex and intricate work of art compared to the simple concrete and steel beam bridges built today. I will also point out that the bridge actually did try to incorporate some design that the builders were trying to use to make the bridge more acceptable to the people of the time. These designs today continue to add beaty to the bridge today. The knee braces that are on the portal bracing overhead at each end of the bridge are curved and feature circle designs cut out of them. Also, the sway/portal bracing has an arched design on top as well.