History Commons^™

The Busiest, The Most Dangerous, The Dan Ryan Expressway, Dominic Pacyga, Jay Wolke

Dominic Pacyga

Cutting across Chicago’s South Side in a broad swath of concrete, steel, and overpasses, the Dan Ryan Expressway is one of America’s busiest, and perhaps most chaotic highways. Yet underneath the cacophony of its ten lanes lies an intriguing world of urban ecology and human networks. In The Dan Ryan Expressway, artist and photographer Jay Wolke unearths an ecosystem unto itself that weaves human and industrial elements into an essential feature of Chicago’s identity.

Between 1981 and 1985, Wolke shot thousands of photographs on and along the Dan Ryan during the day and night, traveling up and down the expressway …