Ida B. Wells Drive (formerly Congress Parkway) is a major east–west street in downtown

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

, Illinois, in the United States. It runs east from the

Jane Byrne Interchange The Jane Byrne Interchange (until 2014, Circle Interchange) is a major freeway Interchange (road), interchange near Chicago Loop, downtown Chicago, Illinois, known locally as "The Lady in the Middle". It is the junction between the Dan Ryan Exp ...

, where it meets

Interstate 90 Interstate 90 (I-90) is an east–west transcontinental freeway and the longest Interstate Highway in the United States at . It begins in Seattle, Washington, Seattle, Washington, and travels through the Pacific Northwest, Mountain states, Mou ...

(I-90), I-94 and I-290. At Wells Street, Ida B. Wells Drive continues as a surface street past State Street and Michigan Avenue, until ending at Columbus Drive in Grant Park in front of the

Buckingham Fountain Buckingham Fountain is a Chicago Landmark in the center of Grant Park, between Queen's Landing and the end of Ida B. Wells Drive. Dedicated in 1927 and donated to the city by philanthropist Kate S. Buckingham, it is one of the largest fount ...

. In 2018, the editorial board of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' praised the Chicago City Council's renaming of the street to honor the journalist and civil rights activist

Ida B. Wells Ida Bell Wells-Barnett (July 16, 1862 – March 25, 1931) was an American investigative journalist, sociologist, educator, and early leader in the civil rights movement. She was one of the founders of the National Association for the Advance ...

Route description

Jane Byrne Interchange from BMO Tower 49th floor 01

Ida B. Wells Drive begins at the

, where it intersects the

Kennedy Kennedy may refer to: People * Kennedy (surname), including any of several people with that surname ** Kennedy family, a prominent American political family that includes: *** Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. (1888–1969), American businessman, investor, ...

, Dan Ryan and

Eisenhower Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was the 34th president of the United States, serving from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, he was Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionar ...

expressways. After passing through the interchange, the Drive passes under the Old Chicago Main Post Office, then over the South Branch of the Chicago River. At an interchange with Franklin Street and

Wacker Drive Wacker Drive is a major multilevel street in Chicago, Illinois, running along the south side of the main branch and the east side of the south branch of the Chicago River in the Loop.Hayner, Don and Tom McNamee, ''Streetwise Chicago'', "Wacke ...

, Ida B. Wells Drive changes from a freeway to a surface street. It then crosses north–south streets in downtown, including

Wells Street Wells Street is a street in the City of Westminster. It runs from Riding House Street in the north to Oxford Street in the south. It is crossed by Mortimer Street and Eastcastle Street. It is joined on its western side by Marylebone Passag ...

(thus creating an intersection of Wells and Wells),

LaSalle Street LaSalle Street is a major north-south street in Chicago named for René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, a 17th century French explorer of the Illinois Country. The portion that runs through the Chicago Loop is considered to be Chicago's f ...

, Clark Street, State Street and Michigan Avenue. At Michigan Avenue, Ida B. Wells Drive enters Grant Park, where it ends at Columbus Drive, just west of

. West of the Jane Byrne Interchange, Congress Parkway still exists in several disjointed segments, serving as a

frontage road A frontage road (also known as an access road, outer road, service road, feeder road, or parallel road) is a local road running parallel to a higher-speed, limited-access road. Where parallel high-speed roads are provided as part of a maj ...

for parts of the Eisenhower Expressway, and as a minor street through several West Side neighborhoods. In the western Cook County suburbs of Chicago, it is known as Congress Street.

History

Ida B. Wells Drive, formerly called Congress Parkway, was proposed in the 1909

Plan of Chicago The Burnham Plan is a popular name for the 1909 ''Plan of Chicago'' coauthored by Daniel Burnham and Edward H. Bennett and published in 1909. It recommended an integrated series of projects including new and widened streets, parks, new railr ...

as the central axis of the replanned city. The plan's authors,

Daniel Burnham Daniel Hudson Burnham (September 4, 1846 – June 1, 1912) was an American architect and urban designer. A proponent of the ''Beaux-Arts architecture, Beaux-Arts'' movement, he may have been "the most successful power broker the American archi ...

and

Edward H. Bennett Edward Herbert Bennett (1874–1954) was an architect and city planner best known for his co-authorship of the 1909 Plan of Chicago. Biography Bennett was born in Bristol, England on May 12, 1874,Chicago's main post office that would block any future such boulevard. Bennett and the Chicago Plan Commission objected. Finally a compromise was reached that left an underpass-tunnel through the building, completed in 1933. As planning for Chicago-area superhighways advanced in the 1920s, a route through the West Side was a high priority. When planners seemed to lean toward a Monroe Street alignment, Bennett published a 1929 study arguing the superiority of Congress Street. After an extensive study of alternatives, a Congress Street alignment was included in the city's 1940 Comprehensive Superhighway Plan. During the 1930s, Chicago's plans for rapid transit became intertwined with plans for superhighways. When the

Public Works Administration The Public Works Administration (PWA), part of the New Deal of 1933, was a large-scale public works construction agency in the United States headed by United States Secretary of the Interior, Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes. It was ...

approved a grant for the city's downtown subways, it was conditioned on construction of the downtown portion of Congress Parkway. Chicago's "Subway Route No. 2" was being planned for a route under Milwaukee Avenue and Dearborn Street, turning westward under Congress Parkway, with a future extension westward anticipated. 1 Oct 1978 Congress Parkway looking west

1 Oct 1978 Congress Parkway looking west

Construction of the downtown section, which began in December 1949, presented several challenges. The new superhighway had to be carried above Clinton and Canal and Streets, through the Post Office at a level similar to surrounding streets, and across the South Branch of the

Chicago River The Chicago River is a system of rivers and canals with a combined length of that runs through the city of Chicago, including its center (the Chicago Loop). The river is one of the reasons for Chicago's geographic importance: the related Chic ...

on twin bascule-type drawbridges. East of the river, ramps connected to Franklin Street and two levels of Wacker Drive before the end of controlled access at Wells Street. The platforms of

LaSalle Street Station LaSalle Street Station is a commuter rail terminal at 414 South LaSalle Street in downtown Chicago. First used as a rail terminal in 1852, it was a major intercity rail terminal for the New York Central Railroad until 1968, and for the Chicago ...

required new supports for creation of an underpass for Congress Parkway. More than two dozen buildings were cleared for the new street, including the 13-story Monon and 12-story Caxton Buildings on Dearborn Street, part of Printer's Row. East of State Street, arcaded sidewalks were cut into existing buildings, including the Auditorium Theater, to allow six lanes of auto traffic. The new street opened for traffic from State Street to LaSalle Street in 1952, with the full length opened August 10, 1956. A ceremonial stairway into Grant Park was altered to allow the new street to reach Columbus Drive. Plans for ramps under Buckingham Fountain to connect the new street to Lake Shore Drive were never carried out. Before I-290 was named the

Dwight D. Eisenhower Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was the 34th president of the United States, serving from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, he was Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionar ...

Expressway in the 1960s, it was called the Congress Expressway, because its eastern end was joined to Congress Parkway. Rather than a new central axis for an expanded business district, the wide, heavily trafficked new street came to represent the southern boundary of the Loop. Small parcels cleared for construction but not needed for the street itself became gas stations and small parking lots. As Printers Row was redeveloped into residential buildings during the 1970s and 1980s, Congress Parkway came to be seen as a boundary between the office and residential districts. When Chicago's new

Harold Washington Library The Harold Washington Library Center is the central library for the Chicago Public Library System. It is located just south of the Loop 'L', at 400 South State Street in Chicago, in the U.S. state of Illinois. It is a full-service library and ...

opened in October 1991 at State Street and Congress Parkway, it turned attention again to Ida B. Wells Drive's role as a civic gateway. A streetscaping project opened in 2013 used lighted median columns and sidewalk trellises to create an "electronic streetscape", whose changing colors are a reminder of

at the street's eastern end. A 2012 reconstruction of the south end of Wacker Drive added extensive landscaping around and over the ramps that connect with Congress Parkway at Franklin Street. On July 25, 2018, the Chicago City Council renamed the street, which had been called Congress Parkway, ''Ida B. Wells Drive'' in honor of the civil rights activist

; it is the first downtown Chicago street named for a woman of color. The name change did not affect roadway west of the expressway interchange. Street signs with the new name officially went up on February 11, 2019.

Transportation

The Congress Branch of the

CTA Blue Line The Blue Line is a Chicago "L" line which runs from O'Hare International Airport at the far northwest end of the city, through downtown via the Milwaukee–Dearborn subway and across the West Side to its southwest end in Forest Park, with a ...

has stations from

to Forest Park under, in the median of, or next to Congress Parkway.

Junction list

References

External links

* {{Streets in Chicago Streets in Chicago Ida B. Wells