It’s History

Just outside Chicago, a mile-long stretch of historic Route 66 is barricaded and crumbling above two massive quarry pits. Once called Joliet Road, this corridor carried twenty thousand drivers a day through the southwestern suburbs, lined with diners, gas stations, and family businesses. Today, it is off-limits to the public.

The story of this segment of America's iconic highway involves industrial ambition and legal battles. Decades of aggressive limestone quarrying by Vulcan Materials eroded the bedrock beneath the road, causing it to become suspended on a crumbling ridge. By 1998, the pavement was buckling and shifting, leading to its permanent closure by the Illinois Department of Transportation. A subsequent $40 million legal settlement led Illinois to opt not to rebuild, resulting in lost businesses and disrupted communities.

#Route66 #ChicagoHistory #ItsHistory
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Off the coast of Long Beach, California, the THUMS Islands serve as both resort-like structures and active oil extraction facilities on artificial land. This video explores their design, which serves to conceal oil platforms from public view, as an example of industrial camouflage. The Wilmington Oil Field beneath Long Beach is one of the largest in the continental United States, having produced over 2.5 billion barrels of crude oil since the early twentieth century. In the 1960s, engineers developed this creative solution to prevent visible offshore rigs near the California coastline, collaborating with a consortium of oil companies and a public university. The islands feature leisure destinations with towers and artificial waterfalls to disguise the machinery.

#ItsHistory #LosAngelesHistory #OilHistory
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For nearly two decades, a 110-foot hole has remained at one of the most coveted addresses on Chicago's lakefront—the only remnant of what would have been the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere, the Chicago Spire. Designed by architect Santiago Calatrava, this 2,000-foot twisting tower was funded with $500 million but was halted by the 2008 financial crisis. This patch of ground has been central to Chicago's ambitions since before the city existed, from the fur-trading post that sparked its founding to the apartment tower that inspired the Burj Khalifa.

This video traces every generation that impacted this site and explores why Chicago, known for its ability to reinvent itself, has left its most prized real estate empty for nearly 20 years.

#ItsHistory #ChicagoHistory #ChicagoSpire
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On a narrow strip of land in New York City's East River, Roosevelt Island features an advanced residential waste system that operates without garbage trucks. Beneath its streets, 20-inch steel tubes transport thousands of tons of waste each year at speeds of up to 60 miles per hour to a central collection facility, making it one of only two such systems in the United States, alongside Walt Disney World.

This video explores the history of Roosevelt Island, which once served as a dumping ground for prisons, asylums, and hospitals. It discusses the development of its unique waste management system in response to a 1960s garbage crisis, a visionary plan for a car-free community, and the innovative thinking of a Swedish hospital engineer, all tied together with decades of underground engineering largely unknown to most New Yorkers.

This is the story of Roosevelt Island's Automated Vacuum Collection system and the island's hidden history beneath it.

#RooseveltIsland #WasteManagement #AutomatedVacuumCollection
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Europe deemed it impossible, and President Thomas Jefferson called it “nothing short of madness,” yet New York persevered and constructed the largest canal in the world: the Erie Canal. This video delves into the canal's history, detailing the engineering challenges, land carving, and the permissions required for construction.

Chapters:
0:00 - The History of the Erie Canal
0:37 - The Roads and Rivers of Early American Infrastructure
6:55 - Senator DeWitt Clinton
10:39 - The Biggest Ditch in the World (The Erie Canal)
14:40 - The Difficulties of Finishing the Erie Canal
17:59 - The Success of the Erie Canal
19:59 - The Erie Canal in Modern-Day

CREDITS
Scriptwriter: Gregory Back
Editor: Rishi Mittal
Host: Ryan Socash

#ErieCanal #AmericanHistory #UrbanDecay
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