Sunday, January 18, 2009

Bubbly Creek Panoramic






Well, if I'm to believe the photo by Steely Dan posted correctly, then yeah, panoramic. See, at one point the South Branch of the Chicago River breaks away to become that little turdball we call Bubbly Creek, running roughly from 35th to 39th Street, not far at all. So, in answer to Bob's question, you can kayak through those fumes. Hell, they're putting a nice little group of houses up called Bridgeport Village and they more likely than not have no clue about the fumes because they only read the stock ticker or watch whatever the hell cable channel you watch when you are some rich guy's anorexic wife. Let them suck up those cow corpse germs at the next backyard BBQ. Going back to what I started and then promptly forgot, the panoramic shot will show the intersection. I stumbled across this 1905 photo of the Archer Avenue bridge being built and thought I'd slip it in here. Also, Steve. The north side wouldn't toss wine bottles in the river, they are too cool for that. No, they drink their beer out of bottles, MGD or Budweiser all the way.

5 comments:

Steve Malley said...

Hm, don't think I'd like to try swimming in there!

James Robert Smith said...

That's a nice historical shot.

Someone needs to do a test dredge in the creek and see what happens.

Charles Gramlich said...

So Bubbly creek definitely doesn't refer to champagne eh?

Anonymous said...

Hey Wayne,

All these Bubbly Creek photos are fascinating to me, but that's because the wheels in my head are still turning around that story. I went on Google Maps recently and searched all the way down the Bubbly Creek to just short of 39th Street, where it just comes to an end. If I'm not mistaken (and I often am), it's at that point furthest south where the B.C. is most active -- or was.

Do you happen to know if those Bridgeport Village townhouses have actually been purchased and are occupied? It just seems in-SANE that anyone could want to live there, but as you mentioned, a lot of these younguns have no history, no sense of history, no interest in even the most recent and practical bits of knowledge that can keep you from becoming the proud owner of a toxic cesspool. If the housing boom un-busts, can we expect Los Alamos Village? Chernobyl Heights? San Canal City? Slaughterhouse Square? I think I already said this once: I suspect that if you checked the previous addresses of the Bridgeport Village residents you'd find they moved here from Arkham and Innsmouth and have last names like Curwen and Whateley and Ward. They filled out questionnaires about why they wanted to move into Bridgeport Villages and all the replies included the phrase "essential saltes."

Your corrodespondent,
Rich

Anonymous said...

Bubble Creek once extended much further south, back in the day. Somewhere around
39th it split into two tributaries.
The east tributary was widened to become a canal of sorts and stretched over to
Morgan Street.
Not sure where the western stream ran out to, but the whole area was once
marshland before getting filled in'for RRs and
cattle pens.