Ogden Avenue (US 32)

[bugo]

What is your opinion on the removal of Ogden Avenue (former US 32 and probably former US 34) in Chicago north of the river? Did anybody get to drive it before it was removed? The section that went past Cabrini Green was dangerous for workers, but that isn't a good reason to remove it. It was removed and very little was done with the right of way. Also, the trend today is to remove freeways and replace them with boulevards. Ogden was already a boulevard and that apparently wasn't good enough for the anti-highway crowd. As the article below says, it was not connected to the expressway system very well which hurt its usefulness. The "tear it down!" crowd's reasons for tearing it down weren't very logical and weren't based in reason. I think Chicago fucked up majorly by tearing this road down. What do you think?

This guy thinks it should have been left in place:

http://forgottenchicago.com/features/the-extension-and-removal-of-ogden-avenue/

[Zeffy]

"Tear it down!" An at grade street deserves to get torn up why..? Seems like a waste of money to me. Plus, even if it was underused, it could still be used to get to places within the city.

[Brandon]

Ogden Avenue north (actually east) of the North Branch was never US-32 or US-34.  The US-route left Ogden at Jackson and Adams (one-way pair) for the Loop.

Ogden east of the North branch really serves little purpose as it ends there and never connected to something else, like say, LSD.

[Mr Downtown]

Ogden north of Lake was created in the late 1920s, the only one of the crosstown diagonal arterials recommended in Burnham & Bennett's Plan of Chicago ever attempted.  It required two expensive bridges, an overpass on Goose Island, and chopping through the German working-class neighborhood of Old Town.  To us, Haussman's work cutting boulevards through Parisian slums is ancient history; but a century ago to Burnham, it was modern city planning practice.  Chicago had slums all through that area, and Burnham's prescription was giving them better ventilation–overlooking the fact that Chicago's ordinary streets were 4 to 6 times as wide as their Parisian counterparts.

Forty years later, the expressway network had removed the traffic necessity for that part of Ogden, and the broad arterial with unfinished edges was, ironically, itself thought to be a blighting influence on the small-scale streets of Old Town/Lincoln Park neighborhood.  So even while North Avenue was being widened, Ogden was vacated in Old Town, from Clybourn to Clark, and building sites and pocket parks today mark the right-of-way.  Walking around the expensive and thriving neighborhood today, it's hard to say removing Ogden was the wrong decision.

The Goose Island viaduct and two drawbridges were in bad shape by the late 1980s, so it wasn't too difficult a decision to just remove them since traffic was so light on what remained of Ogden.

[bugo]

Ogden Avenue north (actually east) of the North Branch was never US-32 or US-34.  The US-route left Ogden at Jackson and Adams (one-way pair) for the Loop.

Ogden east of the North branch really serves little purpose as it ends there and never connected to something else, like say, LSD.

I don't know how accurate this map is but it shows 32 going east further than that:

[NE2]

It was torn down because it was snake-infested.

[SEWIGuy]

I have taken Ogden Avenue from just west of downtown out of the Chicago area a number of times.  It is really an interesting drive as you can from its size that it used to be a more important route than it is now. 

[02 Park Ave]

When was Ogden Avenue truncated?  What is its current eastern terminus?

I am only familiar with Chicago this century but I do know that Ogden Avenue is named after the city's first mayor.

[ET21]

Ogden Avenue north (actually east) of the North Branch was never US-32 or US-34.  The US-route left Ogden at Jackson and Adams (one-way pair) for the Loop.

Ogden east of the North branch really serves little purpose as it ends there and never connected to something else, like say, LSD.

I don't know how accurate this map is but it shows 32 going east further than that:

That is an extremely old map, probably pre-Interstate act

[andy3175]

Ogden Avenue north (actually east) of the North Branch was never US-32 or US-34.  The US-route left Ogden at Jackson and Adams (one-way pair) for the Loop.

Ogden east of the North branch really serves little purpose as it ends there and never connected to something else, like say, LSD.

I don't know how accurate this map is but it shows 32 going east further than that:

Thank you for locating this map. Not only does it show US 32 making its way along Ogden Ave to US 41, but it also shows a different routing for US 12 and US 14 north of the Loop. Also notable is the appearance of US 330, which is long gone.