Chicago's Forgotten Island

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I can’t get enough of Chicago’s industrial history. What an interesting city. And as one friend who lived there called it: “an architect’s playground”

Ryan, you definitely need to do the video about Ogden Ave. It was a fascinating street, and I even remember traveling on that viaduct in 1992 before it closed. The fact that Ogden used to go all the way to Clark and Armitage is unknown to most people who are under 60 years old. Bits and pieces of it just kept disappearing over the years, and by the time I was a teenager, it stopped at North Ave. and Larrabee. Now, of course, it stops just north of Chicago Ave. There used to be a building on Goose Island that even had an Ogden Ave. address (1060 N. Ogden, I believe) with their main entrance on the second or third floor that could only be accessed from the Ogden Ave. viaduct. If I recall correctly, it was the main office of the Pickens-Kane Moving and Storage company. It's also untrue that you couldn't access Goose Island from the viaduct. There was a ramp/exit at Hickory St. that was added after the original construction in order to provide easy access to and from Goose Island from the I-90/94 expressway. The Hickory St. ramp was mostly used for truck and freight traffic, but it certainly was available for use by anyone and I used it many times as a shortcut. The gunshots from Cabrini-Green were real though. The Ogden viaduct would pass directly by the housing project at about 50 feet in the air and most people avoided the viaduct for that reason, especially during the 1970s. Great videos, Ryan, and keep up the great work.

There was railroad activity on the Island through the end of 2017. They stored empty cars there, which became a target of complaints of the quickly gentrifying area.

The physical Goose Island is pretty well-known nowadays thanks to the beer of the same name.

Chicago is my favorite city when it comes to architecture. Wish Seattle could even come close.

Another part of Chicago that warrants your attention, IMO, is Elston Avenue. It runs from Milwaukee Avenue in the West Town neighborhood, right near Goose Island, basically following the river until Belmont Street, and continuing northwest until it ends at Milwaukee Avenue (again!) in the Norwood Park neighborhood. It used to be a mainly industrial thoroughfare, with streetcar, later converted to trolleybus and then regular buses, shuttling people to and from work. As the factories in the city declined, the street began to decay, and bus service was discontinued in the early 1970s. Not long after I moved to Chicago, Elston Avenue was selected to receive one of Chicago's earliest bike lanes, and it has been one of the city's cycling thoroughfares ever since. Over the last 20 years or so, Elston Avenue has been making a comeback, with new businesses and even some residential segments springing up. Still no transit service, although the buses that run along the cross streets generally stop at Elston. I have yet to find its history documented, but I bet it's fascinating.

Another great Chicago story about Goose Island. There is a Chicago delicacy besides pizza and hotdogs and pork chops and steak in Chicago; breaded fried shrimp. That’s right, breaded fried shrimp. There are shrimp shacks all over the place in Chicago, particularly near the Chicago River. Where the Blues Brothers flew over the bridge that was opening in the movie The Blues Brothers, that is the 95th St. bridge. There is a shrimp shack that you can see through the passenger side window just before Ellwood hits the gas!Division St., runs from the lake and crosses over Goose Island. And there is a joint and division Street called Goose Island Shrimp, And yes, I’ve eaten there a bunch of times

I'm from Chicago and all I knew of Goose Island is that it's really good beer.

Sir, I just watched this on the TV and logged in here to say thank you for this superb video! It combines two of my favorites, history and Chicago. This is a fantastic, informative and entertaining, providing all of us with much more, great history of Chicago than we knew before. Thank you for this! Subscribed!

Thank you for sharing this video! I'm an Irish-American who is a graduate of Kendall College, which was located at the southeast tip of the island. Prior to Kendall, it was a Sara Lee factory that my great-aunt would often visit, so I take pride in my connections to this tiny island. I miss seeing the train cars parked in the middle of the streets, it gave the area that old industrial vibe which I love about Chicago. Being here for almost two decades I've watched the island transform from an area you didn't necessarily want to be (due to Cabrini Green and other factors), to a thriving corridor. Thank you for bringing back some wonderful memories and sharing the history of our little island. Cheers!

I was employed as a locomotive engineer for the Soo Line Railroad and in the late 1990s I worked the job that switched out freight cars on Goose Island. There were a few areas in and around the island where our tracks were in the streets. Sometimes people would park their automobile over these rails thinking to themselves, "trains never go around here anymore." The conductor had a company provided cell phone and would call a local towing company to remove the vehicle blocking our right-of-way. It was amazing how fast they'd come out and tow it off the tracks to their impound yard.

I use to work here as well! At the old Mercedes Benz of Chicago service center. It’s now an Acura dealer. The roof has a killer view of the city. It’s alive and well, thriving with industry. Warehouses, car dealers, and Greyhound’s central repair facility. I encourage everyone to get the frog legs at Goose Island Shrimp House. And get a picture of yourself at the Hooker Street sign lol.

I remember riding Ogden ave as a shortcut as a child. We got off around North Ave. I remember taking the Division street bus going through Cabrini Green. I remember Finkl Steel in Lincoln Park. I remember the Horween Leather Company off Ashland Ave. I worked at Dr. Scholl's factory in Old town. I think the leather factory is the last of the Mohicans...

It is funny hearing Plainfield being mentioned since it is now a sizeable suburb but when I first moved there it was still essentially farmland.

I rode the Division bus to school in the early 90s. That bridge was like a roller coaster back then. The women loved the bounce.

I left Chicago 2 years ago. Thanks for reminding me why I miss it. Great videos.

I grew up near Gosse Island in the 1960s when I lived by North and Ashland and saw the area change many times over the years. From the disappearance of the giant gasometer tanks and the Ogden Viaduct, to the closing of the Meister Brau brewery to the replacement of the 100 year old North Ave. bascule bridge. No matter where I have lived since those days I still think of the the Wicker Park to Goose Island part of Chicago as "home".

@19:17 Actually that RR was "Milwaukee Road" and turned west crossing the river. The Island was is terminus yard. The yard, if u follow the abaondoned route west, it's now in Bensenville(or is that Franklin Park??), on the Southside of O'Hare Airport. Also, the path you did follow runs further north. It runs(ran) next to Wrigley Field. Many streets still have the tracks. You can see many cockeyed positioned homes where the track used to run.

So interesting. I’m from New York and the whole thing reminds me a lot of the Gowanus Canal area in Brooklyn, from the early immigrant groups to the later booming industry and pollution and even that it’s kind of both natural and man made, as the canal was built where there used to be a natural creek