Wrigley Building & DuSable Bridge: Gateway of the Magnificent Mile

Why is it significant?

Stand right here on the plaza paving at the northern abutment of the DuSable Bridge and gaze up at the gleaming, brilliant white towers of the Wrigley Building.

Key Facts

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Stand right here on the plaza paving at the northern abutment of the DuSable Bridge and gaze up at the gleaming, brilliant white towers of the Wrigley Building. Completed in nineteen twenty-four as the global headquarters of chewing-gum magnate William Wrigley Junior, this French Renaissance revival marvel was clad in over two hundred and fifty thousand glazed terra-cotta tiles that are still hand-washed with soapy water to keep their luminous shine. Notice how the clock tower resembles the Giralda tower of Seville Cathedral. Look down at the bridge below your shoes: inaugurated in nineteen twenty, the DuSable Bridge was the world's first double-deck trunnion bascule bridge, connecting downtown Chicago to the Magnificent Mile. The four stone bridge tender houses feature colossal carved limestone reliefs depicting early French explorers and the bloody eighteen twelve Fort Dearborn Massacre, which occurred just yards from where you stand. During Prohibition, the waters flowing below this bridge were the nocturnal highway of bootleg rum-running speedboats smuggling Canadian whiskey from Lake Michigan straight into Al Capone's subterranean river vaults. Cross Michigan Avenue to the soaring Gothic buttresses of Tribune Tower.