#ChicagoLandmarks – The Chicago River at dusk

I took advantage of the beautiful spring weather (which has been quite elusive this season) on Wednesday night to gather photos for my #ChicagoLandmarks photo mosaic project.

My first stop was the Western side of the Chicago Riverwalk behind 333 N. Lake Street to shoot the “urban cliffs” along the bend at Wacker Drive. It is a beautiful spot to shoot from, but the entrance to the publicly accessible riverwalk is somewhat hidden, especially with the ongoing construction at the plot of land next-door. If you want to head down there yourself,  just head through the small driveway between 333 & 355 N. Canal St.

After that I headed East down Lake Street to check out the aforementioned construction project from a slightly higher vantage point. The building currently under construction, the early phases anyway, is River Point (444 W. Lake St.). The 45-story  office building is estimated to rise about 650 feet. The cool part about this project is that the structure itself will be set back from the riverfront for ample space dedicated to a public park (the second to last photo in the below set gives you a good overview of the plot of land the tower/park will occupy). The current phase of construction focuses on building a large podium above the train tracks on which the tower and park will sit.

I continued East until I arrived at my final destination, the Wells St. Bridge re-construction project. The bascule-type bridge was 90 years old…obviously due for a replacement. I stuck around there for a while watching the work and enjoyed the nice weather, then I went back the way I came for some night shots. All told I snapped off a little over 300 frames in the two hours I was out and ended up with about 30 final images. I still have a ways to go before i get to the minimum 5,000 photos I need to finish my photo mosaic project, but I’m making progress…