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September 20, 2004 –Chicago architects Ron Krueck and Mark Sexton and the Spertus Institute of Jewish Studies unveil a plan for the Institute’s new home on Michigan Avenue. The plan will be the first test of whether a contemporary building will meet the design guidelines of the Michigan Avenue Historic District. Frist reactions are favorable. Jim Peters, the Director of Planning for the Landmarks Preservation Council of Illinois, says, “It adheres to many of the more key design guidelines for the district, including height, proportions and mild projections.” [Chicago Tribune, September 19, 2004] The proposed building, projected to cost $49 million, will contain a 400-seat lecture hall, a library, museum, and public facilities and will stand on what had previously been a vacant lot in the 600 block of South Michigan Avenue, just north of the Spertus Institute’s current home at 618 South Michigan Avenue. Early in 2018 the Spertus Institute’s new building was named as one of Illinois’ 200 Great Places by the Illinois Council of the American Institute of Architects. The structure’s window wall is built from 726 individual pieces of glass in 556 different shapes. The multi-faceted planes of the window wall bring light into the building, an important factor on a couple of levels. According to the Spertus website, “This emphasis on light echoes the Spertus logo, a flame accompanied by the biblical phrase “yehi” or, Hebrew for ‘let there be light,’ symbolizing both physical light and the light of learning.” [https://www.spertus.edu/610at10]
September 20, 1992 – Big commotion on Wacker Drive east of Michigan Avenue when the Michigan Avenue bridge turns into a slingshot, shooting a 70-foot crane into the gap between the span and Wacker Drive. The crane’s boom falls across Wacker Drive with the iron ball and hook at the top of the crane bouncing off Wacker Drive and through the rear window of Jesus Lopez’s Ford Escort. Says Lopez, “I guess I was just lucky. I’m glad I wasn’t sitting in the back seat.” [Chicago Tribune, September 21, 1992] Jeff Boyle, the city’s Commissioner of Transportation, says, “The southeast leaf of the Michigan Avenue bridge was the last of four leafs under construction. The bridge, which is out of balance during construction, started to rise and went up into a straight vertical position. What stopped the bridge from going any further or falling back down was the crane that got wedged in there.” Diana Morales, a police officer directing traffic at the time of the accident had just stopped a CTA bus in an effort to divert it to the Wabash Avenue bridge just to the west. “I was behind the bus directing traffic and trying to get the bus out of the way, but [the driver] said he couldn’t move so I told him to just stay there. [The Northwest leaf] was coming down and the Southeast side started coming up really fast and I just ran the other way.” Six passengers on the bus are injured as flying debris come through the open windows. The accident closes down the bridge indefinitely and ultimately leads to an acknowledgement on the part of the city that none of its inspectors had the experience or training to determine the proper balancing of weight on a bridge that is under construction.
September 20, 1915 – Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis orders the steamer Eastland sold with bids to be opened and the sale to take place on December 20, 1915 in the United States marshal’s office in the Federal Building. The order is issued in order to cover the costs of the Great Lakes Towing Company, the firm that raised the hulk from the river bottom after the ship capsized on July 24 with a loss of life approaching one thousand souls. According to Jay R. Bonansinga’s The Sinking of the Titanic: America’s Forgotten Tragedy, “. . . only two bidders showed up at the macabre auction held on a cold December morning." One of them was an attorney from Boston, who represented an East Coast steamship company. The other was Captain Edward A. Evers of the Illinois Naval Reserve. Evers won the auction with a bid of 46,000 dollars, taking possession of the hulk on December 28.
September 20, 1889 – Miscommunication between Captain James A Brown, in command of the steamship E. P. Wilbur, and his engineer lead to the big ship of the Lehigh Valley Line slamming her 5,000 tons of dead weight into the closed Rush Street bridge. At 8:00 a.m. the bridge was crowded with teamsters guiding their horse-drawn loads into and out of the Loop as well as men and women hustling to their jobs. When the ship struck the bridge, it “reeled under the blow, and then settled back upon the solid abutment,” [Chicago Daily Tribune, September 21, 1889] recoiling again into a partially open position. Horses were frightened, reacting violently and “could only with the utmost difficulty be prevented from plunging into the river from the ends of the bridge now hanging over the murky waters below.” The iron girders of the bridge are bent and twisted by the collision, and the bridge tender appears later in the day before a judge to swear out a warrant for the captain’s arrest. The error seems to have occurred when the captain sounded two bells to the engineer below who mistook the signal to go astern as a signal to move forward. Another day on the river. The photo shows the Rush Street bridge and the Chicago River as it would have appeared at about the time The E. Wilbur tried to get through the draw.
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