Blue Island Avenue, one of the diagonal streets intersecting the grid system on the south side of Chicago, originally ran north as far as Halsted Street. With the construction of the Chicago Circle campus, Blue Island Avenue from Roosevelt Road to Halsted Street was removed.

Although the diagonal thoroughfare across campus is gone, it still traces a faint line from the corner of Taylor and Morgan to the corner of Harrison and Halsted.

Underneath the Blue Island corridor runs one of Commonwealth Edison’s main arteries for power to the Loop. Because of the power lines, Walter Netsch was unable to build any structures over this underground corridor.

The garden south of the Science and Engineering Offices owes its existence to this building restriction.