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Economy of Scale -- McCormick Place and Chicago's beautiful lakefront
(chuckmanchicagonostalgia.files.wordpress.com)
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Two events on this
date, spaced over a period of seven years, relate to one of the most
controversial and ill-fated projects that the city of Chicago has undertaken,
the conception and eventual construction of a large convention center that
would reap millions and millions of convention dollars in a design that would
appropriately capture the daring and ambitious image of the modern city.
On November 18,
1953 the South Side Planning Board, largely responsible for clearing seven
square miles of slums on the city’s south side, put forth a proposal for a new
Chicago convention hall in an area bounded by Cermak Road on the north, South
Park Way on the East (today, Dr. Martin Luther King Drive), Michigan Avenue on
the west and Twenty-Fifth Street on the south.
Ambitious plans for
the site already existed in the form of a 700 feet by 700 feet structure
designed by the Director of the Department of Architecture at the Illinois
Institute of Technology, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. The center would be 100 feet high and would
be supported by a “continuous web of steel trusswork to support the roof,”
according to coverage in The Chicago
Tribune. There would be no interior
columns in a hall with a seating capacity of 50,000 people.
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The original proposal for the convention center by Mies van der Rohe
(betonbabe.tumblr.com)
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Yeah, that would
have been cool, huh? But, of course, it didn’t
happen. Evicting 3,000 residents of the
area and acquiring the land, alas, was thought at the time to require far too
much time and money during a period when time was thought to be crucial.
In an editorial on
May 12, 1955 The Tribune opined, “The
time element alone is sufficient cause to reject this proposal. Condemnation of a site would consume five
years, probably, and delay construction that long. It would also burden the project with land
costs estimated as high as 15 million dollars, which would make it financially
impossible.”
The argument for
saving valuable time was an interesting one, given the fact that the voters of
Cook County had approved a 15-million dollar bond issue for a convention hall
on June 6, 1927, a referendum that was subsequently invalidated by the Illinois
Supreme Court. The convention center
idea had appeared and reappeared ever since.
North side
interests favored constructing the huge hall north of the river, but ultimately
the plan focused on a site at Twenty-Third Street and the lakefront. In October of 1956 the Executive Director of
the Chicago Convention Bureau, Chester Wilkins, asserted that time was of the
essence in preparing the site.
“Chicago this year
is host to more conventions than at any time since the Century of Progress in
1933,” Mr. Witkins stated. “However, we
are finding ourselves in a more competitive position with other cities as the
convention center of the country. New
York City is planning a new convention hall in 1956, and Detroit is beginning
to offer new convention facilities for 1957.
This is all the more reason for expediting the convention and exposition
center planned for Chicago’s lake front.” [Chicago Tribune, October 6, 1955]
In 1956 the city
was looking at hosting over one thousand conventions, bringing 1,250,000
conventioneers and their money to the city, a quarter-million person increase
over 1955. To get the new hall built,
though, the city had to prevail in the courts.
The first of three
suits regarding the convention hall was decided in favor of the city in early
November of 1955. It upheld the
constitutionality of using fair and exposition fund money as backing for
revenue bonds. This was crucial to getting
the place built because the court’s decision allowed the use of revenue from
the convention center’s operation to pay off 34 million dollars of bonds sold
to get the place built.
The other suits
related to the powers of the Metropolitan Fair and Exposition Authority and
were also decided in the city’s favor.
Although there was some minor grumbling about a huge building on
lakefront property owned by the park district, it was more than countered by
the economics of the proposition.
By November of 1956
Illinois had purchased 20 million dollars of revenue bonds to get the project
started and Colonel Henry Crown and Conrad Hilton stood ready to kick in
significant bucks.
Colonel Crown, who
along with his family also owned the Empire State Building, said, “Both Conrad
Hilton and I are of the considered opinion that a convention center in Chicago
is mandatory if our city is to enjoy continued growth and maintain its status
as the world’s foremost convention city . . . We are of the opinion that these
5 per cent tax-exempt securities constitute a prudent investment, particularly
to substantial investors in higher tax brackets.” [Chicago Tribune, November 20, 1955]
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| 1959 Construction in Progress (chuckmanchicagonostalgia.files.wordpress.com) |
By the middle of
July, 1959 750 construction workers were laboring at the site, constructing a
building that could hold six football fields, a convention cavern in which the
Empire State Building could be laid sidewise. There would be a full service
restaurant that seated 625, a self-service facility that operated three lines
of food service, served 22 people a minute and would accommodate 750
diners. Banquet facilities could feed 25,000
people in one sitting, and a theater would provide entertainment for 5,000, the
largest theater in Chicago.
By early 1960 85
per cent of the available bookings for the following two years had already been
sold. “Thruout the year there will be a
succession of shows which in effect will be a permanent world’s fair, an
international market place,” The Tribune
editorialized. [Chicago Tribune, November
17, 1960]
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The east side promenade and cafe in 1961
(chuckmanchicagonostalgia.files.wordpress.com)
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And on this date in
1960 the vast exhibition hall was dedicated.
500 well-heeled attendees from Chicago and beyond gathered for the
ceremony and a cocktail party that followed.
Major Lenox Lohr,
the President of the Museum of Science and Industry and the first head of the
Metropolitan Fair and Exposition Authority, opened the party with a
demonstration of brand new General Electric technology, a fuel cell that
produced electricity through the fusion of hydrogen and oxygen, pressing a
button that activated spot lights directed at an American flag. The Great Lakes Naval Training Station band
played the National Anthem.
The main speaker of
the night was Arthur H. (Red) Motley, the president of the United States
Chamber of Commerce and a member of President Eisenhower’s committee on export
trade expansion, substituting for President-elect John F. Kennedy who was
unable to attend. “I don’t mind pinch
hitting for Mr. Kennedy,” Mr. Motley said. “I knew he’d have to call on us
Republicans for help, but I didn’t think he’d have to do it so soon.”
Then Mr. Motley
really got the boiler up to full steam, continuing . . .
The
activities of American business men, like those in this room tonight, will
solve our problem. They will seek and
find opportunities for doing business all over the world. That’s the way we’ve always done it and
that’s the way we’ll continue to do it . . . McCormick Place – this is the
American way – the growth of our great nation, the great state of Illinois,
this great city, has come as a result of individual effort, not government
effort. McCormick Place symbolizes
freedom of enterprise, individual enterprise.
As excitement built
and the great building neared completion The
Tribune trumpeted on May 21, 1960, “BUILT TO OUTLAST ROME’S GLORIES . . .
The building will be larger than the Circus Maximus of ancient Rome and more
durable than the Colosseum. It is of
fireproof steel and reinforced concrete construction, resting on 2,250 heavy
H-beams, driven down to bedrock. The
exterior walls will have a larger sculpture area than the Temple of Karnak.”
Not quite.
It was just seven
years from November 18, 1953 when the proposal for the Mies van der Rohe
convention center on the south side was floated until November 18, 1960 when
the great lakeside goliath was completed.
And it was just seven years from that spectacular night in 1960 to the
disastrous night of January 16, 1967 when the joint went up in flames.
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| Starting over on a new Temple of Karnak (911research.wtc7.net) |
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