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November 18, 1953 – The Armour Research Foundation of the
Illinois Institute of Technology holds a preview of its newly expanded computer
center at 3201 South Michigan Avenue with about 120 business and industry
leaders attending. On display is the
“recent acquisition of new electronic ‘brain’ equipment [that] makes the center
one of the most complete in the country for solving complicated mathematical
problems that arise in industry.”
[Chicago Daily Tribune, November 19, 1953] The staff of the foundation includes 11
mathematicians, physicist and engineers.
The foundation, known today as the Illinois Institute of Technology
Research Institute, was established in 1936 to support operations
research. From 1936 until the present
time, continuing its mission even as the Armour Institute merged with the Illinois Institute of
Technology, the research firm has maintained its role as an independent
corporation, “supporting the faculty of the university and taking on private
contracts across multiple, intersecting industries.” [informs.org]
By 1956 the Foundation employed more that 1,100 full-time staff members
and had an annual research income of $11,000,000 ($103 million in 2019
dollars). In 2002, I.I.T.R.I amended its
mission to focus entirely on biomedical research. The Institute is located in the I.I.T.
technology tower at 35 West Thirty-Fifth Street. The technology building on Thirty-Fifth street, designed by Schmidt, Garden and Erikson and completed in 1964 is shown above.
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November 18, 1971 – A special study committee headed by the city’s Commissioner of Public Works, Milton Pikarsky, presents a plan to Mayor Richard J. Daley which will renovate Solider Field, transforming it into a multi-use structure for between $14 million and $22.3 million. The plan offers two options, the first of which would cost $13,996,264 and would include basic maintenance work and an increase in seating capacity. The second option is more extensive, and includes “new seating in the south end zone, renovation of the west side press box, new team facilities, new electrical system, new lighting for the north end, new ticket booths, 10,000 seat movable bleachers and new ramps.” [Chicago Tribune, November 19, 1971] That option would cost $22,329,303. The present seating capacity of the stadium would be increased from 54,430 to 62,260. In addition to Pikarsky, the members of the study committee include architects Jerome R. Butler, Jr., William Hartman, Charles F. Murphy, Jr. and Jerold Loebel. It would not be until 1978 that the Chicago Bears and the Chicago Park District would agree on a 20-year lease and, at long last, the renovation of the aging facility. This patchwork project would carry the stadium until January of 2002 when it was re-built from the ground up in a $400 million project that gave the city a 61,500-seat venue with two video-boards, 8,000 club seats and 133 luxury suites, along with a 2,500-space underground parking facility. Comparing the two photos shows a pretty striking change from the old to the new.
November 18, 1911 – Harriet Monroe announces that she has garnered thirty pledges of $250.00, seed money for a new publication dedicated exclusively to poetry. The magazine will allow young and unknown poets a forum that is largely non-existent in periodicals of the time. Monroe says, “The average magazine editor’s conception of good verse is verse that will fill out a page. No editor is looking for long poetry. He wants something light and convenient. Consequently, a Milton might be living in Chicago today and be unable to find an outlet for his verse… In other words, the modern English speaking world says ‘Shut up!’ to its poets, a condition so unnatural, so destructive to new inspiration, that I believe it can be only temporary and absurd.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, November 19, 1911] Monroe nurtured the magazine from the start, reaching out to poet Ezra Pound at the outset … it was Pound who forwarded the unpublished T. S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” to Monroe, and Poetry was the first magazine in which the poem was published. Monroe died in 1936 of a stroke, but under the leadership of the editors that followed the magazine continued its excellence until in 2002 Ruth Lilly made a bequest of more than 100 million dollars to the magazine and its foundation. One of the offshoots of the bequest is the amazing Poetry Center, designed by John Ronan at 61 West Superior Street, a building that contains a 30,000-volume poetry library, an exhibition gallery, a performance space for public events, and offices for the foundation and the magazine.
November 18, 1863 – As a result of a collision that has destroyed the Rush Street Bridge, all traffic across the river, north and south, is directed across the bridge at Clark Street. Chaos. According to the Chicago Tribune, “Yesterday afternoon, the bridge was open for a few minutes, to allow a number of vessels to pass, and the omnibuses, drays, hacks, family carriages, farmers’ wagons, etc, collected until the street was completely filled at the bridge, and extending into Lake street some distance, and for fully two squares south on Clark street. Teams became restless, wagons got tangled and wedged in, drivers swore and scolded, each claiming the right of way, etc.” The paper uses the commotion to editorialize in favor of quickly filling subscriptions to build a new bridge at State Street, following up on the city’s offer to provide half of the cost of the bridge if businesses and companies would supply the other half, an amount of about $14,000. The completed State Street Bridge is shown in the 1868 photo above.
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