[OC] Raised Bridges in Chicago

bluu@lemmy.world to pics@lemmy.world – 194 points –

In 2020, Chicago raised its bridges leading downtown during the BLM protests to try to limit crime and destruction in the area. As cool as this shot was to capture, it's bittersweet to know the context of why the bridges were all raised.

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that is indeed a bittersweet story to this picture. And to make it even worse (maybe) to me all those raised bridges remind me of a greeting/salute that happen in old-fashioned rowing boats by raising all oars when passing by. To me it looked like if the city and/or those bridges are saluting that ship underway.

This was during the pandemic and protests, right? I remember downtown got shutdown for a few weeks.

Yes it was. The city had a super eerie feel back then, didn't it?

It was so weird! I went on a lot of cruises around the city back then because there was just zero traffic. Driving through downtown felt like 28 Days Later back then.

Oh that's cool, I didn't know the raised oar salute was a thing, but that makes sense.

They sometimes have boats too tall to pass through along the river, but they just raise one bridge at a time to minimize traffic disruptions. Kind of a fun spectacle to see if one hasn't seen it before