By OBBM Network Editorial Staff

Derived from an episode of The Buried Archive.

What if the city you walk through today is built on top of an entirely different world that planners deliberately erased? In the early 1900s, a photograph captured a bustling Chicago street where a raised, covered walkway stretched above the sidewalks like a secret sky‑lane. By the mid‑1920s that entire structure had vanished, leaving only faint clues in basements and hidden arches.

From Photographs to Forgotten Architecture

The episode opens with a 1909 daguerreotype of State Street, taken from an elevated train platform. The image shows three‑lane sidewalks, gas lamps, and, most strikingly, a continuous covered arcade running the length of the block at roughly twelve feet above street level. The narrator notes that by 1925 the arcade was “gone. Not damaged, not relocated. Gone. Removed with the deliberateness that city planners of the era”.

These upper boulevards appear in early photographs of other cities as well—Paris, London, and several Midwestern towns—yet they disappear from the record in a narrow historical window. The show’s researcher compiled thirty‑five documented cases, each following the same pattern: discovered, documented, then vanished.

The Chicago Street‑Grade Raising Project

Chicago’s own story provides a concrete example. Between 1856 and 1858, civil engineer Ellis Sylvester Chesbrough oversaw a massive effort to raise the city’s central streets by six to twelve feet. The official rationale, recorded in engineering reports and contemporary Chicago Tribune articles, was improved drainage for a low‑lying lake‑front metropolis.

“The consequence of raising the streets by 6 to 12 feet was that buildings which had been constructed with their ground floors at the original street level suddenly found themselves partially buried,” the episode explains. “Their second floors became the new ground level. Windows that had previously been at eye level were now at or below the new sidewalk grade.”

Walking today through Chicago’s south‑river district, one can still see basement‑level windows that were once street‑level, looking out onto the undersides of sidewalks. These remnants confirm that a vertical re‑configuration occurred, but the show asks a critical question: what existed at that elevated grade before the streets were raised?

Did the Upper Walkways Predate the Raising?

If the elevated arcades were already present before Chesbrough’s project, then the street‑raising did not create them; it simply lifted the street to meet an existing structure. Early daguerreotypes, taken a decade before the raising, already show walkways at the second‑floor level of commercial buildings. This challenges the standard narrative that the upper boulevards were a by‑product of the street‑raising.

The same pattern emerges in Paris during Baron Georges Haussmann’s 1853‑1870 renovation. Photographs taken by Charles Marville before demolition reveal façades where the primary architectural development sits one floor above street level, with filled‑in archways at ground level. The episode draws a parallel, noting that “the same pattern visible in Chicago” appears across continents.

Why the Disappearance Matters

Urban historians have traditionally dismissed these anomalies as rapid frontier construction or incomplete records. The Buried Archive argues that such explanations overlook systematic evidence of pre‑existing elevated infrastructure. If cities built these upper boulevards before major public works, it suggests a level of planning and capital investment not reflected in conventional settlement narratives.

Moreover, the deliberate removal of these structures—often without documentation—raises questions about whose history is preserved. The episode points out that the removal was “deliberate” and that the chambers beneath the arches were finished rooms with fireplaces and alcoves, not mere structural supports. Their erasure may reflect a desire to reshape urban identity, aligning it with new engineering ideals while obscuring earlier layers.

Implications for Modern Urban Planning

Understanding these hidden layers can inform present‑day infrastructure projects. Recognizing that cities may sit atop forgotten networks encourages more thorough archaeological assessments before demolition. It also reminds planners that the built environment carries multiple histories, each with social and economic implications.

As the episode concludes, the host urges viewers to explore the pinned comment where a comprehensive list of the thirty‑five cases is available, emphasizing that the story is far from over.

By re‑examining old photographs, engineering reports, and the physical remnants that survive beneath modern streets, The Buried Archive invites a reevaluation of how American and European cities evolved—and what they chose to hide.

The full episode of The Buried Archive is available on OBBM Network TV.