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'Spaghetti Bowl' Circle Interchange Renamed for Jane Byrne

By Ted Cox | August 29, 2014 4:41pm
 Surrounded by family and friends including her daughter, Kathy (l.), Jane Byrne accepts a street sign marking the renaming of the Circle Interchange from Gov. Pat Quinn Friday.
Surrounded by family and friends including her daughter, Kathy (l.), Jane Byrne accepts a street sign marking the renaming of the Circle Interchange from Gov. Pat Quinn Friday.
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DNAinfo/Ted Cox

UNIVERSITY VILLAGE — Jane Byrne, the first and only woman to serve as mayor of Chicago, made a public appearance Friday for the renaming of the Circle Interchange in her honor.

Only time and public preference will tell if it will still be called the Circle Interchange (or the more informal "spaghetti bowl"), as it is now, but Gov. Pat Quinn officially renamed the tangled knot of interstate highways Downtown as the Jane Byrne Interchange Friday in honor of the 81-year-old former mayor.

Quinn made the pronouncement at a ceremony at the University of Illinois at Chicago Student Center East on what was formerly called the "Circle Campus." It's a stone's throw from the confluence of Interstates 90, 94 and 290 where the Kennedy, Eisenhower and Dan Ryan expressways meet at Congress Parkway.

 Also known as the Circle Interchange and the more informal "spaghetti bowl," this highway tangle — being unknotted in a $475 million project — is now officially named for Jane Byrne.
Also known as the Circle Interchange and the more informal "spaghetti bowl," this highway tangle — being unknotted in a $475 million project — is now officially named for Jane Byrne.
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Shutterstock/Bryan Busovicki

Quinn cited Byrne's "tireless commitment to the common good," and said the site was suitable to honor her in that it served as a bridge and an entryway to the city. He added that it was representative of "a coming together, a bridge that brought people together."

"The kids all came. I think it was terrific," Byrne said, surrounded by family, friends and old political colleagues.

Although Byrne has previously suffered a stroke, and her daughter, Kathy, warned she would not be speaking at the event, she granted a few minutes to reporters afterward.

"My time as mayor is gone," Byrne said. "I think the coming together of the City of Chicago is what will make it great, and it will be fine."

Byrne was a renegade city bureaucrat when she was elected mayor in 1979 in an upset over Mayor Michael Bilandic. She served only one term before being defeated by Harold Washington in 1983 in a three-way Democratic Primary with Richard M. Daley. Byrne briefly mulled an independent bid in the general election and made other later runs for office, but never regained the post — or voters' trust.

She is widely credited with creating Taste of Chicago and presiding over the redevelopment of the Downtown museum campus and the extension of the Chicago Transit Authority Blue Line to O'Hare International Airport, leading the way to the CTA running to Midway Airport as well. She was the first mayor to formally declare a "Gay Pride Parade Day."

Now a Gold Coast resident, she made headlines as mayor by moving into the Cabrini-Green housing project to help stem a particularly fiery outbreak of violence in the area.

Yet she served a rancorous, turbulent four-year term including firefighter, teacher and transit strikes, and in many ways she handed the reins of the city to the same "cabal of evil men" she had campaigned against, including Aldermen Edward Burke (14th) and Eddie Vrdolyak (10th). 

Led by Burke, the City Council recently voted to honor Byrne by renaming the park at the Water Tower in her honor. Burke appeared at Friday's ceremony as well.

The Harrison Street bridge near the interchange has been closed for months as the state works through a four-year, $475 million project to untangle the various on and off ramps.

Radio traffic reporters dubbed the interchange the "spaghetti bowl," and the usage remains popular, especially with Chicago families.

The interchange as it is, or was, averages 940 crashes a year.

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