Showing posts with label 1939. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1939. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 6, 2020

October 6, 1939 -- Cardinal Mundelein Laid to Rest

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October 6, 1939 – Chicagoans turn out to say their final good-byes to the Most Reverend George Mundelein, who had served as the third Archbishop of Chicago from 1915 until his death on October 2, 1939 at the age of 67.  The funeral service is celebrated at Holy Name Cathedral by the papal delegate to the United States, the Most Reverend Archbishop Amleto Giovanni Cicognani of Washington, D. C. A public address system delivers the liturgy and music of the service to those who are outside Holy Name, with nearby rooftops crowded with mourners and the top of Holy Name School at the corner of Wabash and Chicago Avenues, “thronged with black-robed sisters in the warm October sunshine.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, October 7, 1939]  Cardinal Mundelein lies, dressed in purple vestments with a white mitre on his head and purple shoes and stockings on his feet.  Red gloves cover his hands which hold a crucifix.  The Most Reverend John J. Cantwell, the Archbishop of Los Angeles is the eulogist, and in his remarks he names the accomplishments of Mundelein … the dedication of 205 new churches, the erection of the $20,000,000 St. Mary of the Lake seminary and the Quigley seminary, the founding of the Lewis Holy Name Technical School in Lockport, the construction of Lewis Memorial Hospital, and the doubling of the enrollment of the parochial school system in the city.  After the service, the funeral cortége leaves the cathedral and heads east to Michigan Avenue “lined by thousands who realized that a notable builder had become a tradition deeply graven in a city’s life.”  The American Federation of Musicians’ band plays Chopin’s “Marche Funebre” and the death march from Beethoven’s “Saul,” and the 750,000 onlookers are so quiet that only the footsteps of the procession rise above the solemn music.  After the procession Mundelein’s bronze coffin is taken to the seminary in Mundelein where he is interred in the Immaculate Conception chapel.  His crypt will rest six steps beneath the high altar of the chapel under a half-ton slab of black Belgian marble, chosen by the Cardinal himself, inscribed with words, translated from the Latin, “George William Cardinal Mundelein.  Third archbishop of Chicago.  Born July 2, 1872.  Died October 2, 1939.  I shall await God my Savior.”  The photo shows the funeral procession turning onto Monroe Street from Michigan Avenue.  From there it would head up the Outer Drive and onto St. Mary of the Lake.



October 6, 1981 –The fireboat Fred A. Busse makes its way down the Chicago River for the last time, headed for a south side dry dock where it will be retired. When the boat came to Chicago in 1937 from Bay City, Michigan where it was built, it was hailed as the largest fireboat in existence.  The boat, 92-feet long and weighing 157 tons, continually proved itself over the years. Just two years after the Fred A. Busse came to the city, its crew pumped 32.5 million gallons of river water for over 50 hours as it fought the four-million-dollar fire at the Rosenbaum-Norris grain elevator on the South Branch. The Fred A. Busse still exists. In fact, you can actually ride the boat. After a stint in Door County, Wisconsin the Fred A. Busse returned to Chicago this summer, where you can book yourself a nice cocktail cruise on an authentic part of Chicago history.  The top photo shows the fireboat at the Rosenbaum-Norris fire.  Below that is the Fred A. Busse in its latest incarnation.


October 6, 1977 – Four city groups – the Metropolitan Housing and Planning Council, Friends of the Parks, the Open Lands Project, and the Chicago chapter of the American Institute of Architects – come together to propose a large park, featuring a 10,000-seat outdoor music venue, to be located in a new 20-acre lot east of Michigan Avenue between Randolph and Monroe Streets.  Part of the park, it is anticipated, will be built over the Illinois Central commuter tracks with another section over the extension of Columbus Drive under construction at the time.  The proposal for this “Lakefront Gardens for the Performing Arts” contradicts a proposal that the Chicago Park District has made for a new performance space in Butler Field to replace the existing Petrillo band shell.  The photo above shows Grant Park in 1979 close to where Jaume Plenza's Crown Fountain stands today.

October 6, 1906 – The Chicago Daily Tribune reports that W. A. Gardner, the Vice-President of the Chicago and North Western Railroad, has announced the company will build a new railroad station between Madison, Lake, Canal and Clinton Streets.  The paper says that the new station “will take its place among the great transportation centers of the world.”  [Chicago Daily Tribune, October 6, 1906] With two-thirds of the property for the new station already in hand and the remainder in negotiation, it is anticipated that construction will begin in spring of 1907.  The railroad has spent $2,000,000 (close to $58,000,000 in today's dollars) on the property, in one of the oldest sections in the city with many structures dating from just after the Chicago fire in 1871.  Another $2,000,000 to $3,000,000 will still be spent on the remainder of the property with between $12,000,000 and $15,000,000 (between $350,000,000 and $430,000,000 today) needed to build the great station itself.  The plans, drawn up by the architectural office of Frost and Granger, will “bring to the patrons of the railroad the conveniences and the facilities which they have been without and always would be without on the present Wells Street site.”  The station on Wells Street north of the river was built in 1882 when the railroad had only four dozen or so trains arriving in or leaving the city, carrying about 4,000 people a day.  In 1906 the road carried 45,000 passengers a day or 24,000,000 people a year.  A singular advantage of the new station will be its location on the west side of the river, which means that trains will no longer be delayed by the raising of bridges and passengers will be able to access the station from five different streets, rather than having Wells Street and the bridge across the river as the only path to the trains.


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Thursday, August 27, 2020

August 27, 1939 -- Peoples Gas Building Loses Its Cornice




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August 27, 1939 – The Chicago Daily Tribune reports that one of the largest cornice removal projects ever undertaken in the city has begun on the Peoples Gas Building at the northwest corner of Michigan Avenue and Adams Street.  An estimated $90,000 (close to $1,700,000 in today’s dollars) will be spent in the removal of the original overhanging cornice that extends completely around the building.  Shaws, Naess and Murphy are the architects responsible for the roof modernization with the Gerhardt F. Meyne Company providing the construction services.  Although the cornice appears to be in good shape, the decision is made to replace it in order to avoid future problems.  The top photo shows the finished northern section of the building in 1908 with a pronounced cornice as construction of the south section of the building continues.  The second photo shows the building as it appears today with the cornice removed.



August 27, 1978 – At a time when it appears that Chicago’s Loop elevated system is doomed, architect Harry Weese writes a guest editorial for the Chicago Tribune in which he asks that the system be spared.  He begins by calling the elevated system “a landmark of structural and artistic integrity and of historical significance.”  [Chicago Tribune, August 27, 1978]  “Like the old Auditorium Theater,” Weese asserts, “which languished for 25 dark years before being recalled of its former splendor, a redeemed “L” would be a proud symbol of an age when Chicago led the world in its technological revolution.  It is part of the city’s legacy, as much as its museums and park systems and architectural landmarks . . . Putting people underground enhances neither their psyches nor their safety.” 

Chicago Tribune Photo
August 27, 1945 – The city welcomes General Charles de Gaulle, the president of the French provisional government at a banquet at the Blackstone Hotel.  After he is greeted by Mayor Edward Kelly and Illinois Governor Green, the general says, “It is said that often nations hide their aims from each other.  But the French nation does not hide hers.  She wants to attain a degree of activity enabling her to play a role much more important than before in the economy and exchanges of the world.”  [Chicago Daily Tribune, August 28, 1945].  He continues, saying that he has an “unshakable faith in the future," concluding, “Let me say that the welcome of Chicago has greatly contributed to the faith.  Viva Chicago! Viva America!  Viva France!”  General de Gaulle is greeted at the Chicago airport, today’s Midway International Airport, by several thousand people when his plane arrives around 8:00 p.m. Streets are packed with people near the Blackstone Hotel as a car whisks the French leader to the banquet in the Crystal room of the hotel.  On the following day General de Gaulle attends mass in Holy Name Cathedral, visits two war plants, and is honored in a parade from the Blackstone Hotel to the La Salle Street entrance of City Hall where he speaks at a public reception before he leaves for Ottawa, Canada.   Chicago Mayor Edward Kelly and General de Gaulle share a ride to the Blackstone Hotel in the above photo.


August 27, 1930 –The Lindbergh beacon begins official service at 9:00 p.m.  Ceremonies on the roof of the Palmolive building precede the lighting of the mighty beacon which is illuminated when the President touches a button at the White House.  The beacons namesake, Charles Lindbergh, is not at the ceremony, declining an invitation to attend so that he could avoid reporters and cameramen.  An hour before the beacon is illuminated, a dinner is served on a terrace below.  In attendance are Rear Admiral Moffett of the Navy’s air forces; Major General Frank Parker, the Sixth Corps area commander; Sir George Hubert Wilkins, a noted explorer; and Captain Fritz Loose of Germany, in town for a series of air races.  Charles S. Pearce, president of the Colgate-Palmolive Peat Company, welcomes the guests and presents Merrill C. Meigs, the chairman of the civic committee in charge of the dedication.  City Attorney William D. Saltiel accepts the light on behalf of the city.  The beacon consists of two beams – one, a rotating two-billion candle power lamp, 603 feet above the street, and the other, a fixed eleven-hundred million candle power light that points directly to the municipal airport. The Chicago Daily Tribune reports, “For a few seconds the big light was held stationary, pointed to the southwest, then it began a leisurely turn, touching the loop skyscrapers as it went. The new Merchandise Mart, already blazing with lights, was given added brilliance by the beam; the Mather tower loomed out of the darkness as the shaft brought it into view, and a degree or two further east the beam gilded the flag staff of the Tribune tower and illuminated the mosque-like dome of the Medinah Athletic Club.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, August 27, 1930]. The beacon will need some fine tuning, apparently. People on top of a six-story building in Michigan City, 35 miles from the city, report they cannot see the light. A pilot flying the United States mail from Omaha says he was about 100 miles away from the airport when the beacon was illuminated, but he did not see it until he was directly over the municipal airport on the southwest side of the city.  Further tests will be conducted to determine the most advantageous angle for the great beam.  For more on the Lindbergh light, please turn to this entry in Connecting the Windy City.


August 27, 1872 – Montgomery Ward begins the first mail-order company by creating a catalog to reach rural consumers.  The catalog is one page and consists of a simple list of 163 items with ordering instructions.  After coming to Chicago in 1865, Word worked in wholesale operations for several firms and “In tedious rounds of train trips to southern communities, hiring rigs at the local stables, driving out to the crossroads stores and listening to the complaints of the back-country proprietors and their rural customers, he conceived a new merchandising technique: direct mail sales to country people.” [http://www.lib.niu.edu] With a stake of $1,600 Ward and two partners worked from a small shipping office on North Clark Street. A year later both partners abandoned the project, but Ward hung on, and in the next ten years or so saw the growth of the catalog to 240 pages, offering 10,000 items for sale.


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Wednesday, May 27, 2020

May 27, 1939 -- Monroe Street Viaduct Opens

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May 27, 1939 – The new $264,300 Monroe Street viaduct across the Illinois Central Railroad tracks east of Michigan avenue is opened to traffic at noon.  The viaduct carries six lanes on a 60-foot roadway, doubling the size of the viaduct that it replaces.  The new viaduct is part of a series of city improvements that come as a result of state legislation related to the construction of the new Union Station.  Other projects included in the initiative are:  connecting Canal and Orleans Streets, uniting the north and west parts of the city; widening and elevating Canal Street between Washington Street and Roosevelt Road to make a direct route to the new Illinois Central terminal; building a Congress Street viaduct; assisting the city in straightening the Chicago River’s South Branch, thereby relocating railroad tracks that strangled the south portion of the city east of the South Branch.  The black and white photo shows the construction of the viaduct in 1939.  The second Google Earth photo shows the corner of Monroe and Michigan as it appears today.


May 27, 1975 – After a City Council subcommittee approves $7.2 million for the rehabilitation of Navy Pier, a project that the Department of Public Works estimates may take closer to $34 million, the Chicago Tribune weighs in with its opinion. “Either it will be revived somehow,” the editorial states, “or it will be a big black eye on Chicago’s face as long as it remains. We hope a practical way can and will be found to make Navy Pier once again used, attractive, well served by public transportation from end to end as well as to it. The site is one of the most scenic and interesting urban sites in the country. Surely some time Chicago will find a means of turning Navy Pier’s unused potential into reality.”
J. Bartholomew Photo
May 27, 1933 – A creditors’ petition for reorganization is filed in the United States District court for the One La Salle Street building.  According to the suit the building’s owners are in default $5,250,000 on a first mortgage and have accrued taxes of $500,000.  The petition puts forward a plan to seek a new mortgage of $750,000 to pay off taxes and establish solvency to an operating fund while issuing 52,500 shares of stock to first mortgage holders.  The attorney for the building’s bondholders claims that the half-million in taxes have been paid and a cash surplus exists.  The attorney, Bernard Nath, says, “Eighty-nine percent of the bondholders and the owner of the building, the One La Salle Street Building corporation, have approved the reorganization plan.  We expect to go through with the reorganization foreclosure proceedings now under and bid in the property for the bondholders.”  [Chicago Daily Tribune, May 28, 1933]. For 35 years this 49-story building, designed by the architecture firm of Vitzhum and Burns, was the tallest building in the city.  It was named to the National Register of Historic Places in 1999. 



May 27, 1930 –The President of the 1933 Century of Progress, Rufus C. Dawes, pulls a lever on a steam shovel and scoops the first dirt from the site where the administration building will be erected for the Century of Progress World’s Fair, to be held along Chicago’s lakefront in the summers of 1933 and 1934,.   The Vice-President of the South Park commissioners, Philip S. Garver, addresses a gathering of fair directors and public officials, officially turning over the use of the park property to the fair’s trustees.  In accepting the site, Director Dawes says, “We pledge ourselves to the use of this land for the enjoyment, education, and entertainment of the people of the world.  The exposition will fittingly portray the history of Chicago and be worthy of the city’s proud position among the cities of the world.”  [Chicago Daily Tribune, May 28, 1930] In the top photo President Dawes moves the first bucket of dirt, which will give way to the Art Deco Administration building shown in the second photo.


May 27, 1917 – Seven weeks after the United States Congress approves a declaration of war on Germany, the Chicago Conference Committee on Terms of Peace holds a rally at the Auditorium Theater in which protestors rail against the country’s entanglement in the war an ocean away.  Two thousand people are turned away from the packed Auditorium, and they instigate what the Chicago Daily Tribune calls the city’s first “war riot.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, May 28, 1917] The paper reports, “The scene was Grant park, just across from the Auditorium hotel.  Michigan avenue’s thousands of Sunday promenaders came to an amazed halt.  A steady flowing stream of automobiles pulled up short, blockading the boulevard for many blocks in each direction … Then a huge, bearded and mop headed Russian thrust himself above the heads of the others … ‘Why should American workmen fight the workmen of Germany for any _______   _________ in the White House?’ he bawled.”  It took an hour to put down the riot as “The air was filled with clubs, that cracked down upon the heads of the rioters.  The members of the meeting shrieked imprecations, women bit and scratched the police, bull throated malcontents bawled threats and ‘Down with the government!’ “Free speech!’ and 'No war.’”  At first 40 officers show up, followed by 35 detectives.  In ten minutes there are another 400 policemen trying to maintain order.  The Tribune reports, “’Free speech!’ screamed the women. ‘We want free speech!’ ‘You’ll get it,’ bellowed back a square shouldered policeman as he whacked another disturber over the head.”  The Reverend Irwin St. John Tucker, chairman of the peace terms conference, issues a statement in which he separates the meeting in the Auditorium from the disturbances across Michigan Avenue.  It reads, “The Chicago permanent conference on terms of peace is responsible only for the mass meeting held in the Auditorium and for the resolutions officially presented therein … The conference is determined, while exercising all our rights under the law, strictly to observe all our obligations under the same.”

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Wednesday, January 1, 2020

January 1, 1939 -- Chicago Sanitary District Opens Begins New Era


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January 1, 1939 – Jeff J. Davis, an engineer in the Chicago Sanitary District power house in Lockport, flips a switch and, without fanfare, the city’s artificial sewage system, costing $177,000,000, takes over most of the sewage disposal work that has been done for over a century by the Chicago River.  The action is a direct result of a United States Supreme Court decision issued in 1930 mandating that the flow of water from Lake Michigan into the river be reduced to 1,500 cubic feet per second by December 31, 1938.  With the flip of the switch the sewage system is now about 90 percent finished with additional capacity to be added until it is complete in 1945.  Sensing that the winds of change were against them, the city began an ambitious construction program in the 1920’s which brought sewage treatment plants online that still form the foundation of the city’s wastewater treatment plan.  The Calumet sewage treatment works went into operation in 1922, followed by the North Side works in 1928, the West Side works in 1931 and the Southwest works in 1939.  These last two eventually were merged to become what is today the Stickney Water Reclamation Plant, one of the largest wastewater treatment facilities in the world.  The above photo shows work on the system in the 1930's at Kilbourn Avenue and Thirty-Eighth Street.

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January 1, 1900 –With the beginning of a new year and a new century, a new era begins in the city as at 10:00 p.m. “a big steam dredge began clawing into the narrow dam of earth which held back the water in Mud Lake from flowing into the main channel of the drainage canal.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, January 2, 1900]  Sluice gates prevent the water from the river from flowing into the new canal, eight years in the making, with the hope that the water would be contained until permission was received from the Governor of Illinois.  The dredge is positioned just west of the bridge at Kedzie Avenue at a point where the new drainage canal is about 3,000 feet to the south of Mud Lake, the obstacle that historically separated the Chicago River from the interior waters of the state.  The dredge would have to claw away about 15 feet of an earthen barrier that was 25 feet wide before the water from the river could be released.  With no permission from the state on hand and with the workers on the dredge keeping up steam for the operation, Chief Sanitary District Engineer Isham Randolph orders earth cut way in order to create a channel “as wide as two shovels of the dredge.”  In a give-and-take between city and state, the city is asking permission to open a section of the canal from the Chicago River to Lockport, saying that it will seek permission to open the section from Lockport to Joliet at a later date.  The state, however, is willing only to issue a permit for the complete 28-mile project. A Sanitary District trustee says, “We went to Joliet in the hope that the permit to open the canal would be ready and we could let the water in tonight.  The State commission decided [that it] must confine itself to one final statement covering the whole canal.  That it was not ready to make, and so we came away without the permit we wanted.”  So in a Meigs Field maneuver the officials at the site set the dredge to work, hoping that the sluice gates would keep the waters in check until, one way or another, permission came from the state to open the canal.  The photo above shows the operation to remove the earthen dam as it continues on January 2, 1900.


 January 1, 1954 – Today’s headline in the Chicago Daily Tribune reads, “Girls Take ‘Em Off for Last Time at Rialto” as Minsky’s Rialto Theater at 336 South State Street, a “strip tease center in Chicago for 35 years” [Chicago Daily Tribune, January 1, 1954] closes its doors after the last show ends at 1;30 a.m.  The building will be demolished and a group of one-story “taxpayers” will be erected in its place.  The theater opened in 1917 and was designed by Marshall and Fox, the same architects that designed the Blackstone Hotel and the Drake on North Michigan Avenue.  It could seat 1,500 when it opened for vaudeville shows, but it turned to burlesque shows in the 1930’s.  Today it is long gone, along with the one-story shops that took its place.  The site is now the home of Pritzker Park on the northwest corner of State Street and Van Buren, a bit of green space facing the elevated tracks and the Harold Washington Library just to the south.


 January 1, 1913 -- The Chicago Daily Tribune begins 1913 with this headline, “Murders Spread as Police Fail.”  The city coroner reports that through December 1, 1912 there were 287 homicides in Cook County for the year, all but 14 of them inside the city.  London, according to the paper, “with a population three times that of Chicago, reported only thirty-three in 1910.”  There were more murders in November than in any November in the preceding eight years.  The coroner’s jury determined that 168 of the 297 homicides could be classified as murder.  Of that number only 32 people had been convicted.  The article states, “For years the public and the police have been talking about curbing the use of revolvers and the carrying of concealed weapons.”  In fact, an ordinance was passed several years earlier that required dealers to report the sale of firearms and owners to register weapons that they purchased, but the ordinance was never seriously enforced and was repealed during 1912.  Pessimistically, the paper observes, “If history repeats itself, it is a safe guess that the police will have the murderer and the evidence to convict him in about 20 per cent of the cases.”


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