Connecting the Windy City

Tuesday, July 14, 2020

July 14, 1909 -- Blackstone Theater Plans Debut

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July 14, 1909 – Announcement is made that a new theater will be erected in Hubbard Court just west of the Blackstone Hotel.  No timetable is given for the project although “the lease requires the erection of a fire-proof building prior to 1921, taking in all the Wabash avenue frontage and on Hubbard court west of the theater, to be not less than eight stories high and to cost not less than $200,000.”  [Chicago Daily Tribune, July 15, 1909]  The Studebaker Brothers Manufacturing Company holds a 143-year lease on the property on which the theater will stand, land that was acquired in several transactions between 1902 and 1904.  The architecture firm of Marshall and Fox, the architects that designed the Blackstone Hotel, will design the new theater, which will be “one of the handsomest and best appointed theaters in the country.”  Developers will be Tracy C. Drake and John Drake, who would go on to develop the Drake Hotel on Michigan Avenue, which Marshall and Fox would also design.  Both the theater and the hotel next to it were named after Timothy Blackstone who occupied a mansion that stood on the site.  He served as president of the Chicago and Alton Railroad, the city’s first railroad, from 1864 to 1899.  He was also the founding president of the Union Stock Yards.  After he died, his widow donated the Blackstone Memorial Library to the city as the first branch library in Chicago.  Today the theater carries the name of Merle Reskin, who, along with her husband, made a large donation to the Theatre School of DePaul University, which now operates the theater.

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Curbed Chicago

July 14, 1966 – In response to a question from the Chicago Tribune, officials at City Hall concede that beautification of the south bank of the Chicago River between Michigan Avenue and Lake Shore Drive may not begin until the fall.  The delay is the result of a case that is pending before the Illinois Supreme Court in which the city, the Illinois attorney general, and four citizen plaintiffs are challenging the Illinois Central Railroad’s claim to air rights over its tracks from the river south to Fifty-First Street.  The chairman of the I. C., in the meantime, asserts that the maintenance of the river bank has been the obligation of the city ever since 1919 when an ordinance was approved, granting the city a permanent easement with a width of 112 feet along the river bank for the eventual extension of Wacker Drive from Michigan Avenue to Lake Shore Drive.  The unsightliness of the area has been a source of contention between the city and the railroad since at least 1959 when Queen Elizabeth’s visit to Chicago prompted an intense tidying up and a new look at some of the eyesores along the south bank of the river that most Chicagoans had simply taken for granted.  At that time the city did spend nearly $30,000 to repair pilings and the wall along the south river bank.  That was a start, but the Tribune notes, “… nothing has been done to landscape the bank and eliminate the weeds, piles of brick, and the exposure of unattractive warehouses and other similar structures.  Once the air rights battle has ended, this area may become one of the city’s most exciting developments of modern office buildings and apartment skyscrapers.”  [Chicago Tribune, July 15, 1966]. Clearly, that prediction held true as the city has just completed a face-lift for this section of the river walk, spending over $12 million to refresh the area from the DuSable bridge to Lake Shore Drive.  The top photo shows the area in the early 1970's.  Note the piles of dirt and stone on the south side of the river in front of the building under construction, today's Hyatt Hotel.  That is the area pictured in the photo below, looking fro the opposite direction, the present docks for Chicago's First Lady Cruises and the architecture tours offered by the Chicago Architecture Center.

July 14, 1928 – Announcement is made that the plan for the new Palmolive building, under construction at the southeast corner of Michigan Avenue and Walton Street, will be amended to include 37 stories rather than the 15 stories that were originally proposed.  The architects for the project, Holabird and Root, had specified foundations for a taller structure, but the Palmolive-Peet Company and Colgate Company had decided on a more modest office building at the outset, changing the plan to a taller building as the project begins.  The tower promises to be a sensation, “of modern architecture” with “no exterior fire escapes to mar the architectural effect”.  The tower will be clad in Bedford limestone on all sides “with interesting light effects through the placing of flood lights on the various setbacks.”  The new building opened in 1929 with six series of set-backs on all four sides.

July 14, 1918 – Four persons are killed and 28 injured when a North Shore Electric railroad train strikes a truck carrying a Chicago picnic party at the north entrance to Fort Sheridan.  The General Manager of the North Shore line blames the driver of the truck for failing to obey the warning signals at the railroad crossing, saying, “There is a clear view of the track for more than a mile at the point of the accident.  The motorman was sounding his whistle and the wig-wag danger signal was in operation.  The motorman slowed down to ten miles an hour as he approached the crossing because he had a regular stop to make.  The truck was hit by the coach and toppled into the ditch.  I am told the deaths and injuries were not caused by the actual collision, but in the fall into the ditch.”  [Chicago Daily Tribune, July 15, 1918]

July 14, 1877 – Beginning at the offices of the West Park Commissioners at the corner of Washington Boulevard and Halsted Street, a line of carriages, led by the Great Western Light Guard Band, starts out at 2:00 p.m. for the formal opening of Humboldt Park.  Upon reaching the park, “the procession rolls solemnly along for a considerable time, much to the admiration of the assembled ladies and small boys, the latter tearing through the grounds barefooted after the brass band.”  [Chicago Daily Tribune, July 15, 1877]  Coverage of the dedication is favorable although the park is still “in its infancy and cannot be expected to show off as well as some of its older neighbors.”  According to the Chicago Park District’s history of the park, the park is named for Baron Freidrich Heinrich Alexander Von Humboldt, a German scientist and explorer.  The original design for the park was the work of William LeBaron Jenney, and the 219- acre park was designed as a part of a unified whole using a system of boulevards to join three great parks, Humboldt, Garfield and Douglas.   Humboldt Park grew slowly, but as it grew Jenney’s original plan was followed only in the park’s northeastern section. 

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Labels: 1909, Chicago Architecture, Chicago Development, Chicago Event, Chicago History

Friday, February 28, 2020

February 28, 1909 -- Chicago and North Western Railroad Terminal Begins Its Rise

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February 28, 1909 – The Chicago Daily Tribune prints a feature article on the construction of the new terminal for the Chicago and North Western Railroad on the west bank of the river at Madison Street, a project about which the paper crows, “No other single building operation in Chicago has approached the magnitude of this new station …”  [Chicago Daily Tribune, February 28, 1909]  A total of 172 caissons, four to eight feet in diameter, will support the building that will stretch a block wide and a quarter-mile long, covering 13 acres.  All but 72 of those caissons will go down to bedrock, 115 feet below the surface.  The superintendent of construction for the Fuller Construction Company says, “Things went all right for a hundred feet down.  Then without warning we ran into sand … Ordinarily we strike sand ‘pockets’ under the Chicago downtown district, but they are small pockets and never at such a depth as we’ve found over here.  This sand deposit … is unusually large and at unheard of depth.”  Every caisson is dug by hand with one man in a caisson working for eight hours with a 15-minute lunch break.  The work goes on around the clock.  Each caisson digger begins with a pick, spade and hoe, mucking out a hole until it reaches a depth of five or six feet at which point carpenters drop into it to install lumber “after the manner of barrel staves” after which an iron ring is placed to secure the wall.  Then the digger starts again, digging another five or six feet at which point the carpenters repeat the process of securing the caisson.  The work continues down to about 100 feet at which point an air lock must be installed to protect the digger as he digs toward bedrock. The average wage for workers is around $2.40 a day. It will take 10,000 wagon loads to carry away the mud, clay and sand from the caissons.  At the foot of Fulton Street, four blocks to the north, the debris is loaded on ships that carry it out into the lake where it will be dumped.  The new terminal, finished in 1911, is shown above.

  

February 28, 1970 – Ten thousand demonstrators line both sides of State Street opposite the Palmer House, jeering French President Georges Pompidou, as he arrives to address a group at a dinner sponsored by the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations and the Alliance Francaise. The protestors voice loud objections to France’s recent announcement that it will sell 100 Mirage jets to Libya.  Among the protestors is U. S. Representative Roman Pucinski who says he considers the sale of the jets “a unilateral escalation of the Mideast conflict.” [Chicago Tribune, March 1, 1970] Chants of  “Poo, Poo, Pompidou,” “France Oui, Pompidou No” reverberate over bullhorns as protest marshals work hard to keep crowds from spilling into the street.  Mayor Daley’s special events director, Colonel Jack Reilly, praises the orderly protest, saying, “If the city had it this easy in all demonstrations it would be easy.”  As the French delegation leaves from O’Hare on the following day, an official says that the Chicago police “’either thru incompetence or design,’ relaxed security to the point where it was impossible for Pompidou to avoid embarrassment.”  [Chicago Tribune, March 2, 1970] At the airport Pompidou himself, speaking in French, says that the protestors “placed a stain on the face of America” and that “the immense majority of the Chicago population … is ashamed of it all.” The French President is especially upset about an incident that occurred inside the lobby of the Palmer House in which six individuals jumped in front of him and his wife and shouted, “Shame, shame on you!”  An official says, “The police assured us this would not happen. They said the lobby would be clear.  Yet there were these people, accosting the president of France on an official visit.  The French delegation cannot understand how this was permitted to happen.  Tempers are running very high.”

February 28, 1955 – The Chicago Housing Authority awards a $7,998,700 contract to Corbeita Construction Company for the first stage of an addition to the Frances Cabrini public housing project just north of Chicago Avenue and east of Larabee.  The contract calls for eight high-rise buildings with 859 apartments along with a heating and service building.  The chairman of the C.H.A., John R. Fugard, states that a contract will be let later in the year for seven more buildings with 1,066 apartments.   The work at Cabrini will be just one part of the biggest program of public housing construction in the city’s history.  It is anticipated in 1955 the C.H.A. will break ground at six different sites for 4,500 apartments.  All of the projects, which were approved in 1949, will be subsidized by the federal government and will be rented to low income families.

February 28, 1939 -- The Chicago Daily Tribune reports that owner P. K. Wrigley has taken matters into his own hands "in moving the spring flair of Diz (Dizzy Dean) as problem child." When Wrigley's personal representative comes upon the Cub pitcher "pitching full blast at the full pitching distance [he] broke up the display in the name of the Cub owner, following full instructions from the Chicago throne room." [Chicago Daily Tribune, March 1, 1939] Dean, a pitching phenom for the St. Louis Cardinals between 1933 and 1937, was injured by a line drive in the 1937 All-Star game. In 1938 Wrigley paid $185,000 to put the compromised pitcher on the Cubs roster. In September of that year, in what he called the greatest game of his career, Dean pitched the second game of a series with the Pittsburgh Pirates, winning 2-1, pulling the Cubs within a half-game of the league leading Pirates, a team from which the Cubs would wrest the National League championship the next day. Dean pitched Game Two of the World Series, pitching admirably until he gave up a two-run homer to Joe DiMaggio in the top of the ninth, ultimately losing 6-3. He struggled along with the Cubs until 1941 when he retired. Wrigley's interest in protecting his investment was certainly understandable, but ultimately it would not matter.

February 28, 1903 – The Chicago Daily Tribune reports that a new bridge across the river at State street has been opened to decidedly negative reviews.  H. D. Dean, a construction engineer from Benton Harbor, Michigan, in town to provide his expertise to a subway subcommittee, says that the new bridge “is not wide enough by fifty feet.  It was a mistake to build so narrow a bridge there on account of the awkward bend in the river at that point.”  [Chicago Daily Tribune, March 1, 1903] Present at the dedication of the new bridge a day earlier are members of the South Water and State Street Business Men’s association “who have seen their business dwindle much more rapidly than the bridge grew during the last year.” Mrs. Adelaide Smedberg of 184 North State Street breaks a bottle of wine on the bridge. The Tribune explains how Smedberg ended up with the bottle in her hand, noting that association president J. T. Keane “corked his eloquence, chased the woman, explained to her that she was the first to cross the river, and took her back to break the bottle of wine. “I christen thee State street,’ said Mrs. Smedberg, and the dedicators hurried away to a banquet at which there was more oratory and spilling of wine."  On May 29, 1949 a new bridge was dedicated at State Street in a far more dignified ceremony, one that honored the men from the Chicago area who fought and died in the battle of Bataan and Corregidor and who suffered through the “death march” that followed that battle.  The bridge closest to the bottom of the photo is the 1903 bridge.  

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Labels: 1909, Chicago Architecture, Chicago RIver, Madison Street, Railroads, Transportation

Thursday, January 23, 2020

January 23, 1952 -- Mt. Greenwood Cemetery Receives Disaster Victims

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January 23, 1909 – As thousands of mourners watch, 47 hearses carry the remains of the workers who lost their lives at the George W. Jackson “intermediate” crib fire four days earlier.  The procession begins at 12:45 p.m. at the South Chicago police station.  It is led by the Chief of Police and the employees of the George W. Jackson Company.  Each hearse is accompanied by two policemen and a ring of mourners.  One of them, a woman who has lost two sons and a nephew in the disaster, cries, “I can’t stand it – God help me.!”  The policeman next to her wipes a tear away with his sleeve and responds, “It’s about all I can stand myself.”  [Chicago Daily Tribune, January 24, 1909]  At Mount Greenwood Cemetery a single large grave is waiting.  Four policemen are assigned to each casket as it is lifted and placed in a series of rows in the grave.  When the last casket is placed, Father Edward O’Reilly of St. Patrick’s church begins the simple service as a woman in the throng of mourners cries out, “My brother!  Oh, my brother!”  It appears that only a small portion of the massive crowd at the cemetery is made up of families that have lost loved ones.  The Tribune describes the scene, "Eaters of popcorn and confectionery who had come to the funeral merely as a spectacle stood in the front row around the grave while frail women and children and men whose spirit had been broken by the loss of a brother or a father wept softly behind the throng, unable to hear the words of the clergymen.”  Even as the service is taking place, two more bodies are being pulled out of the lake, and a coroner’s jury is being sworn in to investigate the accident which took between 70 and 100 laborers’ lives when fire broke out on a temporary crib being used to construct the four-mile tunnel that would furnish fresh lake water to a pumping station at Seventy-First Street.  For more on the disaster turn to this entry in Connecting the Windy City.  The above photo shows the procession of mourners on that January day in 1909.

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January 23, 1979 – The Chicago Park District Board of Commissioners approves a $100,000 stainless steel sculpture that will be placed on the northwest corner of Fullerton Avenue and Cannon Drive.  Half of the cost will be underwritten by a grant from the National Endowment of the Arts and the other half from citizens who have donated money to Friends of the Park. The sculpture’s creator will be Ellsworth Kelly.  According to the Chicago Park District website, “Ellsworth Kelly studied art at the Pratt Institute and developed metalworking techniques as an army engineer in World War II.   After the war, the G.I. Bill allowed him to study at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris.  While in France, he began producing his earliest abstract paintings. Kelly returned to America in the mid-1950s and began making his earliest freestanding sculptures.  By the early 1970s, he was exploring curves in his paintings and in totemic aluminum and steel sculptures that had subtly curving forms.” [chicagoparkdistrict.com] The commissioned work on Fullerton Avenue, “Curve XXII, would be Kelly’s first major commission for an outdoor sculpture. Today it stands on the northeast corner of Fullerton Avenue and Cannon Drive.  It replaces a monument to Carl von Linné that was moved to the University of Chicago.  For more about the Linné monument and Kelly’s sculpture you can turn to posts in Connecting the Windy City here and here.

January 23, 1893 – At a meeting of Michigan Avenue property owners in the offices of Montgomery Ward and Company, “practical steps to begin beautifying the Lake-Front and make it ‘a thing of beauty and joy forever’ for the people of Chicago” [Chicago Daily Tribune, January 24, 1893] are begun.  With a proposal pending in the City Council to lease a portion of the lakefront from Madison to Randolph Streets to a company for the production of firework displays, the group is alarmed that once such a foothold has been established, “it might be hard to dispossess them.” The opinion is unanimous that “the cupidity or corruption of city fathers and others who were periodically trying to use those blocks, originally dedicated to the public for private purposes, should be at once and forever thwarted.”  The paper reports that Montgomery Ward speaks strongly against “the tendency of the Chicago of today to be indifferent to the needs and beauties of the Chicago of the future …This is the age of commercial activity, but there should be something in life besides this ceaseless grasping for the dollar … The authorities of all other great cities in the world, and especially those of Europe, are tearing down marble blocks and widening thoroughfares to create breathing places and pleasure grounds for the people, while our city authorities are always trying to convert one of the most beautiful locations for a people’s park into a dumping ground for garbage or a speculative site for builders and railroads.”  The merchants at the meeting decide to enclose the area between Michigan Avenue and the Illinois Central tracks, from Madison to Randolph Streets, with “a handsome ornamental fence.”  At the foot of Washington Street will be a large gateway with other entrances at the north and south corners of the area off Michigan Avenue.  “Inside the grounds,” they agree, “will be laid out a delightful way for promenades, flower gardens, fountains, and statues, with plenty of seats for the people.”  The members of the group propose to make the improvements at their own expense.  The attractive scene in the above photo looks toward Michigan Avenue and the lake from Randolph Street in 1893.  The present Chicago Cultural Center stands on the empty lot.

January 23, 1952 – The Chicago Cubs announce that the organization will be raising the price of box seats at Wrigley Field to $2.50, a 50-cent increase, for the 1952 season.  The White Sox decide to keep the price of their box seat tickets at $2.00.  The Cubs soften the blow with the announcement that grandstand seat prices will remain unchanged at $1.25 and the price of bleacher seats will also be held at 60 cents.  The Chicago Daily Tribune offers a look at how these prices compare to other major league ball clubs, citing these numbers:  National League—Boston, $3.60; Brooklyn, $3.00; New York, $3.00; Pittsburgh, $2.75; Philadelphia, $2.50; St. Louis, $2.25; Cincinnati, $2.25.  American League—New York, $3.00; Detroit, $2.50; Philadelphia, $2.50; Boston, $2.40; St. Louis, $2.25; Cleveland, Washington and Chicago, $2.00.  The Cubs cite the increased cost of operating the club along with construction work in the box seat section designed to “make the park the most beautiful in big league baseball” [Chicago Daily Tribune, January 24, 1952] as contributing factors in the increase.  The above photo shows the box seats at Wrigley during the 1953 campaign, at the end of which the Cubs were 40 games out of first place.  Weren't selling a whole lot of those upper grandstand tickets, apparently.

January 23, 1949 -- The first place winner in a nation-wide architectural competition for new talent sponsored by the Museum of Modern Art in New York City is Joseph Y. Fujikawa of Chicago. Mr. Fujikawa was born in Los Angeles and began his college career in a five-year program in architecture at the University of Southern California. That was interrupted when World War iI began, and he was interred in a "relocation center" in Colorado. After three months there he managed to get into the Illinois Institute of Technology, at which Mies van der Rohe was the director of the School of Architecture. His time at I.I.T. was also interrupted by an 18-month stint in the Army, and Fujikawa graduated in 1944. His career really began with Mies's first residential building in Chicago at Promontory Point. Perhaps his two most noteworthy designs in Chicago are the Ralph Metcalfe Federal Office Building across Jackson Boulevard from the Federal Center and the former Mercantile Exchange towers at 10 and 30 South Wacker Drive, the north tower of which is pictured above. Fujikawa died in Winnetka on the last day of 2004.

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Labels: 1909, Chicago Event, Chicago Places, Lake Michigan