Showing posts with label 1926. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1926. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 19, 2020

August 19, 1926 -- Chicago River Bridges Slammed by City Harbor Master


images.chicagohistory.org


August 19, 1926 – Chicago Harbor Master W. J. Lynch writes a letter to the Commissioner of Public Works, A. A. Sprague, in which he states that “the hoisting of Chicago river bridges by the city to make way for boats, barges, tugs and scows is nothing more nor less than a public subsidy to a private business.”  [Chicago Daily Tribune, August 20, 1926].  Lynch does not deny the fact that navigable waters should provide freedom for all users, but he asserts that in a city the size of Chicago “the extreme observance” of such freedom is a “gross injustice to the vast majority of citizens.”  The current city ordinance dictates that the 20 bridges in the heart of the city be closed from 6:30 to 9:00 a.m. and from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m., times which have not significantly changed since 1890.  During this nearly 40 year span, however, the city’s habits have changed, according to a street survey.  In 1890 people reported to work in a two-hour span between 6:00 and 8:00 p.m.  In 1926 the peak of bridge traffic occurs between 8:30 and 9:30 a.m. when 18,000 cars per hour pass over the city’s bridges.  Between 6:30 and 7 only 8,000 vehicles cross the river.  The same trend occurs in the evening.  Along with this trend is the fact that virtually all of the 43 lake passenger vessels in service now dock at the Municipal Pier whereas in earlier days much of the ship traffic into the city used docks along the river itself.  The above photo shows the swing bridge at La Salle Street in 1926.  Note the 35 East Wacker Drive building, known at the time as the Jewelers' Building, under construction in the distance.



August 19, 1974 – Speaking before the Seventy-Fifth annual convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars at the Conrad Hilton Hotel, President Gerald Ford proposes leniency for the 50,000 American military “deserters and draft-dodgers” [Chicago Tribune, August 20, 1974] if they agree to some form of alternative service upon their return.  Ford says, “I want them to come home, if they want to work their way back.”  The President’s speech is greeted with “whistles, cheers, and loud applause” when he sets aside his scripted remarks to say that he opposes “unconditional blanket amnesty for anyone who illegally evaded or fled military service.”  The crowd cools off, however, when Ford says, “I acknowledge a power higher than the people, who commands not only righteousness but love; not only justice, but mercy … These young people should have a second chance to contribute their fair share to the rebuilding of peace among ourselves.  In the spirit that guided Abraham Lincoln and Harry Truman, I reject amnesty and I reject revenge.  So I am throwing the weight of my Presidency into the scales of justice on the side of leniency.  I foresee their reentry into a new atmosphere of hope, hard work, and mutual trust.”


August 19, 1963 – Imagine this one happening today!  Coast Guard officials detain five men and a woman aboard a 75-foot boat after the leaking boat is stopped at the Chicago lock because it has no safety equipment and is judged to be unseaworthy.  After removing the crew from the boat, officials discover 500 pounds of dynamite on the top deck and remove the leaking vessel to a point 1,000 feet offshore.  Miss Kiiri Tamm, 21, one of the crew members, tells officials that the group planned to use the dynamite to blow up a sunken barge off Eighty-Third Street in an effort to salvage the metal, which they hoped to sell in order to start a salvage firm of their own.  The bomb squad removes the explosives and the boat is returned to its berth at Goose Island.



August 19, 1946 – Construction begins on the first major building project in the Loop in nearly a decade as a five-story building that will be occupied by the Baskin Clothing Company is begun. The new store, a design by Holabird and Root, is expected to be completed by May 1, 1947. The whole building will be air-conditioned and long strips of glass block will be featured on the Adams Street side of the structure. Exterior walls will be of Indiana limestone with a strip of polished granite framing the building from the roof line to a recessed space above the shop windows.  An entire floor will be devoted to women’s wear with men’s wear taking up the second and third floors.  Office and tailor shops will be placed on the top floor.  The new building will have a frontage of 76 feet on State Street and 148 feet on Adams Street.  The top photo shows the Baskin's Store at 137 South State Street.  The corner as it appears today -- with an EnWave Chicago cooling plant atop a C.V.S. drugstore -- is shown in the photo beneath that.

Chicago Tribune
August 19, 1890 – The Chicago Daily Tribune, under the headline, “It’s No Thoroughfare,” runs a lengthy article on the inadequacies of Michigan Avenue between Randolph and Lake Streets.  At the time the street is the only passage that leads to the Rush Street bridge, the sole public bridge across the river east of State Street. The passage is made difficult because of “the business firms which from early morn to eventide maintain an impassable blockade of wagons, trucks, baskets, skids, barrels, boxes, brooms, and crates from wall to wall on this thoroughfare, using the public street for their private need and denying its use to the public … forcibly severing one link from the chain that should stretch uninterruptedly from Stony Island avenue to Sheridan road.”  [Chicago Daily Tribune, August 19, 1890]  On the previous day a Tribune reporter had canvassed the area, singling out the business of Sprague, Warner and Co. as a particularly zealous offender.  The reporter observed “the entire front of Sprague, Warner and Co. lined with wagons, loading or unloading.  A pair of skids was laid from each of the eight entrances.  Boxes, crates, and barriers were piled all over the sidewalk … No effort of any kind was made to keep the sidewalk even partially clear.”  The report exempts the firm of Reid, Murdoch and Company from the mess on Michigan, noting that “despite the volume of their business, [the company] does not preempt the street for it entirely and few complaints are received of them.”  If other businesses followed the practices of that company, the paper predicts, “the difficulty … would vanish into thin air.  But they have consulted their own convenience alone, and the exigencies of office room on the sunny side of the building weigh far more than the necessity or the rights of the public at large.”  
Posted by Chicago Old and New at 12:30 AM 0 comments
Labels: , , , ,

Friday, February 7, 2020

February 7, 1926 -- Chicago Stadium Project Introduced


-->
Vintage Tribune
February 7, 1926 – The Chicago Daily Tribune carries a sketch of the new $8,000,000 ($115,000,000 in today’s dollars) Harmon Stadium, a dozen stories high, two blocks long and a block in width, that will rise on Madison Street between Lincoln and Wood Streets.  With a seating capacity of 39,000, the project is the brainchild of Paddy Harmon, who was born near Division and Halsted Streets to parents who had immigrated from Ireland.  At the age of nine he and his brother obtained a contract to snuff out 900 gaslights every morning in his neighborhood for sixty bucks a month.  [jazzagechicago.wordpress.com]  By the time he was 14 he had secured the right to sell newspapers at one of the busiest corners in the city.  Two years later he brokered his first event as a promoter when he rented a hall for $40 and ended up collecting $83 for the dance that he booked into the venue.  By the time he was in his early 40’s he owned two of the city’s most popular ballrooms and had received a contract to operate the ballroom at the end of the Municipal Pier, today’s Navy Pier.  All of this led to 1926 when he began seeking investors to build the largest indoor stadium in the country on Madison Street.  Although the seating capacity did not come close to the 39,000 people that the Tribune proclaimed, when Harmon Stadium opened 15,000 people showed up for a ten-round boxing match In what the paper called “… an auspicious inaugural of what Mr. Harmon and his millionaire backers believe is a new and enlarged era of sport events in Chicago.”  [Chicago Daily Tribune, March 29, 1929]  Harmon’s story does not end well. The stock market crash of 1929 and subsequent financial chaos severely impacted the stadium’s earning power, and Harmon was forced out as director in 1930.  He died in a car crash shortly thereafter.  Arthur Wirtz gained control of the stadium in 1934, and the rest is history.  And so is Harmon’s big dream as the big arena on Madison was torn down in 1995 to make way for the United Center.  In the above photo workers put the finishing touches on the building before its March 28, 1929 debut.
chicagology.com
February 7, 1974 –The Chicago Tribune reports that the city’s Planning Department has “turned thumbs down” [Chicago Tribune, February 7, 1974] on providing landmark status for the Manhattan Building at 431 South Dearborn Street and the Old Colony Building just to the north at 407 South Dearborn Street. This action comes despite the fact that the Chicago Commission on Historical and Architectural Landmarks is considering the buildings for landmark status.  Lewis W. Hill, the city’s planning and development commissioner, says that “possibilities for redevelopment on the block outweigh the historical and architectural significance of the two buildings.”  Hill said, however, that he does lean toward landmark status for the Fisher Building at 343 South Dearborn Street.  Said to be the world’s first 16-story office building, the Manhattan Building was completed in 1891 and designed by William Le Baron Jenney.  The Old Colony Building was completed in 1894 and designed by the firm of Holabird and Roche. The Fisher Building was completed two years later according to plans drawn by Burnham and Root with Charles Atwood as the lead designer.  Happily, all three buildings are still with us today.  On July 7, 1978 the Manhattan, the Old Colony and the Fisher buildings were all designated City Landmarks.  The Old Colony building is shown in the above photo in 1895 when it was brand new.

 February 7, 1968 – Nine people are killed when a fire and explosion completely wrecks the offices of Mickelberry’s Food Products Company at 301 West Forty-Ninth Place.  The conflagration apparently begins when a Harrigan Oil Company gasoline truck moving through the alley behind the plant scrapes a steel garbage container, knocking the shut-off valve from the truck’s discharge pipe and sending gasoline into the basement of the plant where the boiler ignites it.  Fire fighters on the roof of the building are in the process of removing 15 to 20 employees of the plant from that location when a tremendous explosion rips the building, toppling ladders and fire fighters and sending those on the roof through the air.  More than 30 of the 79 people who are injured are neighborhood kids who hear the sirens and come running to see the excitement.  The 9-11 alarm fire brings to the scene 26 engines, five hook and ladder trucks, three snorkels, five rescue squads, ten ambulances, and seven hazardous chemical units.  Tragically, four firefighters from Truck 18 are killed – Firemen Edward Keifker, Chales Bottger, Thomas Collins, and Captain John J. Fisher, Sr.

 February 7, 1956 – Morton Salt Company announces its intention to build a new four-story office building in the block bounded by Wacker Drive, Washington and Randolph Streets and the Chicago River.  The company expects to use the first floor and a portion of the second and lease the rest of the building. This will provide 55,000 square feet of office space, compared to the 37,000 square feet the company now occupies at two separate locations, 120 South La Salle Street and the Merchandise Mart.  The design will come from Graham, Anderson, Probst and White, Inc. and will consist of reinforced concrete construction with the main entrance and lobby of the building in the middle of the block on Wacker Drive.  Morton Salt was founded in Chicago in 1848 and had its first offices at Clark and Washington Streets.  In 1896 the company erected its first real office building, a replica of the old Boston statehouse, that sat on the south side of the Chicago River just west of today’s Lake Shore Drive.  The new headquarters building on the river would be finished in 1958, but it is no longer there.  It was demolished in 2018 to make room for the glassy Bank of America building designed by Goettsch Partners that will include a 45-foot wide Riverwalk passing beneath its western face.  The building is shown above.

 February 7, 1943 -- The sky falls when Michael "Hinky Dink" Kenna misses his first Sunday afternoon pre-election meeting of the First Ward Democratic Club in 46 years. The 5' 1" Kenna, who, along with "Bathhouse" John Coughlin, ran the most notoriously wicked, graft-driven ward in the city, controlled "The Levee" for another three years until his death at 89 in October of 1946. John Budinger, who had been chosen to replace Kenna on the City Council said of the "empty chair" at the meeting, "When our leader called me in and told me I had the privilege of being his candidate for alderman, it was the grandest thrill that ever happened to me." Chief Bailiff Albert J. Horan assured Budinger that he would have no trouble winning the seat, one way or another. He said, "We are not afraid of cries of investigation, for we are as open as babes in their mother's arms."

Posted by Chicago Old and New at 2:30 AM 0 comments
Labels: , ,

Monday, January 6, 2020

January 6, 1926 -- Wabash Avenue Fire Burns a Siren Song for Piano Company

Chicago Daily Tribune Photo

January 6, 1926 – The Story and Clark Piano Company’s former building at 315-17 South Wabash Avenue goes up in flames that threaten other businesses in what is known as “piano row”.  The ground floor of the building is occupied by the tearoom of Mrs. Jennie Norby, and over 100 people having lunch in the establishment are forced into the street where they join onlookers who gawk as the third, fourth and fifth floors of the building are engulfed in flames.  The piano company had vacated the building seven months earlier, moving to a new location on Michigan Avenue.  Although a couple of businesses are located on the third and fourth floors, the building, with the exception of the tea room, is vacant.  The Story and Clark piano company began in 1857 when Hampton L. Story purchased a music store in Burlington, Vermont.  Ten years later he was offered an organ dealership in the western states and moved to Chicago.  It was there that he met Melville Clark and began the company that took their names and began to manufacture pianos in 1895.  According to the website Total Piano Repair.com, “Story combined quality craftsmanship, tone and affordability of his work with Clark’s technological advances to create the best piano of their time.  Their partnership did well enough that they were able to open up new manufacturing companies in England and Germany.” 

chicagology.com
chicago.com
January 6, 1952 – The Chicago Daily Tribune reports on a ten-room white frame house at 4526 South Wabash Street, believed to be the oldest house in the city, used as a parsonage by the congregation of St. Paul’s Church of God in Christ.  The home was chosen in 1932 as one of three Chicago homes to have its blueprints permanently recorded in the Library of Congress.  The congregation purchased the home nine years later and, under the direction of Reverend Louis H. Ford (the man for whom the Bishop Ford Expressway is named), contributed nearly $5,000 to make basic exterior repairs on the property and is in the process of raising another $5,000 to begin repairs on the interior.   The congregation resisted offers over the years from developers to purchase the place and raze it for development. In so doing it preserved a structure that easily could have been lost.  Known as the Widow Clarke house, the home is named after the wife of Henry B. Clarke, a hardware merchant who came to the city in 1833 and built the residence on a 20-acre plot on a trail next to the lake.  Clarke lived there until he died of cholera in 1849. His wife occupied the home until she died in 1860 at which point a man by the name of John Chrimes moved it sometime after 1871 to a location nearly six miles to the south.  His descendants occupied the home until it was bought by the church.  In 1977 the City of Chicago purchased it and moved it to a site in the Prairie Avenue Historic District, several blocks from its original location.  The Clarke House, owned by the City of Chicago and operated by the Glessner House Museum just down the street, opened as a museum in 1982.  The black and white photo depicts the house after it was moved in 1873.  The photo below that shows the Clarke House Museum today.


January 6, 1902 – The Chicago Daily Tribune reports that the troopers at Fort Sheridan are awash in whisky as “The officers at Fort Sheridan discovered … where the soldiers found large supplies of whisky without leaving the reservation.”  [Chicago Daily Tribune, January 6, 1902]  It seems that after the saloon of Dennis Murphy in Highland Park is shuttered, “soon after several barrels of whisky disappeared from the stock.” The men of Company E at Fort Sheridan had a pretty good idea where the whisky was … it was hidden in the woods adjoining the base, and “They all filled their canteens and then told members of other companies. Many soldiers were walking about with canteens full of whisky, and others with empty canteens could not walk.” Before officers at the base could determine what was going on, “the supply was practically exhausted.” Happy New Year!


January 6, 1925 – The Chicago Daily Tribune reports that during the year of 1924, according to the city’s Smoke Abatement Commission, Chicago’s economic loss from “dense, foul smoke” is placed at $42,500,000.  Sighting an earlier investigation by the Mellon Institute of Industrial Research at the University of Pittsburgh, the paper observes that Chicago’s laundry bills are higher than those of any other large industrialized city.  “The average cost per person for laundry in Chicago at the time the Mellon Institute analyzed the census figures was $3.25 per year, while in Philadelphia it was only $2.01 … Chicago even surpasses Pittsburgh which had the reputation of living up to its name of ‘Smoky City.’” the article states.  


January 6, 1972 -- George Vavoulis, the regional commissioner for the Federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, tells Mayor Richard Daley that Chicago will lose $20 million in federal urban renewal funds because of the city's failure to provide more low-income-housing. This sum comes on top of $26 million that had been frozen three months earlier because the City Council had failed to approve enough public housing sites in white neighborhoods.


Posted by Chicago Old and New at 2:30 AM 2 comments
Labels: , , , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)