Before the Kennedy Expressway: What Madison Street looked like in early 1900s Chicago
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Photo: Charles R. Clark/Chicago History Museum/Getty Images
This week's History Mystery revealed: The photo captures the 700-800 blocks of West Madison Street near Halsted Street, which is now part of the West Loop neighborhood.
- The buildings in this photo are long gone, mostly demolished to make way for the Kennedy Expressway by 1960.
Yes, but: Let's look at the clues. The business signs in this photo advertise selling furniture, shoes, pianos and medical services. But that doesn't give us enough information to identify the street.
Zoom in: Several readers pointed to the sign for the Haymarket Theater as the giveaway, which served as a premier vaudeville theater space at the time. Its location was 726 W. Madison St.
- With that information, we can ascertain that this photo was taken a block or two west of the theater, in front of the former Mid-City Trust & Savings Bank Building, which was not built until 1912.
- The Haymarket Theater ended as a second-run theater before falling into disrepair in the 1940s. It was demolished in 1949.
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Zoom out: Over the 20th century, Madison Street saw many iterations, including Chicago's infamous Skid Row, which offered flop houses and saloons for weary travelers from the nearby train stations.
- In the late 1950s, construction of the massive Kennedy Expressway cut out most of what we see in this photo.
- Today, this stretch of Madison Street includes a Whole Foods, a posh new condo tower and several bank buildings.