February 16, 1879 – The Chicago Daily Tribune prints a special dispatch from the London Telegraph in which the British
paper is “highly eulogistic of the City of Chicago.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, February 16, 1879] Pointing out the city’s
amazing growth – from wilderness 50 years earlier to a city of 500,000 inhabitants
– the paper observes, “…the record of Chicago leaves San Francisco, St. Louis,
Cincinnati, and Melbourne far in the lurch … It is, indeed, the proud boast of
some among its aspiring citizens that, within the lifetime of children recently
born, Chicago will in population be the second city of the Anglo-Saxon race,
and will be surpassed in this respect by London alone.” The article speaks in amazement of the city’s
commerce … in the preceding year 130,000,000 bushels of grain were handled in
the city, along with 1,200,000,000 feet of lumber and 6,200,000 hogs. Despite its
impressive growth and commerce, the Telegraph
points out two fatal flaws at the end of the article. First, is the city’s financial position. “We
read without surprise,” the paper reports, “that the ‘City Fathers’ have piled
up so big a municipal debt that, in a community as sanguine and progressive as
any in the world, no more money can be borrowed on any terms.” Also mentioned is the crime that plagues the
city. The Telegraph observes, “… the
question asked again and again by our Chicago contemporaries, ‘Have we a police
force?’ derives additional significance from the street robberies, which seem
to be of constant occurrence.” Given
those two negatives, the London paper concludes that the city “…cannot yet be regarded
as an attractive home for civilized Europeans.”
February 16, 1944 – Gordon L. Pirie, vice-president and general manager of Carson Pirie Scott and Company, dies of heart disease in the Presbyterian Hospital. Pirie’s condition has been dire for several days, and as he lingers near death his sister ALSO dies at her winter home in Plymouth, Florida. Pirie graduated from Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute and worked in various retail stores before he came to Chicago to join his father, the founder of the store in which his name played a prominent part. Pirie was a member of the executive committee of the American Retail Federation, treasurer of the North Shore Property Owners association, chairman of the committee on transportation and traffic of the State Street Council, and former director of the Association of Commerce. He was also a trustee of the Winnetka Congregational Church. [Chicago Daily Tribune, February 17, 1944]
F
ebruary 16, 1954 -- Ralph Budd, chairman of the Chicago Transit Authority, proposes a plan for extending the city's rapid transit system. The greatest share of the plan involves adding to the city's rapid transit system by constructing rights of way for rail operation as part of the network of proposed super-highways. Mayor Kennelly calls the proposal "remarkable." Arthur T. Leonard, president of the Chicago Association of Commerce, calls the plan "both challenging and constructive." Observe the Red Line as you drive on the Dan Ryan or the Green Line along the Kennedy or the Blue Line running parallel to the Eisenhower, and you will see Budd's proposal at work today, the first time, at least in this country, when rapid transit was planned as an integral part of an urban highway system.
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