Movable Bridges - Kinzie Street Railroad Bridge

Movable highway bridges usually stay closed while railroad bridges stay open. However the Kinzie Street Railroad Bridge is always open because the tracks have been removed for the Chicago Sun Times Building.

This bridge was built in 1908 and at the time it was the largest single leaf bascule bridge in the world. The superstructure was built by the Strauss Bascule Bridge Company and the huge substructure was built by the Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Company.

The bridge remains open as a Chicago landmark on the North Chicago River, looking a little like Claes Oldenburg's Batcolumn which is nearby on Madison Avenue.

We'll look at the bridge from the other side tomorrow.

Movable Bridges - Kinzie Street Railroad Bridge by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.