Stone and steel towers rise on a tight grid under elevated tracks, and LaSalle Street is the canyon The Dark Knight closed for a truck flip.
What The Loop looks like
Stone and steel office towers stand shoulder to shoulder on a tight nineteenth century street grid, some rising past sixty storeys over the sidewalk. Elevated tracks from 1897 ring the district on riveted steel trestle work above Lake, Wabash, Van Buren and Wells Streets. Trains run at second floor height over the traffic below.
narrows into a canyon of bank towers between Madison and Jackson, closed off at its south end by the , a limestone Art Deco tower from 1930 topped with a faceless aluminum statue of Ceres. Older Chicago School buildings stand nearby in masonry and terra cotta. Their Chicago windows, a fixed central pane flanked by two narrower sashes, repeat across the facades.
Washington Street opens onto , a paved civic square in front of the Richard J. Daley Center with a Cor-Ten steel Picasso sculpture at its centre. On Michigan Avenue to the east, the 's limestone facade stands a block from 's brick and stone front. The dark green terra cotta of the rises across the river to the north.
rises over the grid's western edge, its black steel form visible the length of Wacker Drive. runs a second, darker roadway beneath the offices above, reserved for freight and service traffic.
Shot in The Loop
The Dark Knight closed South LaSalle Street to flip a forty foot tractor trailer, then used Daley Plaza as the exterior of Wayne Enterprises and the roof of Willis Tower for an observation scene. The production also shot a car chase along Lake Street and an arrest outside a parking garage on Randolph Street, all within the same square mile.
The Dark Knight
LaSalle Street, Daley Plaza and Willis Tower. Three separate Loop addresses stood in for Gotham City within one production.
The Dark Knight, 2008
The LaSalle Street canyon
The production closed South LaSalle Street to flip a forty foot tractor trailer end over end, using a mechanical piston rather than CGI. The Chicago Board of Trade Building stands at the canyon's south end, on Jackson Boulevard. Street View
The Dark Knight, 2008
Daley Plaza
The plaza in front of the Richard J. Daley Center on Washington Street stood in as the exterior of Wayne Enterprises headquarters. The Cor-Ten steel Picasso sculpture at the plaza's centre is visible in the shot. Street View
The Dark Knight, 2008
Willis Tower
A rooftop observation scene was shot at Willis Tower, completed in 1973 as the Sears Tower. It remains the tallest building in the Loop and the third tallest building in the Western Hemisphere. Street View
The narrow canyon along Wall Street and Broad Street between limestone and masonry towers from the 1900s through the 1930s is close in scale to LaSalle Street. Both canyons end at a stock or commodities exchange building. New York's canyon has no elevated tracks overhead, so a shot that needs the L in frame has to go elsewhere. Try searching narrow exchange tower canyon now.
Bay Street's cluster of bank towers on a tight grid gives a similar density of glass and older stone buildings to LaSalle Street's own canyon. Toronto's towers lean toward glass curtain wall rather than masonry and terra cotta. There is no elevated line downtown either, so a shot built around the L has to go elsewhere. Try searching Bay Street bank towers now.
Center City in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Center City's early office towers around Broad and Chestnut Streets are masonry clad and close in period to LaSalle Street's own buildings, most raised between the 1900s and the 1930s. The streets in Center City run wider and the towers stand further apart, so a tight lens and a low angle are needed to hide the extra daylight between buildings. Try searching masonry office towers now.
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