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| The great city of the prairie, hugging Lake Michigan, received a plan that would set its course for the twentieth century on January 8, 1910 (JWB, 2012) |
On this
date – January 8 of 1910 – the members of the Chicago plan commission met for
the first time with the member of the Commercial Club. Held at the Congress Hotel, the
meeting officially launched the brand new Chicago Plan, which presented
according to The Chicago Tribune, “visions of Chicago as the most beautiful city in the world –
the most healthful and practical.”
During the evening the new plan for the city was assessed from a number
of different angles.
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| Daniel Burnham (Photo courtesy of Chicago History Museum) |
First,
there was praise for the internationally acclaimed architect, who had
contributed the services of his firm, asking no fee in return, Daniel Burnham.
Master of Ceremonies for the evening, Theodore W. Robinson, the President of
the Commercial Club, paid tribute
to the great architect. Mr.
Robinson said of Burnham, “The genius which brought thousands to the worlds’
fair of 1893, a fair which many claimed would be big but not beautiful, has
contributed his talent to the plan without renumeration. This is a significant occasion. From now on both these great
organizations must pull together to make this one of the greatest of cities.”
The
second organization to which Mr. Robinson referred was the Chicago Plan
Commission, which worked with the Commercial Club for four years to produce the
plan. Charles H. Wacker, the
President of the Plan Commission also spoke that evening. Mr. Wacker observed that the member of
the Commercial Club had gone to great lengths to support the work. “No time was spared, no money was
stinted, and the best talent was secured,” Mr. Wacker stated.
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| The Michigan Avenue Bridge, now the DuSable Bridge, completed in 1920 was a direct result of the Chicago Plan. In fact, its designer, Edward Bennett, was arguably the man most responsible for the writing of the plan (JWB Photo) |
Alderman
B. W. Snow cast the plan in moral terms, saying, “Dirt, grime, and sordid
conditions are not a part of industrial and commercial success. They are evidences of failure to grasp
the fundamental truth that men who are happy, whose lives are cast in pleasant
places, who are clean of body and mind, are the men who do things.”
The
United States Secretary of the Treasury, Franklin MacVeagh, sent a message to
the assemblage in which he tied this new kind of urban planning, specifically
as it related to Chicago, to the interests of the entire nation. “Cities in the
near future will be built on plans, as houses or parks are,” he wrote. “Chicago especially must be. She has a great mission and
responsibility. She must be the
metropolis of the Mississippi valley, and respond to the material and spiritual
demands of a great people. She
must be great in all particulars, and beautiful. The present great plan must be greater still and dominate
every district and neighborhood as it is added.”
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| The two-tiered Wacker Drive, to the right and following the river's curve, also came directly from the Chicago Plan's suggestions (JWB Photo) |
Mr.
Wacker also clearly outlined the financial stake that the city had in following
through on the principles of the plan.
He observed that in just 61 days during the previous summer Americans
who visited France spent $2,000,000.
The sum was so enticing that as the year came to an end the Paris
Chamber of Deputies authorized a loan for $180,000,000 to fund “an elaborate
scheme of improvements.”
Turning
next to the opportunity that would be missed if the plan were not acted upon,
Mr. Wacker observed, “Hundreds of thousands of people pass through Chicago
every year for the purpose of spending their money in New York because they
feel New York has more to offer them.
New York has capitalized its attractiveness and has discovered that it
paid in dollars and cents. A
traveler seeks the places that give him comfort and beauty. He may visit London, but he spends week
in Paris.”
Concluding
his remarks, Mr. Wacker issued a plea, “Our golden opportunity is at hand. Today all the important features of the
plan may be carried out at small cost.
But the longer we wait the more difficult will it become. Large amounts are appropriated and
expended annually in a haphazard and disorderly way. If we expend during a similar period the sum of $222,464,770,
which was spent for extraordinary improvements in Chicago from 1882 to 1906, we
shall save many millions of dollars and accomplish much more.”
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| A principal component of the plan was to use the lakefront as a force for the public good, rather than allowing it to become an 18-mile stretch of commercial and industrial concerns. This foresight, if it had not been followed, would have created a far different city than |
Mr.
Charles D. Norton, representing the United States Secretary of the Treasury,
broadened the significance of the plan, relating it to the rapidly expanding
nation. Mr. Norton proclaimed,
“For what Chicago plans and executes will determine to what extent the comfort,
the pleasure, and the pride of our mighty inland empire shall be
satisfied. A hundred million of
people will soon look to this city as their capital, their center in which to
trade, to hear music, to see pictures, to enjoy themselves. This places a high responsibility upon
the men who control public and private business in Chicago.”
Concluding
remarks came from Alderman Snow who pulled all of these remarks together in
assessing the importance of implementing the plan. He finished his speech by observing, “That which will
improve the economic efficiency of the laboring men and women of our city to
the same extent will add to the industrial and commercial possibilities of
Chicago. If you will hammer home
the truth that a city built along rational and modern lines means more of
comfort, more of health, more of opportunity for physical, mental, and moral
development for its people, you will find little difficulty in carrying out
your ideas, but no longer limit yourselves by calling your plan the city of
beauty.”
At the
banquet that evening, now a century and three years distant, Chicago began the
process of turning itself into a sleek, streamlined beauty, with continuous,
well-planned improvements in infrastructure, parks, transportation systems,
both automobile and railroad, and its lakeshore that would last for the next
three decades. There were some
slip-ups along the way, and much didn’t get done that could have while some
projects were carried out that never should have been.
Still,
if you listen to folks who are visiting Chicago for the first time, almost to a
person they will say, “I never realized that Chicago was as beautiful as it is.” And they are right.
It’s
quite a story.
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4 comments:
Thank you for giving us this wonderful history lesson! Great photos too!
A golden opportunity it was!
Thanks for sharing them. I will be expecting more of your posts in the future.
Maybe someone should check the bank account in Chiago to see where that money is coming from. If this area is now more unsafe then the war zone in Afghanistan it will just give the thugs a better place to hunt tourists. Maybe cleaning up neighborhoods and putting people to work would be a better place to invest. Just building something is not a solution to make life safer or better. To see more info please visit essayswriters.org/paper-writing.
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