Green Roots Taking Hold in the Stockyards? Chicago

There may not be a more overlooked bit of living history in all of Chicago than the remnants of the Union Stockyards. We are talking about a chunk of town that defined this city for the better part of a century. Arguably the birthplace of the assembly line (or, in this case, the disassembly line where two million animals were butchered annually), nursery of the labor movement and home to businesses so important to the economy that the City reversed its river in part to deal with the offal they dumped (Bubbly Creek, which ran through the Stockyards, still bubbles four decades after they closed), it is somewhat surprising that the Union Stock Yard Gate is all that is left to mark the source of so much history....



One is impossible to miss as you approach the area off of Halsted or 47th Street. Testa Produce’s new 750-kilowatt wind turbine stands 250 feet tall and looms over the surrounding neighborhoods. It is the first big turbine we have seen in the City and it makes quite a statement about the company’s new distribution facility on Racine. The City sold the formerly blighted property to Testa for $1 to help incent the green project, which the company claims will derive half of its power from the turbine and solar panels when it opens later this week. The building itself is said to be the first LEED-platinum food service facility in the nation, with an array of energy and water efficiency features....


More at: http://chicagoist.com/2011/05/08/green_roots_taking_hold_in_the_stoc.php#photo-1

Kinda helps to have dem mayor and governor.

chicago has a lot of property to rebuild for the future and it looks like it will be green.

My father used to haul his black Angus cattle to market at the Chicago stockyards a couple times a year and was always proud he got top dollar.

Now, two members of my family have been in hydroponics and one is in the wind tower business. It is good to see the old stockyards converting to green, rather than sales for slaughter.