February 9, 2013 – The funeral for Hadiya
Pendleton is held at the Greater Harvest Baptist Church, 5141 South State
Street. Pendleton died on January 29 at
Harsh Park when a gunman fired into a group of bystanders. Her death came just one week after she had
participated with her majorette team in performances associated with the second
inauguration of President Barack Obama. First Lady Michelle Obama meets
privately with the family before the service and then walks with Cleopatra
Pendleton, Hadiya’s mother, to the open casket at the front of the church and
comforts her as the casket is closed in preparation for the funeral rites. Also in attendance are Chicago Mayor Rahm
Emanuel, United States Representative Bobby Rush and the Reverend Jesse
Jackson. Many of Pendleton’s teammates
and friends rise to speak of the times they shared with a friend who had become
another one of the victims of the city’s gun violence. Father Michael Pleger says that Pendleton is
a tragic example of the “epidemic of violence causing funeral processions
around the country.” [Associated Press in Chicago, February 9,
2013] “Sisters and brothers, I beg you,” Fleger says. “We must become like Jesus. We must become the interrupters of funeral
processions.” The funeral program
includes a handwritten note to the family from President Obama that reads,
“Michelle and I just wanted you to know how heartbroken we are to have heard
about Hadiya’s passing. We know that no
words from us can soothe the pain, but rest assured that we are praying for
you, and that we will continue to work as hard as we can to end this senseless
violence.”
February 9, 1890 – The Chicago Daily Tribune describes a ride in the Auditorium building’s elevator, opened for use the week before. The “elevator man” is clearly pleased to be showing off the new device. “We go at a pretty good clip,” he says. “Our speed is 450 feet a minute. This is the longest ‘lift’ in the world.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, February 9, 1890] A guard takes tickets at the door to the rooftop, a place where a visitor finds “a sense of elation . . . with his feet on stone as solid as terra firma and walked about with a parapet waist high.” It is a place where “Dante might stand . . . and fancy himself suspended at a comfortable distance over the Inferno. Smoke, fog, and clouds combine in a debauch of murkiness. Look to the east, the west, the south, and everywhere you see miles and miles of chimneys spouting smoke, and each one belching as if it feared to be surpassed by its fellows.” Through the smoke the visitor sees little of the lake, but looking directly to the east he sees “what the railroad has left of the Lake Front Park—a narrow stretch of green embroidered with walks and lying between Michigan avenue and the parallel tracks of the Illinois Central … And all these cars and engines from this distance look like the toy trains that a boy amuses himself with on the nursery floor.” Two floors above the observation roof are the offices of the federal weather bureau, nearing completion, with eight employees manning a variety of gauges and a map printing room. Soon enough the visit is over and “Entering the elevator again the visitor shot downward eighteen stories, dropping from winter’s cold into sultry weather.” The above photo shows the "parapet" that was open to the public just above the three arches that cap the windows of the tower. The weather bureau would have occupied the space above that.
February 9, 1954 -- The Chicago Park Fair corporation names the architectural firms of Holabird & Root & Burgee and Ralph H. Burke to make a world-wide survey of convention and exhibit halls with an eye toward building the city's very own state-of-the-art convention hall. The non-profit corporation is funded with Cook County's share of the one percent tax on race track betting. Ground will be broken on the hall, McCormick Place, in 1958 with its completion coming two years later. It lasted seven years until a spectacular fire on a frigid night in 1967 destroyed the structure.
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