The improvement of Ogden Avenue was part of a citywide highway upgrade that emerged after the recommendations of the Burnham Plan of 1909. In late 1934, the completion of ramps to the Ogden Avenue viaduct connected Goose Island businesses to that "fast arterial highway," as described in a Chicago Tribune article from November 26, 1934. The photograph shows the Hickory Street Ramp to the Ogden Avenue Viaduct in 1989. The orientation was no longer to the river and canal, but to new limited access highways. Goose Island would be even more closely connected to expressways with the opening of the adjacent Kennedy Expressway in 1960, giving it a strategic location advantage in the age of truck and air freight. Among the companies that had moved to Goose Island by the 1970s were Charles Levy Circulating Company and Chicago Terminal Clearance, a large trucking operation that specialized in piggyback car loadings.

Photographer: John McCarthy
Source: Chicago Historical Society (ICHi-37294)