DOWNTOWN — In Rome, it's said, they can't dig 10 feet into the ground for a new building or a water line without coming across an archeological site that calls for bringing in the experts and bringing construction to a halt.
The same in Istanbul, Turkey, where The New Yorker wrote last year that crews digging a tunnel spanning the Bosporus were hung up for years encountering shipwrecks.
With all apologies to the Potawatomis, Chicago doesn't have the same extended centuries of history in civilization. Still, I wondered on mornings as I crossed the Chicago River on an "L" train and looked down on Riverwalk construction, what precious artifacts were crews unearthing on the banks soon to be covered with concrete?
After all, construction crews had to dig through debris from the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 in building Millennium Park, because what eventually became Grant Park was used as a dumping ground for years following the fire.
What had they dug up along the Chicago River in the past couple of years while Riverwalk construction was working its way down the south bank to where the North and South branches divide? An old mining-type cart used by bootleggers in the tunnels under the river? (One of the tunnels punctured by crews and causing the Great Chicago Flood of a quarter century ago?) Long-lost watches, jewelry and other detritus from the Eastland Disaster? At very least some old arrowheads from the Potawatomis and other tribes known to inhabit the area.
After a week of inquiry, here's what I got back from Mike Claffey, spokesman for the Department of Transportation, on what construction crews had reported coming across: "No significant or historical artifacts were found during the excavation for the Riverwalk. We did find a car frame, old shopping cart, newspaper vendor box, pieces of old bridge facades and hand-cut wood piles."
No need to call the Chicago History Museum and tell them to clear space for that haul. It's more Al Capone's vault than a Trojan War-era shipwreck.
No wonder construction of the Riverwalk has stayed on schedule for completion later this year. Chicagoans can thank the lack of stratified history under their feet.
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