Is this former ROW of the canceled Crosstown Expressway near Midway? (Chicago)

[dietermoreno]

Driving to Midway Airport in Chicago along Cicero Ave after getting off I-55 at Cicero heading Sb, I've always noticed this strange "park" that is several blocks wide, but instead of looking like a park it has the street grid continuing complete with light poles and telephone and electric poles with torn down telephone wires and torn down electric wires and the land is vacant grass.

Today I looked at the Crosstown Expressway alignment, and it looked like it was supposed to go right on top of Cicero Ave.

Looking closer on Google maps, it looks like this group of vacant blocks forms the right of way for some sort of freeway to freeway interchange.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/48422+W+44th+St,+Chicago,+IL+60638/@41.8132474,-87.7452794,632m/data=!3m2!1e3!4b1!4m6!1m3!3m2!1s0x0:0x968a60d78f2950a5!2sChicago+Midway+International+Airport!3m1!1s0x880e317c9e0bca2f:0x4994c96eda80625c!6m1!1e1


Farther to the south, north of St., there's also this half mile long strip of parking lots the same width as the vacant land to the south that looks out of place.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Midway+Park+Saver/@41.7853691,-87.7379,632m/data=!3m2!1e3!4b1!4m6!1m3!3m2!1s0x0:0x968a60d78f2950a5!2sChicago+Midway+International+Airport!3m1!1s0x0000000000000000:0xaca50717616f4373!6m1!1e1


Continuing to the south, north of 67th St., there's also this vacant land paralleling a rail line.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/4558+W+Marquette+Rd,+Chicago,+IL+60629/@41.771479,-87.737008,633m/data=!3m2!1e3!4b1!4m6!1m3!3m2!1s0x0:0x968a60d78f2950a5!2sChicago+Midway+International+Airport!3m1!1s0x880e30f89d6853b1:0x18035cc1c8380bc8!6m1!1e1

Continuing south, north of 75th St., there's also similar vacant land paralleing the same rail line.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/41%C2%B045'29.0%22N+87%C2%B043'42.2%22W/@41.758047,-87.728393,633m/data=!3m2!1e3!4b1!4m2!3m1!1s0x0:0x0

[NE2]

I don't know about the first, but the others are all old rail rights-of-way.

[ET21]

If you're talking about the land between I-55 and 45th street that used to be all Project housing called LeClaire Courts, really sketchy area. I don't know why the entire area was leveled and the street grid remained since I was very young when it happened. Have a very big feeling it was to deter crime

I can still remember coming back home from downtown with my dad and looking at all the rundown apartments.

[Mr Downtown]

Vacant land on the west side of Cicero Ave., as noted, was the former Leclaire Courts public housing project.

Vacant land along the east side of Cicero could well have been acquired and cleared for the Crosstown Expressway.  The final design was an innovative split design, with northbound lanes just east of Cicero, and southbound lanes some 1200 feet east of there, along the Belt Railroad of Chicago.

Twenty years ago, the cleared land was pretty easy to see, but now most of those parcels have some sort of new development on them.

[Henry]

Had I-494 been built, it would've made a very cool drive indeed! BTW, how long would this "wrong-way" arrangement have gone?

[Mr Downtown]

how long would this "wrong-way" arrangement have gone?

That's always been a little vague.  The drawings in Architectural Forum Sept. 1968 are for the section from I-55 south to about 79th.  That seems to be the section where local opposition was fiercest, and where the special design team focused its efforts.