Tour: Not frequently visited - the Calumet River Area

Your guides spent a few hours moving the boat from its harbor near Downtown Chicago to its winter storage location in the heart of the South Side of Chicago on the Calumet River. You won't find many real estate articles or photographic essays on the Calumet River area, but some of our photos are quite starkly artistic.

From the National Weather Service, Lake Michigan Forecast:

THIS AFTERNOON...NORTH WINDS 10 TO 15 KNOTS BECOMING NORTHWEST. CHANCE OF SHOWERS. WAVES 5 TO 8 FEET SUBSIDING TO 4 TO 6 FEET.

A bumpy ride.

The Calumet Harbor area and the Calumet River are tributaries serving heavy industry in most literal sense of the word. Steel mills, electricity generating plants, auto manufacturaing, barge traffic are the inhabitants of this stretch of the south side. Just south of the river, the modest homes of Hegewisch serve the factory workers. Homes in Hegewisch can be found from $89,900 to $450,000, although most homes top out around $250,000.

The Norfolk Southern Railroad Bridge is an ancient vertical lift bridge that features the operator's shack on top of the bridge offering the additional benefit to the operator of being lifted 60 feet in the air every time the bridge moves.

It's a theme: concrete and gas.

Bypassing the entire region, you can see the Chicago Skyway towering above the river in the photo above. The Chicago Skyway Bridge is a 7.8-mile toll road built in 1958 to connect the Dan Ryan Expressway to the Indiana Tollway - because - of course - you do NOT want to drive through this neighborhood.

More Calumet River photos on FLICKR.