The Loop: The ?L? Tracks That Shaped and Saved Chicago
Patrick T. Reardon
Southern Illinois University Press, November 2020

Paperback | 6 x 9 inches | 312 pages | 31 illustrations | English | ISBN: 978-0809338108 | $26.95

PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION:
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. C...