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| Stuck Cart, early 1900's (Chicago Daily News Photo Archie) |
Ah . . . the thaw
comes to the Big City, and the river turns green!
I know, I know,
it’s going to make some folks a little hot under the collar for a guy who
has spent all those below-zero days a-tanning down here in southern Florida to be
writing about the welcome changing of the weather (if, indeed, that does
occur).
But you can be a
student of history under a palm tree just as well as you can wrapped up in long
johns and fleece, and my research assures me that back in the early 1900’s this
time of year was even messier than it is today.
Here’s what The
Tribune had to say around this time of year back in 1900 . . . “Pools of water
and slush, ankle deep, dotted the down-town streets and sidewalks
yesterday. Commissioner McGann said that
the condition of the streets was the worst in the history of the city . . .” [Chicago Tribune, March 10, 1900]
The specifics were
as follows:
The entire extent of the
down-town portion sof Van Buren and Lake streets and Wabash avenue were covered
with half-liquid slush which was plashed on pedestrians by every passing
wagon. The crowded sidewalks forced many
people to step into pools deeper than the height of rubber shoes. In La Salle street, north of Randolph, two
alley sidewalk intersections were flooded with water several inches deep. Along Lake street the water inundated the
sidewalks in many places.
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| Goose Island Street, early 1900's (chicagopast.com) |
A year later the
same thing occurred as The Tribune reported, “Chicago is wading these days—men
are paddling down-town through the slush and mud, going about their business
with wet feet, and then trudging home again over streets that are thick with
slime and dotted with puddles.” [Chicago Tribune, March 15, 1901]
The article went on
to report that
Freed of much of the snow by
the recent thaw, but not of the mud or the slush, streets in all parts of the
city are almost impassable. With the
slush on an even level the ruts are concealed, and at the crossing the
pedestrian runs the risk of sinking to his ankles—in some places to his
knees—in the filth that fills the holes.
Not fun.
Imagine being one
of the poor souls among the 10,000 folks who lived along Western Avenue between
Thirty-Ninth and Fifty-Fifth streets that year.
The entire area was without sewers and open ditches provided the only
drainage. They overflowed, covering the
neighborhoods in six to twelve inches of water.
Water in the basement of the Shields School at Rockwell and Fifty-Fifth
streets was so high that it put out the fire in the school’s furnace.
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| Michigan Avenue at Randolph Street, 1893 (chicagopast.com) |
The following day
The Tribune printed the final insult in the whole mess in an article entitled Dirtiest of All Cities. [Chicago Tribune, March 16, 1901] The paper printed this slam . . .
People returning to the city
after a trip to cities of this country, or, indeed any other, are surprised to
find to what a low point municipal uncleanliness has fallen. Many Chicago people have visited Havana this
winter and there, although the city formerly was held the synonym of uncleanliness,
they find the streets
looking—by comparison to Chicago—like well swept floors.
The whole mess
continued for years and years. In fact,
in 1903 The Tribune dispensed with
the straight reporting entirely and published a whole page of poems about the
condition of the streets written by “versifiers” whose stanzas might have been
“lame and halt, but it may have been the poets were trying to carry the idea of
rough streets by using irregular feet.” [Chicago Tribune, March 10, 1903]
One such gem was
entitled Halsted Street . . .
Halsted
Street
Would
you see the worst?
Go take a view
Southward
from Ar-
cher avenue,
Where
the street cars run
Through miles of slush,
A
measley, blackened
Horrible mush;
A
thoroughfare
Where people trudge
Through
nasty, sticky
Bottomless sludge;
Where
the wagons bump,
Ker-chuock!
Ker-chock!
O’er
the frazzled and worn
Old cedar block!
A
dirty, pasty,
Slobbery mass,
A
six-mile stretch
Of foul morass;
A
smear on the face
Of the town of Lake
Is
Halsted “street”—
It takes the cake!
“Slobbery mass” and
“foul morass” . . . nice rhyming.
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1 comment:
This is quit the story. I honestly don't know how people dealt such difficult conditions. This winter may have been bad, but this was even worse.
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