At the Foot of the Bridge

Chicago has more movable bridges than almost any city in the world — a legacy of a downtown built where a busy river meets a working harbor. The bascule bridges, counterweighted to swing upward, are part of the everyday architecture of the Loop, their towers and trusses framing the streets that cross the river.

Photographed June 2024. Looking up from street level, the bridge stops being something you cross and becomes something you stand beneath — the structure looming, the lines of the truss converging overhead. It is the city seen from the position of someone small inside it.