“Intersection of Indiana Avenue, Cottage Grove Avenue and Twenty-Second Street” from South Central Association SOUVENIR Twenty-third Street Viaduct Opening (July 15, 1925). The caption reads:
“Looking north - a future view of possible developments of this important cross-town intersection. Indiana Avenue is being widened to one hundred feet and will be the principal business street into the new Illinois Central Terminal. Twenty-second Street at this point is also being widened to one hundred twenty feet, continuing easterly to the South Park Way Viaduct.”
The souvenir program noted:
“the opening of the 23rd Street Viaduct is the most important step Chicago has taken it its history. It solves the problem of southward expansion to relieve the Central District which has outgrown its facilities for serving a greater Chicago.”
The 23rd Street viaduct over the Illinois Central railroad tracks served as a bridge from the new extension of Lake Shore Drive south from Grant Park to the widened and improved South Park Way (now Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive). It was part of a larger plan to extend Lake Shore Drive all the way south to Jackson Park. The souvenir program noted the many improvements already made in the South Central District as it transitioned from Chicago’s former Gold Coast into an area anchored by light manufacturing, multiple plants for the printing and publishing industry, and more than 100 showrooms in what was billed as the “World’s Greatest Automobile Row.”