Ever wonder why the Northern section of Ogden Ave sucks so hard? WBEZ has answers. The proud avenue, named for Chicago's first mayor, was an early thoroughfare following the course of an old trail from Union Park south to the city limits and beyond. In the 1920s the city cooked up a plan to extend it northward to Lincoln Park, which finished in 1934. Six lanes of traffic served as a downtown bypass— an early ring road, if you will. Then, of course, the real expressways came along and Lincoln Park residents wanted the underused and blighted roadway gone. It was gradually cut back to North, then Clybourn, then Fry Street in River West where it abruptly terminates today. All those years of disruption, all that money spent, all the lingering suckiness. Ah, well. [WBEZ]
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