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FDR drive in some ways is like Lake Shore Drive, except you're higher up over the water on FDR in many places than you are with Lake Shore Drive. Technically it's a highway though just like the West Side Highway (aka Joe DiMaggio Highway) is.
And what is it with people thinking Manhattan is the only place in NYC? It's one of five boroughs, and isn't even the most populated one. Less than 20% of the population of NYC lives there - Brooklyn and Queens both have more people in them each than Manhattan. Let's talk about the handful of expressways and highways that cut right through Queens, Brooklyn, and the Bronx. While the UES is among the densest parts of NYC, there are parts of Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx that are just as dense.
It's cute that you think parts of the Bronx, Harlem, etc, are a "bustling metropolis" while other parts of Chicago's downtown, which you lopped off, and other parts of the city are not.
Fun fact: Chicago's second tallest skyscraper is not in the Loop.
taking the Loop by definition (Lake, Wabash, Van Buren, Wells), none of the big four (Willis, Trump, Aon, JHC) are within the Loop although Willis's location on Wacker east of the river is virtually the Loop and Aon in the Illinois Center area is sort of part of it. Of course, both Trump and JHC are on the near north side.
the Loop was built on centrality. no city or metro area is as centralized as Chicago (IMHO). downtown chicago and the periphery represent the spokes and wheel that is the core. everything converges in the Loop: CTA and Metra offer fantastic service from all directions and the expressway system is virtually designed to do the same thing (a serious lacking on both parts in the sense that virtually all roads lead to downtown).
Thus the Loop was built for commerce, not residential. most of the area (from Dearborn to the river) was heavily office space. east of Dearborn to Michigan was retail (State St. at its core). the entertainment district on Randolph is still home to the legit theaters although much of the rest of the entertainment scene long since has moved north of the river.
People are well aware that the rivers and the confinement of space onto a very narrow island made Manhattan a tightly packed core that had to go up since real estate was at a premium. Chicago's Loop followed a similar version since it was surrounded on one side by the lake, two sides by the river, and south by a mass of rail yards.....so in this really tight space there was that need to build up. thus Chicago built the first of the skyscrapers.
today a lot has changed and older, classic buildings between State and Michigan (particularly on Michigan, the street wall across from Grant/Millennium Pk) have been converted to condo with new condo/apt construction interspersed. and, of course, the rivers no longer bind as the core spilled west and north of them ages ago.
point is: it is insane to look at a darkened Loop and night and say the lack of life, the quiet and emptiness is a sign of lack of vitality. hardly. the Loop was designed to be that way, designed to overrun by people in business hours with never an intention that they were to be sticking around afterwards.
The Loop is changing, rapidly. unlike southern Manhattan (downtown), there is a booming and thriving urban explosion on three sides. Some 10,000 units of housing, with thousands more hotel units, coming online in the coming years. this ain't your Grandma's Loop...and it's only going to get bigger and bigger and bigger...
We're comparing downtowns on the thread, so I thought that's why it has that focus.
True - though there's technically downtown Brooklyn as well, which has the Brooklyn Queens Expressway running on the north side of it and not far from the west side of it.. Midtown and FiDi/Lower Manhattan are the largest of course with downtown Brooklyn next.
The Loop is changing, rapidly. unlike southern Manhattan (downtown), there is a booming and thriving urban explosion on three sides. Some 10,000 units of housing, with thousands more hotel units, coming online in the coming years. this ain't your Grandma's Loop...and it's only going to get bigger and bigger and bigger...
Lower Manhattan has seen residential growth as large. Population went from 34,420 to 60,978 in 2000 to 2010.
It's cute that you think parts of the Bronx, Harlem, etc, are a "bustling metropolis"
The Bronx, NYC's fourth largest borough is nearly TWICE as dense Chicago's loop despite housing two massive parks, quite a bit of other green-space and being about 30 TIMES as big by land area.
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