The Chicago River

People fish in it but you can't eat your catch. Tourists take architectural cruises down it. Its appeared in film. Its dyed green every St. Patrick's Day. Parts of the South Fork of it still bubble from decaying meat from the Stockyards written about in Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle". What am I talking about? The Chicago River of course!

As a local, I love taking the Chicago Water Taxis. My kids love taking them too! Here are the different locations you can board and exit these boats. A better way to get around the loop than taking a train on any smelly summer day! Unless you like being packed like a sardine with a bunch of sweaty Chicagoans!

A one-way ticket is $4 and a 10-ride pass is $24.

• Madison / Ogilvie Stop - Right by the Ogilvie Transportation Center. If you need to go to this train station, take the river taxi there! Or if you're coming into town from the suburbs on a Metra train, just take the river taxi to you final destination.
• Lasalle / Clark Stop - At the Fulton's On The River restaurant and just a block from Merchandise Mart.
• Michigan Ave / Mag Mile Stop is at the northwest corner of the Michigan Ave. bridge at Trump Plaza (between the Wrigley Building and Trump Tower on the River Walk).
• Chinatown Stop is located at the pagoda at the Ping Tom Memorial Park. What a fantastic day out when you take the Chicago River Taxi to Chinatown!

Who can forget the Blues Brothers jumping the bridge over the Chicago river? View these famous movie clips of the Chicago River.

Well, fun in a sick Chicago way!

• Dying the river green for St. Patrick's Day - This tradition began accidentally when some plumbers were tracing the source of illegal pollution discharges by using fluorescein dye. This yearly activity is sponsored by the local plumbers union, but they now use 40 pounds of powdered vegetable dye to change the river's color.
• White House Fountains Dyed Green - First Lady Michelle Obama ordered that the White House fountains be dyed green on St. Patrick's Day 2009, tipping her hat to her hometown's Chicago River tradition.
• The Eastland Tragedy - The Eastland excursion boat, docked at the Clark St. bridge, rolled over and killed 844 passengers in 1915.
• Bubbly Creek - Pollution from the Chicago meat-packing industry and, particularly, the Union Stockyards, caused portions of the Chicago River to bubble with gases from the decomposing entrails and blood. Upton Sinclair wrote about the phenomenon in his classic, The Jungle. The south fork of the Chicago River's South Branch (Bubbly Creek) is still toxic to this day.

Check out these books on the Chicago River, for sale online at Amazon.com

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