Wednesday, May 31, 2017

May 31, 1960 -- Federal Center Plans Announced



May 31, 1960 – The Chicago Daily Tribune reports that four Chicago architecture firms are joining together to plan “a glass and steels structure” [Chicago Daily Tribune, May 31, 1960] that will replace the federal courthouse.  It will sit on the east side of Dearborn Street between Adams Street and Jackson Boulevard, providing more than 1.3 million square feet of space for somewhere around 5,500 employees of the United States courts and 19 federal agencies.  The paper reports that “The surrounding walks and plaza, as well as the lobby floors, will feature granite paving.  The lofty first floor of the 30 story building will be devoted primarily to the lobby, stairways, and 24 elevators.”  Plans include air conditioning and “if conditions warrant, atomic bomb shelters.”  Completion date for the building is slated for late 1963 with final drawings due by the end of 1960.  This will be the first of two tall government buildings that will replace the old courthouse across Dearborn Street, a building that will be razed as the courthouse is being constructed so that a new federal building can be constructed in its place.  The architectural firms involved in the project were: the office of Mies van der Rohe; Schmidt, Garden, and Erikson; C. F. Murphy; and A. Epstein and Sons.


May 31, 1952 – Major Lenox R. Lohr, president of the Science Museum, today’s Museum of Science and Industry, announces that visitors will soon be able to walk through an 18-foot heart, part of a 3,000 square foot exhibit sponsored by the Chicago Heart Association. As part of the experience a human pulse will be audible. In another part of the exhibit the circulation of blood will be illustrated. The heart would fit into the chest of a 28-story human, which will make the museum an educational facility with a very big heart, indeed.

Tuesday, May 30, 2017

May 30, 1968 -- Medusa Challenger Does It Again



May 30, 1968 – It has only been a year that the Medusa Challenger has been at work on the Chicago River, but the big lake freighter will continue to make her presence known for years, indirectly causing enough traffic problems during her time sailing through the city to cause Chicagoans to refer to her as the “jinx ship.”  On this night the 562-foot ship is halted in her trip up the river when the Clark Street bridge short-circuits and refuses to open.  With the Dearborn and State Street bridges open to allow the ship to approach Clark Street, the malfunction causes traffic on all three streets to stop for an hour and 15 minutes.  Finally, at 7:30 p.m. the Clark Street bridge is made operable and “with a blast of its horn, the ship was under way as was the traffic, including one car driven by a man who had a permanent solution to the whole problem … ‘You know what they should do with this river?’ he said.  ‘They should have it paved.’” [Chicago Tribune, May 31, 1968] For all you might ever want to know about the ship and its ill-fortune in Chicago, you can head to this section of Connecting the Windy City.


May 30, 1893 – The laying of the cornerstone of the new Memorial Hall on the southwest corner of Michigan Avenue and Randolph Street takes place under the direction of the Grand Army of the Republic. Both streets are crowded with veterans and ordinary citizens “all anxious to behold the ceremony and listen to the addresses incident upon the formal commencement of the creation of a magnificent structure, which will be a credit to the city and take high rank among the costly edifices already so numerous in Chicago.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, May 31, 1893] The plot of ground, known as Dearborn Park, was originally part of the southern boundary of Fort Dearborn, part of the “public ground” that extended east to the lake and south to Madison Street. It required a coming together of the Directors of the Chicago Public Library and the Grand Army of the Republic to get a bill through Congress that would allow construction on the land. It took persistence . . . the legislation only passed after three attempts over the course of ten years. In a simple ceremony the flag is run to the top of the flag pole, a band plays the Star Spangled Banner and dozens of artifacts are placed in a copper box that will lie below the cornerstone. Then General E. A. Blodgett, the Commander of the Illinois Grand Army of the Republic, closes the ceremony, saying, “In the name of the soldiers and sailors who have saved our nation we thank you for the honor. We rejoice that our city thus proclaims to the world that patriotic self-sacrifice is not to be forgotten. We trust that our beloved land may never again be deluged in blood. Yet we remember that the perils of peace are scarcely less than the perils of war. The demands for loyalty are as great upon the sons as they were upon the sires. The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.” The Memorial Hall with its great dome occupies the northern half of what is today the Chicago Cultural Center. The photo above shows the site at the time with Randolph Street on the right and Washington Boulevard on the left.

Monday, May 29, 2017

May 29, 1966 -- 120 South Riverside Drive Begins to Rise



May 29, 1966 – The Chicago Tribune reports that the first steel has been erected above ground for the 120 South Riverside Plaza office building that is being constructed over the air rights of the railroad tracks of Union Station just west of the south branch of the Chicago River.  The steel, produced at the South Works of United States Steel and fabricated at the Gary plant of the American Bridge division of U. S. Steel, is part of 9,100 tons of steel that will be needed to complete the 22-story structure, a duplicate of the building at 10 South Riverside Plaza.  Tishman Realty and Construction Company has plans for a total of four buildings in the area that will be called Gateway Center, a project that will cost an estimated 100 million dollars.


May 29, 1906 – A fire breaks out in Armour Elevator “D,” located on a slip on the west side of the Chicago River at approximately Twenty-Second Street and Morgan, smoldering undetected until it blows out the north and south ends of the elevator and lights the night sky enough to be seen from Ravenswood to South Chicago. Sixty-two fire engines, some of them from as far north as Lakeview, and three fireboats are called to fight the fire in a massive structure containing a million bushels of wheat, corn and oats. The first firemen on the scene have to haul their equipment down a bank to the slip to get close enough to the fire. There are no nearby fire hydrants, so all of the water has either to be pulled from the slip or else come from fireboats. The massive Commonwealth Electric company plant northwest of the elevator is repeatedly ignited by burning embers, so the fire department’s efforts are devoted chiefly to saving it as well as lumber yards that lie to the west. Acting Fire Chief McDonough states, “It was impossible to save the elevators, and all the efforts of the department were directed to saving the millions of dollars’ worth of property in the vicinity. The recent rains soaked the lumber in the adjacent yards and probably did considerable toward stopping the spread of the flames.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, May 30, 1906] The photo above shows the elevator as it appeared before the fire, which must have been a spectacular conflagration.