Monday, February 28, 2005

The pedway you never knew about

And speaking of weird cool things in downtown Chicago of which no one seems to have knowledge: Other local metafeed website Gapersblock.com has a notice about a recent article in the Chicago Tribune about our Loop's often-forgotten pedway system, including a downloadable map. The Chicago pedway is one of those weird projects in this city, that various administrations have been working on and adding to over the last half-century, without anyone in the government really publicizing the project or even letting the general public know about it. It's quite amazing, though - it links over 25 buildings in the downtown grid of skyscrapers commonly known as the "Loop," allowing a person to get from one side of the grid to the other without ever having to go outside and face the winter weather. Back in the '90s I used to work for an ad agency whose offices opened at the extreme northeast edge of the pedway, which is how I first learned about the system myself.