Along the Divide
Photographs of the Dan Ryan Expressway

Jay Wolke
Center for American Places, Staunton, 2004. 96 pp., 65 color plates, 5 duotones, 1 map, 11¼x9¾".
The automobile has utterly changed the landscape and our lives-Jay Wolke has found a powerful way to record this historic transformation in this unique important photographic achievement. By Jay Wolke. Introduction by Dominic A. Pacyga

Described as an "arterial organism" by Wolke, the Dan Ryan Expressway is a massive, modern, ugly, and yet vital urban road on Chicago's southside. Notorious for being one of the most dangerous roads in America, the Dan Ryan is emblematic of Chicago's industrial, working class heritage. Wolke's photographs, all made between 1981 and 1985, serve, oddly enough, as a time capsule and yet, not much appears to have changed. Having travelled thousands of miles, cumulatively, up and down the expressway, Wolke worked as a visual anthropologist, recording not only the structures that make up the road, but also the people, the accidents, the neighborhoods and industrial zones through which it weaves. This book is another stimulating contribution from the publishing house Center for American Places.