Showing posts with label 1929. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1929. Show all posts

Monday, October 5, 2020

October 5, 1929 -- Merchandise Mart Provides First Exhibit of Air Rights Taxation


October 5, 1929 -- The Chicago Board of Assessors agrees on a tax assessment against the Merchandise Mart that rises above the Chicago and North Western Railroad tracks north of the Chicago River and west of Wells Street, the first time in the history of the city that taxes have been assessed against "air rights".  The rule the board applies is "the value of the air rights is the size of the entire fee under the building, less the added cost of constructing a building on air rights over a railroad, and less the loss in value owing to the loss of rentable space."  [Chicago Daily Tribune, October 6, 1929].  In the case of the Merchandise Mart the formula determines that the total area covered by the structure is 267,775 feet, resulting in a taxable value of $2,677,750.  The cost of constructing the building over the railroad tracks, determined by examining the books of the architects, Graham, Anderson, Probst and White, is fixed at $200,000.  That sum is subtracted from the total price.  An additional debit from the building's total cost is estimated for the loss of rentable office space that cannot be used because of the existence of the railroad tracks.  That sum is estimated at $104,164.  Another $67,267 is subtracted because of delays in finalizing the agreement between the building's owners and the railroad.  The final figure is 86.12% of the building, the sum on which the massive building will be taxed.  The photo shows the tracks of the Chicago and North Western Railroad running from west to east beneath the Merchandise Mart just after the Mart was completed.


October 5, 1964 – The tunnel at Oak Street, costing $5 million and designed to move northbound traffic on Michigan Avenue onto a ramp providing access to Lake Shore Drive, opens for its first rush hour.  The tunnel eliminates a bottleneck that has plagued Lake Shore Drive at Oak Street for years. The top photo shows the junction of Michigan Avenue, Oak Street and Lake Shore Drive before the tunnel was constructed.  The lower photo shows the area today with the tunnel peeking out in the lower left corner of the photo.


October 5, 1938 – Red Ruffing, pitching for the New York Yankees, goes up against the Chicago Cubs 22-game winner, Bill Lee, in the first game of the 1938 World Series, played in Chicago.  The Yankees go up, 2-0, in the second inning after Lou Gehrig walks and moves to third on a single by Bill Dickey. An error by Cubs second baseman Billy Herman allows Gehrig to score, and Joe Gordon brings Dickey home with another single.  The Cubs get a run back in the third inning, but the Yankees add another run in the sixth inning to end the scoring in a game in which Ruffing gives up nine hits and beats the home team, 3-1, before 43,642 spectators in a game that takes less than two hours to complete.  The men from the Bronx go on to defeat the Cubs in a four-game sweep.
Chicago Tribune photo

October 5, 1937 – A new day dawns in the city as the long awaited link between the north and south sections of the city, the bridge over the Chicago River at Lake Shore Drive, is dedicated in front of nearly 10,000 spectators.  The highlight of the ceremony is the appearance of the President of the United States, Franklin Roosevelt, who speaks very few words concerning the bridge.  Instead he uses the opportunity to make a major address concerning the responsibility of the United States in joining like-minded nations in opposing countries that would wage war to achieve domination.  “And mark this well,” Roosevelt says, “When an epidemic of physical disease starts to spread, the community approves and joins in a quarantine of the patients in order to protect the health of the community against the spread of the disease.  War is contagion whether it is declared or undeclared.  It can engulf states and people remote from the original scene of hostilities.  Yes, we are determined to keep out of war, yet we cannot insure ourselves against the disastrous effects of war and the dangers of involvement.”  [Chicago Tribune, October 6, 1937] The dedication of the bridge is shown in the photo above.
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Friday, August 28, 2020

August 28, 1929 -- Graf Zeppelin Gives Chicago a Show


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August 28, 1929 – Millions of Chicagoans take to the streets as the Graf Zeppelin cruises over the city “to the accompaniment of the most tremendous roar of welcome that ever went up to the skies from this mid-continent metropolis.”  [Chicago Daily Tribune, August 30, 1929]. The great airship is first sighted in the Loop about 5:20 p.m., and it floats over the downtown area for about 18 minutes before it disappears “in the hazy eastern sky within three minutes after leaving the lake shore.”  All of the buildings in the Loop as well as the streets are jammed with spectators, some of whom come from towns and cities a hundred miles away.  Although rain threatens for much of the afternoon, the clouds part as the zeppelin appears, and “As the big ship soared majestically across the loop, circled Tribune Tower, swung south to Soldiers’ Field and then north again to Lincoln Park and away across the lake, the clouds opened and for a brief time the sky cleared.”  As the airship heads east over the lake, the clouds part and, for the first time that day, sunshine peeks through, casting a golden light on the zeppelin as though it “seemed to be disappearing in a halo.”  People begin gathering early in the morning, and they are not disappointed.  As the throng catches its first glimpse of the zeppelin, automobile horns begin to drown out the shouts of the onlookers as the locomotives of the railroads join in the roar with their steam whistles.  Tug boats and larger vessels on the lake and river also sound their horns.  The zeppelin makes a gigantic “figure-eight” over the city, swinging north and circling Tribune Tower before heading south for a pass over Soldier Field where thousands in the arena cheer.  Turning north again it heads over the Loop a second time before cruising along the lakefront to Lincoln Park where it speeds up and heads east over the lake.  During the fly-over drivers simply stop their cars wherever they are, climb on the running boards and hoods, straining for a view and shouting as policemen “threatened and … bullied, but no one paid them the slightest attention, and soon they threw up their hands, shrugged their shoulders and turned their own eyes skyward.”  The Chicago flyover comes toward the end of the Graf Zeppelin’s “round-the-world” flight in August of 1929.  Beginning in Lakehurst, New Jersey the flight was made in five stages:  from Lakehurst to Friedrichshafen between August 7 and August 10; from Friedrichshafen to Tokyo from August 15 to August 19; from Tokyo to Los Angeles between August 23 and August 26; from Los Angeles to Lakehurst from August 27 to August 29; and from Lakehurst back home to Friedrichshafen from September 1 to September 4. 




August 28, 1986 – The Chicago City Council approves a plan to build two 25-story office towers on top of Union Station at Adams and Canal Streets.  Alderman Gerald McLaughlin of the Forty-Fifth Ward, the chairman of the landmarks committee, says that the train station does not hold landmark status and that the developers of the property have promised to retain much of its historical design.  In an editorial, the Chicago Tribune says of the plan, “… we continue to believe that these plans will contribute importantly to the revitalization of the west Loop. New rail facilities, new and renovated shops, restaurants—retail space that the area needs so desperately—and office space will draw people to the building’s dramatic waiting room and create an exciting destination point without destroying either the station’s main waiting room or its walls.” [Chicago Tribune, September 4, 1986] All of the meetings, plans, and protests came to naught, however, and the plan died. About ten years ago the American Medical Association proposed the construction of an 18-story office building and hotel above the station, but that plan fell apart as well.  In the spring of 2017 Riverside Investment and Development was named to head up a three-phase $1 billion (or more) project that is expected to include up to two million square feet of office space, 780 apartments and 350 hotel rooms that will be constructed in three phases, starting sometime in 2018.  Riverside CEO John O’Donnell says of the project, “This is probably one of the best physical locations in the city.  It just needs to be dressed up, and I think it needs to have a number of amenities that don’t exist right now.  We can bring an abundance of those to this location.” [Chicago Tribune, May 25, 2017] The two photos above show the station as it was originally constructed and the Riverside Investment and Development rendering of what it may look like in the future.  


August 28, 2015 – As part of its “Madison and Wabash Bash,” the Rebuilding Exchange auctions pieces of the 119-year-old CTA station that formerly stood at the corner of Madison Street and Wabash Avenue.  The Rebuilding Exchange, a non-profit market for building materials from another era, joins the Illinois Railway Museum and Preservation Chicago to auction off the materials at 1740 West Webster Street.  The station at Madison and Wabash opened in 1896 and was one of the last original station houses in the Loop before it was closed on March 16, 2015 to create room for a new station at Washington and Wabash. The station houses themselves will be held for two years while Preservation Chicago seeks an institution or individual willing to take them in.  The station house as it looked while in operation is shown in the top photo. Below that are the sad remains at the Madison and Wabash Bash.

Chicago Tribune Photo
August 28, 1952 – The Chicago Daily Tribune reports that the U. S. Air Force will press its case for the retention of O’Hare International Airport as a major military tactical and training base.  The military’s decision is based on a two-pronged argument.  First, that an emergency exists with no time for the development of another military air base in the area.  Secondly, that the Air Force has spent $43 million on O’Hare, twice as much as Chicago has. It was the military that first spent $36 million in 1943 to condemn the property and create four runways between 4,850 and 5,400 feet in length to accommodate C-54 transport planes that were being built at the adjacent Douglas Aircraft Company.  In 1947 the city acquired 1,080 acres of the 1,289-acre site from the government although the Air Force maintained “recapture rights.”  A year later the city began the acquisition of another 5,000 acres of land with a ten-year plan that would bring six runways of between 8,000 and 10,000 feet.  Although as of 1952 none of the runways have been started, the first part of the passenger terminal and much of the ramp and loading area are nearing completion.  If the Air Force insists on taking over the field, it will seek Congressional approval to repay the city.  Chicago Mayor Martin Kennelly has stated that the government’s take-over of the field will put the city seven years behind in its airport plans.  The above photo shows the field on September 18, 1949 when it was officially re-named O'Hare Field, a change from Orchard Field, the name by which it had previously been known.


August 28, 1900 – For five hours “in ranks twelve deep, the white-haired veterans of the Grand Army of the Republic passed in their last grand parade . . . Never again can they meet in such numbers.  They are growing gray haired and aged, and gradually death is mustering them out.  But yesterday they marched 23,000 strong through the down-town streets of Chicago . . .”  [Chicago Daily Tribune, August 29, 1900]  Beginning at 10:00 a.m. the veterans of the Union Army march down Michigan Avenue until 3:45 p.m.  Commanding General of the Army Nelson A. Miles, upon reviewing the ranks, says, “It was a parade which all Europe, with all its armies combined, could not duplicate.  It was a spectacle which perhaps no American shall witness again.”  Although the 23,000 attendees make up only a small portion of the 2,880,000 men who fought, the encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic taxes the city’s resources.  Trains bring 195,000 people to six different railroad stations.  Elevated and surface line trains handle 725,000 passengers on the night of August 28, and 140,000 people arrive in the city on the day before the parade, putting a huge strain on hotels.
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Tuesday, June 30, 2020

June 30, 1929 -- Grant Park, A Parking Lot?

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June 30, 1929 – The Chicago Daily Tribune prints a photo essay, showing the amount of space in Grant Park given over to the parking of automobiles.  There was at the time a pay station for those who wanted to park in what is now primarily Maggie Daley Park, an area where between 5,000 and 7,500 cars were parked each day.  In the grainy Tribune photo above one can see the long lines of cars with the Illinois Central Railroad freight yard in the lower left corner of the photo.  The second photo shows another view of the parking lot.  The third photo shows what the area looks like today. 
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June 30, 1961 – The land on which the 100 North La Salle Street building stands is sold to the building’s owners for $1,750,000 or $200 a square foot.  The sum is believed to be the highest price paid for land in the downtown real estate market since 1929.  Vincent Curtis Baldwin, president of the consortium that owns the building, says that the price paid eclipses the previous high for a lot on the southwest corner of Michigan Avenue and Adams Street which sold for $115 a square foot. The corporation that owns the building was reorganized in 1942 under federal bankruptcy law after having fallen behind in rent, taxes and bond interest during the 1930’s Depression. Acquiring the land will allow the building’s owners to free themselves of the annual lease on the property, which, on an annual basis, amounts to seven percent of the purchase price.  Several years ago an Atlanta-based firm, the Bridge Investment Group, purchased the 47-story tower for $113 million.

June 30, 1950 – The formal dedication of Merrill C. Meigs Field takes place on the lakefront.  Although the airport has been open since December 10, 1948, it carried no name.  Speaking from prepared notes, Meigs, who had served as the head of the city’s Aero Commission, said, “When my name was brought up last year before the city council, there were objections that no airport should be named for a living person.  I was honored at the original suggestion but felt that the sacrifice involved—in order to qualify—was too great a price, even for that glory.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, July 1, 1950]   Special guests were drawn from 30 states—the Flying Farmers of Prairieland and the National Flying Farmers.  It is estimated that 890 of their planes, carrying 2,047 persons, landed at Chicago area airports.   

June 30, 1941 – Superior Court Judge Ulysses S. Schwartz awards $1,275 to A. F. Cuneo, the owner of two three-story buildings at 933 and 939 North State Street, an amount that covers the cost “of protecting the buildings against possible collapse as the result of subway excavation” [Chicago Daily Tribune, July 31, 1943] related to the 8.75 mile subway we know today as the Red Line.  The case is seen as a precedent, impacting “millions of dollars” that are involved in the dispute between the city and property owners over damages incurred during the construction of the subway.  City officials plan on appealing the ruling to the Supreme Court, but a clause in the Illinois Constitution does not appear to support their case.  It reads, “Private property shall not be taken or damaged for public use without compensation.”  Already 50 suits have stacked up, amounting to a million-and-a-half dollars, mostly costs associated with underpinning buildings to protect them from collapse as the subway tunnel is bored beneath them.  Construction of the State Street subway is shown in the photo above. 

June 30,1863 – The setting of the cornerstone of the Theological Seminary at the corner of Halsted Street and Fullerton Avenue takes place in a ceremony which opens with the assembled guests singing “I Love Thy Kingdom, Lord.” Reverend Dr. Matthews of Monmouth, Illinois then presents the past history of the Seminary, after which he lays the cornerstone. Today’s McCormick Theological Seminary is the descendant of this seminary which, according to the McCormick website, “was born in a log cabin” in Hanover, Indiana with a faculty of two and a “handful of students.”  Seeking a Presbyterian seminary in Chicago, Cyrus McCormick provided a $100,000 donation to endow four professorships, allowing the Seminary to move to 25 acres in today’s Lincoln Park.  In 1975 the seminary moved to Hyde Park, a move that allowed the school to share resources with the Jesuit School of Theology and the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago.  The above photo shows the Halsted Street entrances of McCormick Hall, built in 1883; Ewing Hall, built in 1863, and the seminary chapel, built in 1875.  
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Thursday, October 24, 2019

October 24, 1929 -- Lakefront Amendments Determine Illinois Central Development


October 24, 1929 – The Chicago City Council passes a set of amendments to the 1919 Lake Front Ordinance that will allow the development of air rights over the Illinois Central Railroad tracks east of Michigan Avenue and north of Randilph Street while allowing the construction of a system of elevated streets that will lead to the proposed outer drive bridge across the river.  Passage of the amendments, which have been circulating among council members since May, allows the start-up of construction on a new Randolph Street suburban station for the railroad along with a 128-foot wide viaduct that will extend Randolph Street to the east.  Also anticipated is the extension of Wacker Drive east along the south bank of the river, and the elevated extension of Lake Street and South Water Street to a point beyond where Columbus Drive runs today.  The above photo illustrates what the area looked like in the early 1920's.  



October 24, 1961 – Three teams of city inspectors, a total of 15 men, begin investigating conditions in tenement buildings along North Clark Street.  In the first five buildings the inspectors cite close to 500 building and fire violations. The crackdown is a result of a Chicago Tribune investigation of the area as well as a call from the Greater North Michigan Avenue Association to clean up the street.  One building, at 727-31 North Clark Street, houses 60 people in 40 units and is cited for 192 violations in wiring, plumbing, and fire safety requirements. John Jung, the assistant chief of inspections for the building department, says his inspectors “found numerous violations that could turn any of the buildings into blazing coffins for their occupants.” [Chicago Tribune, October 25, 1961] The top photo shows the building at 519-521 North Clark Street at the time the inspections were taking place.  The photo below that shows the corner as it appears today.



October 24, 2006 – An afternoon fire breaks out in the Wirt Dexter Building at 630 South Wabash Avenue, and before the sun comes up the following morning, the second Louis Sullivan building to be lost in the year lies in ruins.  Later it is revealed that scrap dealers cutting up a boiler in the basement spark the fire that brings over 250 firefighters to the scene. The building was commissioned by Chicago lawyer Wirt Dexter and according to Chicago’s Landmark Commission, “The building's unornamented design is a precursor to the firm's work on the Auditorium Building and the use of a cast-iron structural system permits larger window openings than would have been possible through the use of masonry alone. The distinctive, perforated, cast-iron beams on the rear facade, for example, anticipate building design of nearly seven decades later.” As a result of the five-alarm fire all classes at Columbia College are cancelled at its nearby buildings, Loop elevated service is suspended, and Harrison Street and Balbo Avenue are closed, as are State Street and Wabash from Harrison to Balbo.  This wasn’t the last Louis Sullivan structure that fire would claim in 2006 … on November 4 the George Harvey house in Lakeview would be gutted by fire as well.  I, me, this writer was particularly saddened to see the Wirt Dexter building fall.  On its ground floor George Diamond’s Steakhouse opened in the 1950’s with “its flaming red carpet and velvet paintings in a dining room that seated 600.” [Chicago Tribune, October 26, 2006] It was somewhere in that cavern of a restaurant on Wabash, after the gigantic wedge of salad and the steak dinner, that 47 years ago I proposed to the woman who would become my wife.  The Wirt Dexter building is shown in the above photos, before and after.


October 24, 1943 – I would imagine the folks residing at 1006 North Sheridan Road in Highland Park are darned surprised when a six-foot long rocket streams out of the Sunday sky and buries itself four feet into the lawn of their home.  The mystery is solved a couple days later when Army officers at Fort Sheridan confirm what the family already knows – there is, indeed, a rocket in their yard.  After investigating, U.S. Army officials explain that the 30-pound device is used during anti-aircraft gunnery practice at neighboring Fort Sheridan.  The rocket had a bent fin, and as it screamed over the lake at speeds between 300 and 400 miles per hour, that defect threw it off course.  Police estimate that if the rocket had hit the house directly it would have penetrated the home from the roof to the basement.

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Sunday, September 22, 2019

September 22, 1935 -- WGN Auditorium Opens


September 22, 1935 – In the six hours that the Chicago Tribune opens the doors of the new home of its radio station, 4,368 people tour the facilities.  Over 500 visitors fill out forms for a chance to gain admission to the auditorium when performances begin.  The paper describes the new digs in this way, “The lighting effects, the sharp slant of the auditorium for purposes of better vision, the richly covered, deep cushioned seats and the sound proofed walls attracted appreciative comments.”  [Chicago Daily Tribune, September 23, 1935]  The building just to the north of Tribune Tower is laid out or “squared off” with Polaris, the north star, as a sighting point, an innovative approach that allows a variance of about an eighth-inch along the building’s frontage on Michigan Avenue.  On October 5 the auditorium opens with two orchestras entertaining all of the workers who had labored on the building, along with their families.  Colonel Robert R. McCormick, editor and publisher of the paper, tells them, “This victory of peace has a sadness for me, for it means I must part from the men I have watched at this building for the last year and a half . . . You have piled stone on stone, color on color, and joined wire to wire.  You have built here, forever, something that your children will thank you for.  You leave me with emotion.  God bless you and be with you always.”  [Chicago Daily Tribune, October 2, 1935]  Well, not quite forever ... the facility is undergoing significant alteration as it transitions into a new life as part of the Tribune Tower conversion from a commercial skyscraper to a residential tower.

September 22, 1974 – The Chicago Tribune reports that Harry Weese and Associates has won the highest award of the Chicago Chapter of the American Institute of Architects for an apartment building at the southwest corner of South Lake Park Avenue at East Forty-Seventh Street.  A.I.A jurors call the design a “good design at the highest level within the narrow constraints of publicly financed housing.”  The 26-story tower, Lake Shore East, features 38 angled, vertical planes of glass and brick which “give the building’s shape and its interplay of elements many different appearances as they are viewed from various perspectives.”  [Chicago Tribune, September 22, 1974]

September 22, 1981 – Two firefighters die and six others are injured while fighting an extra-alarm fire in the Willoughby Tower office building at 8 South Michigan Avenue.  Fire Commissioner William Blair says, “There was no chance … there was no way out for them.”  The two firefighters, Joseph Hitz, a snorkel truck driver with Hook and Ladder 1 and Craig McShane, a rookie with Engine 42, fall to their deaths down an open elevator shaft from the twenty-fifth floor to the roof of an elevator stopped at the ninth floor.  The fire on the floor from which they fell started in materials a cleaning crew had left in the elevator, and as a result the car fell until its brakes activated and stopped it on the ninth floor.  Six firefighters exit an elevator on the twenty-fifth floor to find the hallway filled with smoke.  Breathing through air masks, they find an open office through which they are able to reach a fire escape at which point they discover that one of their number, Hitz, is missing.  McShane, the only firefighter who still has air in his self-contained breathing apparatus, crawls back to check, and he falls through the same open elevator shaft into which Hitz had fallen earlier.  Mayor Jane Byrne, standing at the scene as the search for the two men is being conducted, says, “I am deeply sorrowed by the loss of the lives of these two brave firemen …I have conferred with Commissioner Blair and directed him to immediately procure, by the end of the week at the latest, two-way hand radios for every Chicago firemen in hopes that this would prevent a recurrence of such tragic accidents.”  Hitz and McShane are the first Chicago firemen killed on duty since 1978 and the first multiple deaths of Chicago firefighters since 1973. The plaque, pictured above, memorializing the two firefighters, can be seen at the firehouse at 419 South Wells Street, about a mile away from the tragic fire of 1981.
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Thursday, March 7, 2019

March 7, 1929 -- Cook County Courthouse and Jail Opened for Inspection

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March 7, 1929 – Cook County’s new $7,500,000 courthouse and jail at Twenty-Sixth Street and California Avenue is opened for public inspection as more than 600 business people and members of civic organizations sit down to lunch in the building’s dining room, an event sponsored by the Association of Commerce and the Chicago Advertising Council.  The jail, intended primarily for the use of prisoners awaiting trial, is a state-of-the art facility.  Each of the 1,302 jail cells will have running water and mattresses that are three inches thick.  It is estimated that 2,000 people inspect the cells and the new courthouse, which contains 14 courtrooms, a grand jury room, a jury summons and waiting room, an arraignment court, a law library, and officers for sheriffs, clerks, the state’s attorney, and a social service department.  The facility is scheduled to open on April 1.  Today, with an occupancy of over 10,000 inmates, the jail is the largest single-site prison in the United States. It stands on the site of the former John Worthy Reform School.  The former reform school and today's courthouse are pictured above.




March 7, 1919 – The Chicago Daily Tribune reports that the Grand Pacific Hotel, at the corner of Jackson Boulevard and Clark Street, will be demolished and “that a modern office building will replace the present building is the ‘best guess’ of men versed in loop real estate.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, March 7, 1919] The Grand Pacific Hotel was completed in 1873, just two years after the Chicago Fire, according to a design by architect W. W. Boyington.  It became one of the two most prominent hotels in the city, rivalling the Palmer House in its luxury.  It was a massive and ornate edifice.  It was composed of 7,00,000 bricks and 52,000 cubic feet of limestone and sandstone. The hotel had 1,070 doors. Nearly an acre of glass was used in its 930 windows. There were 420 chandeliers with 1,518 gas burners and another 880 sconces with 1,280 burners. 38 miles of wire went into the building's electrical systems. [Chicago Daily Tribune, May 16, 1873] The west half of the building was demolished in 1895 to provide a space for the Illinois Trust and Savings Bank, and the east side of the structure was remodeled according to a design by architectural firm Jenney and Mundie.  It was in the Grand Pacific that the Standard Time system was adopted on October 11, 1883.  The remaining structure was demolished in 1921 to make way for the Continental Illinois Bank.  The above photos show the original Grand Pacific Hotel, the truncated version, and the bank, designed by Graham, Anderson, Probst and White, that occupies the corner today. 


March 7, 1903 – A Chicago Daily Tribune editorial condemns the practice of dumping dredgings from the river at Bridgeport into the lake a short distance from the shore between Fourteenth Street and Hyde Park.  The editorial urges South Park Board President D. F. Crilly “now in Florida, where, presumably, he is breathing pure air, drinking pure water, and rejoicing at his immunity from mud, soot, smoke and garbage,” [Chicago Daily Tribune, March 7, 1903] to do something.  Singled out for particular criticism are the commissioners of the district who “would not pay the contractors an exorbitant extra price to dump it [the dredgings from the river] in Grant Park.”  The editorial puts a question in the absent Mr. Crilly’s mouth, “What is the use of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on intercepting sewers if we allow the sewage to be taken back and intermingled with our water supply?”  The question is followed up with this lament, “With an ample supply of the best water in the world at our door, why should we not have water that is fit for use?  Why should a few contractors year after year be allowed to poison that water?”


March 7, 1972 -- Eleven persons are hurt when a 150-foot metal scaffold falls from the top of the Old Stock Exchange Building at 30 North La Salle Street, carrying bricks and pieces of wood with it. Two cars are buried as debris are scattered over a 200-foot stretch of La Salle Street between Madison and Washington. Fire Commissioner Robert Quinn blames the falling debris on strong wind gusts that caught part of the tarpaulin at the top of the building and blew the scaffolding and bricks off the east wall, which had been demolished to the ninth floor. "It was a miracle that the whole wall didn't go down," Quinn said. "That tarpaulin acted just like a sail in the wind." The building's demolition, which comes after a protracted battle to make it a city landmark, removes what was arguably the greatest achievement of architect Louis Sullivan. Its death cry on this day in March of 1972 was heard, and a new attitude toward preservation was born and is alive and well today. The photo above shows the building not long after the accident occurred.

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Friday, November 30, 2018

November 30, 1929 -- Chicago Yacht Club Breaks Ground for New Home

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November 30, 1929 –Ground is broken for the new home of the Chicago Yacht Club at Monroe Street and the lakefront as 200 members witness the ceremony.  George F. Getz, the building chairman, says, “Here will stand the finest yacht club in the world.  Chicago will be proud of the structure.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, December 1, 1929] A telegram from the head of naval aviation, William A. Moffett, is read in which he “lauded the organization and congratulated the club on its activity.”  Judge C. C. Kremer, who holds membership number one in the club, is also introduced to the gathered crowd.  Actual construction is expected to start on March 1, and it is hoped that the club can be in the $2,500,000 building by January of 1931.  The new eight-story clubhouse is to replace an older building, built in 1902, that had sat at the foot of Randolph Street until it was moved to Monroe Street to facilitate the construction of the outer drive. Optimism quickly faded as 1929 turned into 1930, however – the timing couldn’t have been worse as the stock market crash in 1929 ended the plans for the new building.  In 1935 a display home at the Century of Progress World’s Fair, “The House of Tomorrow,” is moved to the site as a temporary clubhouse.  It isn’t until 1955 that construction is finally begun on the first section of the clubhouse on its present site at the foot of Monroe Street. 


November 30, 1976 – Isamu Noguchi dedicates his outdoor sculpture at the Art Institute of Chicago, a monumental piece standing on the east side of museum, facing Grant Park.  The fountain, commissioned to celebrate the bicentennial of the United States, is made up of two 40-foot pieces of granite and stainless steel, one horizontal and the other vertical and V-shaped.  The forms are set in a reflecting pool that will allow year-round operation.  The $250,000 piece is another sculpture that comes from the Ferguson Memorial Monument Fund.  Naguchi says, “I am always astonished that things work so well in Chicago when they don’t seem to elsewhere.  Chicago has always been a great place for me.  This is a very happy day in my life.” [Chicago Tribune, December 1, 1975] At the dedication it is also announced that the Chicago Park District has passed a resolution to place a monumental outdoor sculpture at the northeast corner of Fullerton Avenue and Cannon Drive.  Eventually Ellsworth Kelly would be chosen for that work.  In 1981 his Curve XII, known as his “I Will” sculpture was installed at the location named five years earlier.  Naguchi may have jumped the gun on his amazement that things work so well in the city.  His work, as one can see from the photo above, is not working all that well and seems to have been largely forgotten.


November 30, 1951 – At a meeting of the Irish Fellowship Club of Chicago at the Morrison Hotel proposals are put forth to bring the only Nazi submarine ever captured at sea to Chicago.  The plans have the United States Navy towing the U-505 from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where it is anchored, to Chicago, where it will be placed on a foundation near Buckingham Fountain.  Jack Foster, a naval reserve officer, tells the crowd that a Chicagoan, Admiral Dan Gallery, commanded the anti-submarine task force that captured the German U-boat and its top-secret codes and that makes Chicago the appropriate final resting place for the captured sub.  The head of the Irish Fellowship Club, Dunne Corboy, appoints an engineering consultant to head a committee that will study the proposal.  The new effort comes after the Science Museum in Hyde Park gives up its efforts, citing the prohibitive costs involved in the operation.  The U-505 finally comes to Chicago in September of 1954, as a result of a renewed effort on the part of the museum.  The photo above shows the U-boat just east of Michigan Avenue as it arrived it the city in 1954.
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Saturday, October 20, 2018

October 20, 1929 -- Glenview Dedicates the Curtis-Reynolds Airport

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October 20, 1929 –A crowd of 35,000 packs the new Curtis-Reynolds Airport in suburban Glenview as the $3,000,000 facility is dedicated.  A hundred airplanes are on display as spectators are treated to an afternoon of “parachute jumping, aerial bombing and a short course race”. [Chicago Daily Tribune, October 21, 1929]  Roads in the area are not equipped to handle the crowds, and four hours after the event ends, there are still cars stuck on the 18-foot gravel of Harms Road.  Wiley Post, flying a Lockheed Vega is the first to finish in the afternoon’s air race, followed by Art Davis in a Waco biplane.  John Livingston, a pilot from Aurora, flying another Waco, is also among the leaders, and he also leads in a 5,000-mile competition that will end the next day in Detroit.  The race is the first such contest to be held in the area since the great air show on Chicago’s lakefront in the summer of 1911.  Amelia Earhart also attends the dedication, landing early in the afternoon. She says, “I was in Columbus attending a meeting when I heard about the airport opening here today so I flew on over—it’s a peach, isn’t it?”  The new airport is composed of two flying fields.  A 125-acre field on the south end will facilitate instruction of the 103 students enrolled at the Curtis flying school. Unfortunately, the dedication takes place a little over a week after the 1929 stock market crash.  The field continues operation, though, even hosting the International Air Races and the Graf Zeppelin that came to town in 1933 as part of the Century of Progress Exposition.  By the mid-1930’s, the United States Navy found its quarters too small at the Great Lakes Naval Base and leased part of the hangar for a Naval Reserve air base.  The Navy dramatically expanded its presence at the base during World War II.  In 1942 “1,300,000 square yards of concrete mats and runways were poured in only 121 working days,” [airfields-freeman.com] and in August of that year the Carrier Qualification Training Unit began operating out of the field, using two converted side-wheel excursion ships as carriers on which to practice landings off the shore of Chicago.  In April of 1993 the Base Realignment and Closure committee recommended the base for closure, and the last fixed-wing plane took off from the base in February of 1995.  The former airport is now the site of a planned community with shopping, restaurants, and over 1,500 homes.


October 20, 1975 – Branches of Marshall Field and Company and Lord and Taylor open for business on the first eight levels of the new Water Tower Place, the 74-story skyscraper on North Michigan Avenue.  Lines begin forming at 8 a.m. at the doors of the “vertical shopping center” [Chicago Tribune, October 21, 1975] and crowds inside both stores are so large employees have trouble getting to their posts.  “We couldn’t be more pleased,” says Arthur E. Osborne, Vice-President and General Manager of the Marshall Field’s stores in the Chicago area.  “We’re just as excited about this as anything we’ve ever done.  There are wall-to-wall people …”  Charles Siegmann, Vice-President and Regional Managing Director of Lord and Taylor, says, “I’m running out of superlatives.  We knew it was going to be great, but never anything like this. I’ve never seen such great-looking people, the way they’re dressed and how friendly and gracious they are.  This is probably the biggest thrill our company has ever had.  And it’s just amazing the number of men who are here.”  The complex is a joint development of Urban Investment and Development, a subsidiary of Aetna Life and Casualty Company, and Mafco, a subsidiary of Marshall Field and Company.  Architect Edward D. Dart of Loebl, Scholssman, Bennett and Dart is the leading architect on the project.


October 20, 1900 – Progress Lighting the Way for Commerce, a statue over 21 feet in height, is lowered into place atop of the Montgomery Ward headquarters at 6 North Michigan Avenue.  It is not intended merely to sit atop the building; it will function as a weather vane that “obeys every change of the wind.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, October 21, 1900]  Richard Schmidt, the architect who designed the building, oversees the placement of the statue.  The figure is that of a young woman who holds a flaming torch in her right hand and a caduceus, or a short staff intertwined with two snakes, in her left.  In Roman mythology Mercury, who was the messenger of the gods, and the protector of merchants, shepherds, gamblers, liars and thieves, is often seen carrying a caduceus in his left hand.  Scottish-American sculptor John Massey Rhind was the artist who created the piece.  The statue was taken down in 1947 and cut into nearly three-dozen pieces.  Some of those pieces may still sit in parlors all over the city.


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