Chicago’s Midway Airport
Wednesday, 2nd November 2005 by Alex Turnbull
This is Chicago's Midway Airport and yes, at the end of all the criss-crossing runways, and surrounding it on every side are houses. Midway is smack-bang in the middle of a residential area.
Fortunately the airport has these tiny little buffers in place, presumably to stop any plane that might overshoot the runway from ploughing headlong into the junction on the other side of the fence. Scary stuff.
These images were taken around 5 years ago, whilst the airport was being completely rebuilt (without ever closing), and you can clearly see where the old terminal building (with the black roof) has been partially torn down.
Just to the east of the new terminal building you can see the then brand-new multi-storey car park (which has some really cool exterior circular ramps joining the levels together), and slightly further east again is the Chicago Transit Authority's Orange Line train yard. Speaking of trains, there's also several other enormous trainyards in the area.
About the author
Alex has decided that his title will be Senior Vice President of Stuff.
I found (and posted) this urban airport near to the Getty Museum that the Sightseers put up a couple of weeks ago.
View Placemark
I’m amazed more airplanes dont land on houses in the USA. In Britain it takes decades to build get an airport built and dont even think about it being within seven miles of an urban area. Americans seem to have a more cavalier attitude to such matters – its not like they are short of land to build out of town and or afraid of driving for hours to go to the shops or attend a sporting event. Watch your tv aerials Chi-towners!
Norther git: Airports like Midway in Chicago and Santa Monica Airport (the name of the airport in the link you provided) were built decades ago in what was then agricultural land or open space. There was no development around them.
Mousky Yes i gathered that – its just we have a thing in Britain called Town Planning. It is where nice people in windowless offices have a little rubber stamp with REJECT on it and when someone wants to build lots of houses around an airport they usually dont let them. Its a little bit old fashioned i know but it kinda works. Funnily enough though it doesnt stop aeroplanes landing on houses sometimes. By the way, to someone sitting in a dark,dreary northern town with torrential rain pouring outside the window Santa Monica seems a very, very long way away. It looks very nice in the pictures, even from several thousand feet up.
Midway is definitely my favorite airport to fly through. It sure feels like the wheels are going to drag on the houses when landing! And driving down 55th or Cicero when a plane is landing is quite the experience. I should point out to northern git that Midway was built in 1923 as a mail airport and was indeed well away from the city proper at the time. Chicago has grown quite a bit over the last 80 years!
northern, yes i know its tough to believe but us yankees have a revolutionary thing called “property rights.”
OUR gov’t doesnt get to decide what i can do with what i bought. Thats freedom, thats a civil right.
viva la capitalism!
just having some fun with you euros
The tiny little buffers are blast shields; planes go to the end of a runway to take off and then hit full throttle, right? How’d ya like to be driving by and get hit by that jetwash? Then again, it might be kinda fun to see 6 lanes of traffic get pushed into each other… well, maybe not.
Midway used to be a truly frightening airport – every time I flew out of it (which I avoided like the plague), I honestly kept looking at the ground expecting to see straw and people bringing livestock on the airplanes. It was just a rundown third-rate airport.
The new Midway though, is an absolute jewel; I now far prefer flying through Midway than O’Hare; it’s 100% brand new, beautiful, clean, bright, and a real pleasure to fly through.
Oh, and Mark, we here in the US do have a little thing called Eminent Domain. That’s where the government can (and does) say “I want to build something for the good of the community here.” Like a highway, or an airport. And then they give you a check for a “fair” amount for your property, and you vacate, and that’s it.
I dont want to turn this thread into a dull rant about planning laws but one thing i have learned from this great site is that unrestrained deveolpment in the United States is ugly, wasteful and ultimately destructive. I’m no eco warrior but using Google maps you just have to hover over any city in the USA and see cynical and sprawling suburbs, huge freeways and even huger parking lots. British planning laws arent perfect but give me that any day over ‘property rights’. Dont fool yourself that ‘property rights’ will stop the US government if they want to put a free way through your house (or knowing Bush, drill for oil in your back garden). One only has to look at downtown Detroit (where it seems every other block is a parking lot) to see what a lack of Planning can do.
Anyway, back on message, about 10 years ago i visited Chicago. I definitely left via O Hare but i arrived at a little airport and it wasnt Midway. I’ve got the name Idlewild in my head. Am i going mad?
Hey northern git:
Actually Idlewild was the former name of JFK airport in New York City — after Kennedy’s assasination, the Port Authority of New York renamed the airport in his honor. My family lives in Chicago, and I’m a Southwest regular, flying them 2-3 times annually when I come in from San Francisco. I ALWAYS fly into Midway — it’s much less congested than O’Hare, and it’s more accessible to the city, I think. I do have to agree with all of you though, I sometimes get anxious on approach to Midway becuase it is right in the middle of major residential development. Chicago’s grown alot since 1923, and that’s that. Planes have to land somewhere.
ha not to drag it on, i was just joking, but being from detroit i can promise you that detroit’s problems have nothing to do with planning but years of corrupt criminal mayors. Second, cities aren’t designed to look good from the air. And finally, you can’t give away someone else’s civil right jsut cause it “works” for YOU. Lots of facism has been done in the name of that logic.
Midway Airport saw much of its traffic dwindle away until about a decade or so ago, when Southwest Airlines (the largest discount airline in the United States and, arguably, the most successful airline in the world) began using it in a big way. Southwest now has major, thriving operations there.
This should be O’Hare airport – just for comparison:
View Placemark
U.S.A Will stomp Britain, if it wasn’t for us you guys would be saying “hail Hitler”
Oh dear! Once again a narrow world view from an American. I shouldn’t really be dignifying Nigerachie but it was the Soviets who saved us from saying “Hail (sic) Hitler”. The USA were happy to let us get on with it for two years and it was only the decision to invade the Soviet Union that prevented a German invasion of the British Isles. The USA didn’t enter the war to help us out – it was an inconvenient distraction to the main job in the Pacific.
U!S!A! U!S!A! U!S!A! S….ooops
hahah oh norther, recognize a joke when you see it. And actually the Battle of Britian had been going on for a long time before hitler invaded russia and it was the US Navy’s help in keeping supply lines open that created the only opportunity for Britian to defend itself from invasion.
not to mention the US military buildup in the Pacific that prevented Japan from launching their planned attack on Russia which would have forced Stalin to divert resources to the east coast and led the way to hitler conquering britian too.
Holy crap. Selling your house near there must be very difficult.
Reminds of that episode of the simpsons…
I hereby invoke Godwin’s Law. We’ll have no more of that sort of stuff or I’ll close the thread.
Godwin is our leader! I take full responsibility for dragging something about an airport to the depths of twentieth century planning laws and the causes of WW2! In future I shall promise to keep my opinions on these fascinating subjects to myself – no matter how much provacation i get. To all our American cousins – thanks for the Spam and nylons back in the day.
lol, no prob northern,Spams good stuff
northern git:
2 other, smaller airports in the Chicago area are (formerly) Meigs Field, which is right downtown on Lake Michigan, and Palwaukee Airport, which is out in the Northwest suburbs (I’m looking at it out the window of my office, actually!).
Carol Thanks for that – i still cant remember which one it was though but Palwaukee sound like it could have been the one. That period of my life is a bit of blur. i do remember having to sleep in a broom cupboard at O Hare because my on going flight wasnt for another three days. I dont think you could get away with that sort of thing now. Besides that i have very fond memories of Chicago. As big Frank said “Its my kinda town”.
Very informative. I forget about Midway Airports proximity to the housing and dense population in the area. The visual image leaves an unforgetable picture in my mind. I’m from the area and have flown out and into Midway once in my life, at a diagonal. My colleague had to test my knowledge by asking me what direction we were taking off. I said South because I could sense North behind me. Of course the accountant had to let me know we were diagonal, just to show up the new librarian, teacher. From then on I had to watch myself around that guy.
Good lord, is someone at Google Sightseeing clairvoyant? Talking about the runway bumpers, and tonight, news of a jet that skidded off the runway into the street. Guess the bumpers aren’t worth crap, are they?
this post was the first thing i though of when i heard about the southwest airliner tonight. wow.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20051209.wplane1209/BNStory/International/
Just wondering, any more info on the “blast shilds” and the fence the plane crashed through?
What are they made of, what are they designd to stand up to, etc..
Also — IMHO, I thought I read somwhere that they had recently plowed the runway. Here in MI the roads always are slickest right after they have been plowed, because it causes a packed thin layer of snow/ice right on the road.
I lived virtually right at Midway, off 63rd. and Long Ave. from 1946 to 1963. I never witnessed a live plane crash, but was there for the aftermath more than once. Around 1956 in early AM or so, a Braniff plane was landing coming over Central and 59th. Street, when it clipped several landing light poles; a Bulko gas sign; and landed upside down on the runway. I was the first one there. No police, no ambulances, no fire trucks for almost 10 minutes. Just luggage, clothes, and shoes scattered around the runway. It was erie! We loved living that close. We saw both Truman and Eisenhower land, Frank Sinatra, the Beatles, and Hugh Hefner’s big black Playboy jet with a bunny on the tail was kept there. That surrounding residential area to the west was known as Clearing. Our community was known as Chrysler Village since during the war Chrysler had an enormous airplane manufacturing plant south on Cicero near the Belt Railroad. After the war Ford used it but I’m a little uncertain exactly what for. Now it’s a big mall known as Ford City. I live in Florida, have for 30 years. When I go back which is seldom, I fly into Midway. Brings back memories. Thank you, Bob Kessler
I GREW UP IN THE 50’s WALKING DISTANCE TO MIDWAY..have many posters & memorabilia……it was the “WORLDS BUSIEST” at that time!! Now because both O’Hare & Midway are delay points….WE WILL HAVE A THIRD AIRPORT… 3 X the size of O’hare…Looks like the DALEY politicians have finally cashed in on their farms..after 30 years. Thank you.
Hey Kessler guy….the Ford (city) plant made B29s during the war…Harry Chaddick & affs..bought it for Shopping center development… Also I remember very well…when JFK landed at the Int’l terminal…my daddy took me to see him….when he walked off his plane, he walked directly to us….and my Daddy have him the thumbs–back—> I always wondered why until I grew up! Any more neighborhood stories…
On my trip to chicago in early december fortunately I landed at O’Hare airport after a 3 hour flight delay waiting to land due to the snow on the runway. I say fortunately because after I landed I heard a new story about a plane sliding off the runway(due to the snow) at Midway striking a car that killed the little kid in the front seat. I couldn’t imagine just driving down the street, late at night and seeing a gigantic plane sliding towards me, that would probably be the scariest thing to see. I think they should either buy alot of the land surrounding the airport or just re-locate it. I’d hate to hear about this happening again.
I’ve flown into Midway several times and have never found it scary. The crash that occurred in December 2005 happened during a freakishly huge blizzard, and I was actually out driving in it when the emergency vehicles game down Mannheim Road from O’Hare to Midway. The airport simply should not have been open that night in those conditions.
If these damn buffers were put into place during the remodeling of the airport, then 6 year old Joshua Woods would probably still be alive today.
i lived on 55th & central for several years back in the late 50’s when mdw was still the leader in operations. i still have wonderful memories of air travel back in those days. no comparison to today. it was my 1st domicle and how glamorus air travel was. not the crap it is today. our old hangout was santuchi’s pizza at cicero & 63rd. just wanted to join in. e-mail me if you can share that time period. thanks, bill