Chicago hotels collection

Rather than dig its sewers down, Chicago raised its streets up: jackscrews were slid beneath the brick buildings, gangs of men turned them in unison, and the façades rose while the shops stayed open. In the Loop, the elevated railway runs on its steel girders a block from the Reliance Building, clad in white glazed terracotta. In Hyde Park, the Robie House stretches out its slender bricks and low roofs, as horizontal as the prairie. Between Michigan Avenue and the lake, Grant Park stays open: Montgomery Ward went to court for years to stop anyone building there, and the judges found in his favour.