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| c1.staticflickr.com |
August 6, 1911 -- With the work of deepening the La Salle Street streetcar tunnel ongoing, the Chicago Daily Tribune discloses that at least a dozen buildings near the tunnel have settled from four to eighteen inches. Two of those structures have cracked from wall to wall, and on both sides of the river La Salle Street sidewalks and streets have sunk four inches. The Oakley building, a seven-story structure at the southwest corner of La Salle Street and Michigan Street is held together by 380 jackscrews, six iron braces and tons of wooden scaffolding. It has settled 16 inches, and in the northeast corner a crack, in some places more than an inch wide, runs from the ground to the roof of the building. The Chicago Daily Tribune reports, “Wooden braces are keeping the windows from collapsing. Plastering is dropping from the inside walls, and, except for the careful reinforcements which have gone on, the warehouse long since would have collapsed.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, August 6, 1911]. The headquarters of the Armour Steamship Line is close to collapsing into the river after settling four inches in a 24-hour period a week earlier. Five hundred jackscrews have barely kept it upright. Its outer walls have been torn open in at least a half-dozen places. Nearly all of the streets that intersect La Salle Street on both sides of the river have settled a minimum of two inches and “sidewalks have erupted in peaks and angles or slipped half way into the excavation for the tunnel approach.” The president of the company that is building the tunnel, Michael H. McGovern, says, “We are not responsible for damage done to nearby buildings. Property owners were notified before the work started to take the necessary precautions, and as long as our excavations do not go outside the curb line we are immune from suit. It is my understanding that the company will assume the cost for the repair of street damages.” The above photo shows the location of the north portal of the tunnel, used today as the entrance to parking garages at 300 North La Salle Street and the Reid Murdoch Building.
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| chuckmanchicagonostalgia |
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| architecture.org |
August 6, 1974: The Queen of Andersonville, a tour boat operated by Wendella Sightseeing Boats, sinks just south of the Coast Guard station at the Chicago lock where the Chicago River meets Lake Michigan. Hero of the Day is Bob Agra, the captain of a Mercury sightseeing boat, who maneuvers his boat, loaded with about 70 people, alongside the stricken Wendella craft and helps evacuate all 23 passengers, many of them wearing life jackets. “Some of the rescued people were a little shook up,” Agra states. “But they weren’t hysterical.” [Chicago Tribune, August 7, 1974] Agra attaches the foundering boat to his own with three lines and tows it to an area behind the breakwater, southwest of the lock. All three lines eventually break, and the Queen of Andersonville sinks before the hoist at the Coast Guard station can be lowered to secure the vessel. Agra's son, Bob, who was on board that day as a deck hand, is shown above. Today he is head of Chicago's First Lady, partners with the Chicago Architecture Center's premier architectural tour on the Chicago River.
August 6, 1971 – The largest crowd in the history of Ravinia Park comes to the outdoor venue on the North Shore to see Jesus Christ Superstar. The crowd of 18,718 people breaks the previous record, set by Judy Collins, of 18,491, a week earlier. More than 150 police officers are on duty, dispatched from five suburbs to patrol a mellow crowd. “Despite the religious theme of last night’s event,” the Chicago Tribune reported, “The thousands of young listeners looked and acted little differently than at more mundane outdoor rock concerts. Botttles of wine were passed freely, along with the ever-present marijuana cigarets.” [Chicago Tribune, August 7, 1971] The performance company that provided the show had previously performed in Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and Toronto. The Ravinia show attracted at least 5,000 more people than any of the troupe’s previous performances.
August 6, 1946 – Edward J. Sparling, the president of Roosevelt College, tells of the school’s plans to restore the newly purchased Auditorium building to its original beauty. Sparling says that “old paintings will be restored, remodeling of the hotel into classrooms and offices will follow the original structure as nearly as possible, and the theater will be operated by the college or leased to someone who wants to bring back music and theatrical productions to the 57 year old stage.” Mrs. Julius Weil, the daughter of architect Dankmar Adler, the architect of the Auditorium building along with Louis Sullivan, says that General Sherman’s march to the sea in the Civil War was instrumental in her father’s plans for the auditorium. “In every house that was looted,” says Mrs. Weil, “my father eagerly searched for books on architecture. When he returned to Chicago he cooperated with Theodore Thomas in working out arches and types of construction for better acoustics.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, August 7, 1946] Sparling says that the renovated building will allow the college to serve 2,000 more veterans. The $400,000 purchase price of the building, he reveals, is the result of “loans by friends, gifts, efficient administration, and profit from the sale of the building at 231 South Wells Street.”
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