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| jbartholomewphoto |
May 27, 1930 –The President of the 1933 Century of Progress, Rufus C. Dawes, pulls a lever on a steam shovel and scoops the first dirt from the site where the administration building will be erected for the Century of Progress world’s fair, to be held along Chicago’s lakefront in the summers of 1933 and 1934,. The Vice-President of the South Park commissioners, Philip S. Garver, addresses a gathering of fair directors and public officials, officially turning over the use of the park property to the fair’s trustees. In accepting the site, Director Dawes says, “We pledge ourselves to the use of this land for the enjoyment, education, and entertainment of the people of the world. The exposition will fittingly portray the history of Chicago and be worthy of the city’s proud position among the cities of the world.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, May 28, 1930] In the top photo President Dawes moves the first bucket of dirt, which will give way to the Art Deco Administration building shown in the second photo.
May 27, 1917 – Seven weeks after the United States Congress approves a declaration of war on Germany, the Chicago Conference Committee on Terms of Peace holds a rally at the Auditorium Theater in which protestors rail against the country’s entanglement in the war an ocean away. There are 2,000 people outside the building for which there is no room, and they instigate what the Chicago Daily Tribune calls the city’s first “war riot.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, May 28, 1917] The paper reports, “The scene was Grant park, just across from the Auditorium hotel. Michigan avenue’s thousands of Sunday promenaders came to an amazed halt. A steady flowing stream of automobiles pulled up short, blockading the boulevard for many blocks in each direction … Then a huge, bearded and mop headed Russian thrust himself above the heads of the others … ‘Why should American workmen fight the workmen of Germany for any _______ _________ in the White House?’ he bawled.” It took an hour to put down the riot as “The air was filled with clubs, that cracked down upon the heads of the rioters. The members of the meeting shrieked imprecations, women bit and scratched the police, bull throated malcontents bawled threats and ‘Down with the government!’ “Free speech!’ and “No war.’” At first 40 officers show up, followed by 35 detectives. In ten minutes there are another 400 policemen trying to maintain order. The Tribune reports, “’Free speech!’ screamed the women. ‘We want free speech!’ ‘You’ll get it,’ bellowed back a square shouldered policeman as he whacked another disturber over the head.” The Reverend Irwin St. John Tucker, chairman of the peace terms conference, issues a statement in which he separates the meeting in the Auditorium from the disturbances across Michigan Avenue. It reads, “The Chicago permanent conference on terms of peace is responsible only for the mass meeting held in the Auditorium and for the resolutions officially presented therein … The conference is determined, while exercising all our rights under the law, strictly to observe all our obligations under the same.”
May 27, 1975 – After a City Council subcommittee approves $7.2 million for the rehabilitation of Navy Pier, a project that the Department of Public Works estimates may take closer to $34 million, the Chicago Tribune weighs in with its opinion. “Either it will be revived somehow,” the editorial states, “or it will be a big black eye on Chicago’s face as long as it remains. We hope a practical way can and will be found to make Navy Pier once again used, attractive, well served by public transportation from end to end as well as to it. The site is one of the most scenic and interesting urban sites in the country. Surely some time Chicago will find a means of turning Navy Pier’s unused potential into reality.”
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