Bridge Tender Tower. Chicago, Illinois. August 2, 2014. © Copyright 2014 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Chicago bridge tender “house” or tower, West Chicago Street Bridge.

I had notice one or two of these buildings previously, but had not thought too much about them. The most recent time I thought about them was in relationship to a photograph of another downtown Chicago subject that included the tops of a couple of these buildings, and I was trying to figure out what the call them in the photograph data. On that photograph, since the building wasn’t really a primary subject, I eventually probably just called it “building” or perhaps nothing at all.

However, this photograph features one of these structures as it predominant feature. On the river tour we saw a lot of them, and I eventually figured out the obvious — that they had something to do with the operation of the bridges. As I worked on this photograph I finally looked them up and discovered that they are called bridge tender towers or bridge tender houses. They apparently were the control points for the mechanisms of the bridges, Which can be raised to allow taller boats to pass through. I thought this one was especially remarkable and unusual. Many of the others seem to be made entirely of stone and often in what I would characterize as an art deco style. This one seems like some odd hybrid of medieval jail/tower and ships cabin, and the blue color is very striking, too.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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