Login | Create A Free Account | FAQ
WindyCitizen.com NewsBlogsAdvertise Top Citizens

Vanishing Village

Tracking the demolition of Bensenville, Ill.

Search it

Latest News from our Sponsors [?]

Paid for and Authorized by Friends of Dan Hynes

About this blog

Bensenville, Ill. is a village located primarily in DuPage County, with a small section located near O'Hare International Airport, northwest of Chicago.  

Bensenville is ground zero for the city of Chicago's $15 billion O'Hare Modernization Program.  The program will improve traffic out of the airport by replacing intersecting runways with parallel ones, the city says.

Since 2003, the city has bought up more than 500 homes and businesses in the area of Bensenville adjacent to the airport.  Bensenville took the city to court to prevent their demolition and in early August 2008, the court ruled in the city's favor.

This blog will track and document the demolition and demise of Bensenville's "acquisition area" through news links and photos. If you have news tips, links or photos related to the demolition, please contact us at windycitizen@gmail.com

We are looking for someone to help edit this blog.  If you're interested, contact us at windycitizen@gmail.com

Vanishing Village's Greatest Hits

What People Are Saying Here

Vanishing Village Visual Guide: Mapping our Bensenville Coverage

For those into adding a spatial dimension to a story, I've created a custom Google map that contains all the points highlighted so far on the blog along with links back to the relevant images on the Citizen.

Enjoy this other way to get into the Bensenville story.


View Larger Map

Visitors to the map (link above) can comment, vote and suggestion improvements to it.  Feel free to do any or all those tasks.

BradFlora
Brad Flora is founder of WindyCitizen.com, a web service that lets people share their favorite Chicago news and events with their friends and neighbors. More

5 Discussions What do you think?. Click here to start a discussion! ↓


Comments

I was just in Bensenville this afternoon, in the "acquisition zone". On the north side of Irving Park, I didn't have a chance to look, but on the south side it's a lonely, desolate, quiet place. I noticed two lawns neatly cut on a street corner near houses that were miraculously not boarded up, and some sort of "community policing center" set up in one of the townhouses in the southeast that looked occupied, I guess. I'm going back soon, before it gets cold, with a camera. On one hand, I'm glad nothing has happened to these houses yet, because it means the city of Bensenville hasn't given up on them, but on the other hand, I'm sad to see Chicago stirring up all this trouble and nothing being done with it all.
I really wish you would update more, because ever since I got my own car last year I've been kind of drawn to this place.

1 points
by TheCitizen 1 week 1 day ago

Esther, when you snap the pics, we can add them to the blog. E-mail me at brad@ windycitizen.com

I wish we updated more often, too! Know any Bensenville residents who want to blog about the town?

unfortunately, today's story over on chicagobreakingnews.com doesn't look like good news.
http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2009/11/ohare-international-airport-c...
I'll have to go and photograph whatever I can within the next two weeks before it's gone. This plus finals plus documenting the demolition of Michael Reese Hospital (another casualty of Mayor Daley's vision of "progress") is going to keep me very, very busy.

Be sure to share those links on Windy Citizen when you get them up!

Of course! I'll link you to my photobucket when I've gotten these pictures.

Post new comment

To join the conversation create a profile, login, or

Welcome

About this blog

Bensenville, Ill. is a village located primarily in DuPage County, with a small section located near O'Hare International Airport, northwest of Chicago.  

Bensenville is ground zero for the city of Chicago's $15 billion O'Hare Modernization Program.  The program will improve traffic out of the airport by replacing intersecting runways with parallel ones, the city says.

Since 2003, the city has bought up more than 500 homes and businesses in the area of Bensenville adjacent to the airport.  Bensenville took the city to court to prevent their demolition and in early August 2008, the court ruled in the city's favor.

This blog will track and document the demolition and demise of Bensenville's "acquisition area" through news links and photos. If you have news tips, links or photos related to the demolition, please contact us at windycitizen@gmail.com

We are looking for someone to help edit this blog.  If you're interested, contact us at windycitizen@gmail.com

Subscribe

The Vanishing Village Feed
Get all the stories posted on this blog.

The Windy Citizen Blog Network Feed
Get all the stories posted on Windy Citizen blogs.

See all feeds »

Windy Citizen Daily E-mail Updates:

Recommended Links



This site Copyright 2009, Windy Citizen.com - All rights reserved. Content posted by users is dedicated to the public domain.
Designed in Chicago's Old Town neighborhood.