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The Loop: The “L” Tracks That Shaped and Saved Chicago
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About The Loop: The “L” Tracks That Shaped And Saved
Product Description The structure that anchors Chicago Every day Chicagoans rely on the loop of elevated train tracks to get to their jobs, classrooms, or homes in the city’s downtown. But how much do they know about the single most important structure in the history of the Windy City? In engagingly brisk prose, Patrick T. Reardon unfolds the fascinating story about how Chicago’s elevated Loop was built, gave its name to the downtown, helped unify the city, saved the city’s economy, and was itself saved from destruction in the 1970s. This unique volume combines urban history, biography, engineering, architecture, transportation, culture, and politics to explore the elevated Loop’s impact on the city’s development and economy and on the way Chicagoans see themselves. The Loop rooted Chicago’s downtown in a way unknown in other cities, and it protected that area—and the city itself—from the full effects of suburbanization during the second half of the twentieth century. Masses of data underlie new insights into what has made Chicago’s downtown, and the city as a whole, tick. The Loop features a cast of colorful Chicagoans, such as legendary lawyer Clarence Darrow, poet Edgar Lee Masters, mayor Richard J. Daley, and the notorious Gray Wolves of the Chicago City Council. Charles T. Yerkes, an often-demonized figure, is shown as a visionary urban planner, and engineer John Alexander Low Waddell, a world-renowned bridge creator, is introduced to Chicagoans as the designer of their urban railway. This fascinating exploration of how one human-built structure reshaped the social and economic landscape of Chicago is the definitive book on Chicago’s elevated Loop. Review "In simple and memorable prose, Reardon describes the Loop as 'the place where Chicago is most Chicago.' This could have been a dry book about infrastructure, but Reardon keeps it lively with descriptions of the history and the characters behind the Loop’s development."—Mary Wisniewski, Third Coast Review “The Loop will engage the casual Chicago reader as well as the academic, and serves as an important contribution to Second City history. With Reardon driving, The Loop reliably and entertainingly takes us where we need to go.”—David Steven Rappoport, Windy City Reviews “It is an odd paradox that few Chicagoans would call the ‘L’ beautiful, yet we’re quite sure and happy that it defines the very essence of our town. It is a set of trains screeching overhead, yet also a place—the Loop!—and a state of mind. Now a superb reporter, Patrick T. Reardon, tells the full and fascinating story of how Chicago built the ‘L’ and how the ‘L’ built Chicago. Read this book on the ‘L’ and you might miss your stop.”—Tom McNamee, editorial page editor of the Chicago Sun-Times “Patrick T. Reardon’s The Loop is a wonderfully engaging study that goes well beyond a descriptive historical account to tell us how much this remarkably dynamic piece of urban transportation planning and engineering has meant and continues to mean to Chicago and Chicagoans. This exceptional book enables us to see, as if for the first time, something that is right under our noses. It is almost impossible to imagine downtown Chicago and the Loop ‘L’ without each other, and Patrick T. Reardon explains just why that is so in a lively narrative full of information and insights.”—Carl Smith, author of Chicago's Great Fire: The Destruction and Resurrection of an Iconic American City “Reardon offers readers his considerable skills as a journalist and detective. Read this before your next trip downtown.”—James Grossman, executive director, American Historical Association “Years spent as a newspaper reporter have given Reardon the gifts of great storytelling and the doggedness to separate fact from myth. If you’re looking for dry transit history, buy a different book.”—Tim Samuelson, cultural historian for the city of Chicago “Reardon, Chicago’s preeminent urban affairs journalist, has written a fascinating and ind
