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Photo by Steven Dahlman

(Above) Freshly mixed concrete is pumped from a Mack truck parked on Wacker Drive through a 131-foot hose snaked around the east side of a Dearborn Street bridge house on June 28. It is filling a 72-foot-long, six-foot-diameter caisson – pounded into the riverbed the previous week – with about 2,000 cubic feet of concrete. Manning the pump is Original Concrete Pumping Service, Inc., of Bensenville, Illinois. (Click on images to view larger versions.)

Riverwalk foundation work returning to Clark Street

By Steven Dahlman

3-Jul-14 – The Clark Street Bridge will be closed for two days next week so that work can be completed on the Riverwalk foundation below the bridge.

The bridge was closed over two weeks in June. It will close again on Monday, July 7 at 7 a.m. and re-open sometime on Wednesday, July 9.

72-foot-long caissons are being pounded into the riverbed underneath the bridges at Clark, Dearborn, and State Streets. The caissons are then filled with concrete. They will anchor the Riverwalk to bedrock below the Chicago River.

As announced last month, the State Street Bridge will be closed for seven days in mid-July but dates and times have not yet been released.

Workers will get Friday, July 4 off but could be back on Saturday, thanks to Monday night’s heavy rains. Although the Chicago Department of Transportation says there was no significant damage, flooding along the Riverwalk did interrupt work and, says CDOT, they may have to make up for some lost time.

Photo by Holly Lipschultz

(Above) This photo by Holly Lipschultz shows Riverwalk construction flooded on Tuesday morning. The Chicago River was higher than the steel sheet pile that forms the new river wall. By Wednesday afternoon, the areas that were flooded appeared to be mostly drained and work was continuing normally.

Besides the caissons, over the next week, work will continue on securing the steel sheet piles that form the new river wall between State and LaSalle Streets, draining the space between the old and new river walls, and filling it with aggregate made of crushed stones.

Photos by Steven Dahlman

(Above) On the Chicago Riverwalk west of State Street on June 18, a construction worker uses hand signals to guide a load of crushed stone to a spot on the river where it is then dumped. He has used the white stick on the ground nearby to measure the depth of the stone so that it can be distributed evenly. As this area is backfilled with aggregate, water mixed with old concrete is filtered and returned to the river. (Photos by Steven Dahlman.)

The high water level forced the cancellation of some boat tours the morning after the storms. On a river that is higher than normal, the taller boats cannot clear the bridges.