Underground city’ set to become

Chicago’s next attraction

Not many people know about the Pedway, a network of tunnels connecting shops and
businesses beneath downtown Chicago, but it could become the city’s oddest tourist
destination

Where is everyone? … ‘Even locals don’t know about the Pedway’. Photograph:
stevegeer/Getty Images

Ella Buchan

Saturday 9 September 2017 12.30 BST

In some ways it’s just like any other Chicago neighbourhood. There are three Starbucks,
a gym, a department store and a friendly dive bar. But no one lives here. There’s no
natural daylight. And many Chicagoans have never heard of it.

This is the Pedway – a network of tunnels running beneath 40 blocks of the Loop,
Chicago’s central business district. Built piecemeal since 1951, it provides a
weatherproof route for pedestrians to walk between buildings, including Macy’s and
City Hall – though relatively few use it. Many stores, hotels and bars connected by the
network have entrances at street level and underground, while a few cafes serve only the
Pedway.

Margaret Hicks owns Chicago Elevated, which runs tours of the tunnels. “Even locals
don’t know about the Pedway,” she said. “They certainly don’t understand it.”

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One of the Pedway’s many long, empty corridors. Photograph: SteveGeer/Getty Images

The layout is more maze than grid. Each building linked to the underground network is
responsible for its section of the Pedway, so no one is in charge. Few attempts have
been made to promote its use – until now.

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A local not-for-profit organisation, the Environmental Law & Policy Center, has raised
$125,000 (around £100,000) to spruce up the tunnels and turn them into a tourist
attraction. In July, the centre announced plans to promote the Pedway “both as a
destination and as a desirable way to move around downtown”. Its vision includes an
underground library, art galleries and a farmers’ market. A glass cube in Millennium
Park would provide public access – an attractive alternative to the stairwells and
escalators within buildings connected to the tunnels that are currently the only way in.

“If we had better navigation, signage, arts and entertainment, it would be a really cool
place,” said executive director Howard Learner, adding that city officials have given the
project the green light.

While the time frame has yet to be announced, others have spotted the Pedway’s
potential. For this year’s Chicago Architecture Biennial (until January 2018), Los
Angeles architects Erin Besler and Fiona Connor are creating installations inspired by
the walkways’ textures, fixtures and fittings. Their work will highlight “a bit of
functional infrastructure that gets far less attention than the more iconic structures it
serves above ground”, said Biennial executive director Todd Palmer. These will be
displayed in the Chicago Cultural Center, one on the ground floor and another where its
basement joins the Pedway.

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One of 22 stained glass windows on Macy’s basement floor in the Pedway. Photograph:
Alamy

However, Hicksworries that the plans could strip her “favourite neighbourhood” of its
offbeat charms. “Obviously, there is lots of room to improve the Pedway. I don’t want
people to feel lost and confused in it,” she said, “but what I love about it is its
strangeness.”

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Hicks introduced me to wedding photographer Ed. He spends his days watching the
doors of the marriage court beneath City Hall, for potential customers. “I’ve never seen
him in daylight,” she whispered. Strip lights flickered in the ceiling. On our right was an
entrance to Macy’s basement floor. Opposite was a gleaming row of 22 stained-glass
windows, including one by Louis Comfort Tiffany. Built into the tunnel wall and
permanently backlit, this gallery was organised by the Smith Museum of Stained Glass
Windows at Navy Pier, one of Chicago’s better-known attractions.

The effect is incongruous, like a Picasso painting hanging in a barn. But everything
about the Pedway is odd and, if it becomes a tourist hotspot, Hicks doesn’t want that to
change. “The Pedway is one of Chicago’s neighbourhoods. I don’t want to see it
gentrified. Save the weird, you know?”

• Margaret Hicks runs 90-minute tours of the Pedway, $23, chicagoelevated.com

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