The Oak Street tunnel from Michigan Avenue to Northbound Lake Shore Drive Opened on October 5, 1964.

The junction of Michigan Avenue, Oak Street, and Lake Shore Drive before the tunnel was constructed. Circa 1920s.

The $5 million tunnel at Oak Street was designed to move northbound traffic on Michigan Avenue onto a ramp providing access to northbound Lake Shore Drive, which opened for its first rush hour. The tunnel eliminates a bottleneck that has plagued Lake Shore Drive at Oak Street for years.

The tunnel extends under new northbound and southbound strips of Lake Shore Drive. The 27-foot wide underground roadway will handle only northbound traffic, which has been using a detour over what will become the new southbound segment of the drive.

The area today with the tunnel peeking out in the lower-left corner of the photo.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

The First Chicago Project by Daniel Burnham (1909) Began on November 14, 1910.

The Chicago City Council took the first step in implementing Burnham's 1909 Plan of Chicago when it voted to widen Twelfth Street ('12th' Street was renamed Roosevelt Road on May 25, 1919) from Ashland Avenue to Michigan Avenue.

Twelfth Street, Chicago, before widening the street. Circa 1895.

The Chicago Plan was underwritten by the Commercial Club of Chicago as a framework for beautifying the city while, at the same time, making it run more efficiently. Improving Twelfth Street directly relates to several of the plan's goals. It will enhance a major artery to and from the central business district while providing a more efficient way to view an improved lakefront, one of the plan's primary goals. The Tribune reports, "From even the more western sections, citizens could make their way by such a broad, beautiful boulevard directly to Grant Park, and it is for that reason that it is one of the first changes urged for completion by the plan commission." 

Although the council's move is not in the form of an ordinance, it does charge the Board of Local Improvements with the responsibility of drafting an ordinance to obtain a strip of property 52 feet wide along the south side of Twelfth Street between Ashland and Michigan, providing the space necessary for a boulevard that will be 118 feet wide. It took some time to get there, but this, the first step forward in implementing a pathway to the "City Beautiful," led to the street we know today as Roosevelt Road being widened in 1917.

Looking west on Roosevelt Road from Halsted Street, Chicago. 1940

 

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.