Man found living comfortably inside Chicago drawbridge

CHICAGO (AP)  For three or four years, a homeless man achieved the impossible: he found a cheap place to live on pricey Lake Shore Drive.

Actually, Richard Dorsay lived under Lake Shore Drive, in a wooden shack built into the beams and girders of the drawbridge that crosses the Chicago River.

Dorsay was recently evicted after another man arrested in suburban Streamwood told police about the home under the bridge.

When authorities went inside, they found an elaborate setup that tapped into the bridge's electricity to power a television, microwave, space heater and PlayStation video game system. There, Dorsay could relax, turn on a Chicago Bears game, invite friends over and pop open some beers.

"I've never seen this," Tom Powers, a deputy commissioner for the Chicago Transportation Department, told the Chicago Sun-Times. "Usually, it's somebody trying to get warm at night."

The home had its quirks. Whenever Dorsay heard the bells that signal the arms of the bridge would soon rise to let boats through, he held on as the bridge slowly pitched him forward.

"The first time it was scary," he said. "After that, it was almost like riding a Ferris wheel."

Two other people also moved to the same area of the bridge, and a number of wooden huts with sleeping quarters were built. Dorsay used blankets to camouflage the huts to make them harder to spot from the water below.

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