Showing posts with label Chicago Development. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chicago Development. Show all posts

Friday, September 18, 2020

September 18, 1982 -- Chicago Tribune Prints Last Paper at Michigan Avenue Plant

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September 18, 1982 – The Chicago Tribune prints its last letterpress newspaper at its plant off Michigan Avenue.  After more than 60 years of newspaper production just to the west of Tribune Tower, the newspaper will be printed and distributed from Freedom Center, the new printing facility between Ohio Street and Chicago Avenue on the North Branch of the Chicago River.  In the new 700,000-square-foot facility ten Goss Metroliner presses will “utilize a Muirhead Ltd. Laser film system in conjunction with Western platemaking equipment to insure quality plates for the offset presses.”  [Chicago Tribune, September 18, 1982]  Today it appears that the future of the state-of-the-art printing facility on the North Branch is also looking at the end of its life as Tribune Real Estate Holdings is looking to transform the area on the west shore of the river from Ohio Street to Chicago Avenue into the River District, where office towers for a projected 19,500 workers will rise in the coming years.  The top photo shows the area as it appears today.  The second photo is a rendering of what may be found there within the next decade ... if all the pieces fall into place.


September 18, 1934 – Mayor Edward Kelly is on hand to dedicate the $2,500,000 Steinmetz High School.  In his address he calls upon the state legislature to find a way to increase funding for the school system in the upcoming year.  “The need of more school revenue has been repeatedly demonstrated,” he says.  “At present real estate carries too much of the load, and it is impossible to suppose that additional burdens can be placed on such property. The schools need added revenues and the legislature should provide a plan to secure them.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, September 19, 1934]  Thousands of parents watch 2,800 Steinmetz students pass a reviewing stand to enter the building as the school opens.  The new school is one of five new schools commissioned by the Board of Education that will open in 1934.  Lane Technical High School opens on this day as well.  An addition to Senn High School will open in the next week, and two other schools, Wells and Phillips, will be completed by December 15. The school is named for German-American mathematician and electrical engineer Charles Proteus Steinmetz.



September 18, 1925 – Alonzo C. Mather pays $500,000 or $7,692 a square foot for 65 feet of frontage on Wacker Drive, adding this property, owned by the Chicago Title and Trust Company, to Michigan Avenue property he already owns east of the Wacker Drive lot.  Born in Fairfield, New York in 1848, Mather came to Chicago in 1875, where he started a wholesale business.  At some point he found a way to wealth – by developing a new kind of railroad stock car that reduced the loss of livestock while in transit through the provision of feed and water.  The Herbert Hugh Riddle design for Mather Tower at 75 East Wacker Drive provided the headquarters for the Mather Stock Car Company when it opened in 1929.  The existing piece of property that Mather owned on Michigan Avenue was meant for another similar tower that would connect its partner on Wacker Drive by a ground floor arcade.  The economic catastrophe of the Great Depression ended the plan for the Michigan Avenue tower.


September 18, 1924 – The president of the Illinois Society of Architects, Charles E. Fox, proposes in the monthly bulletin of the society “a half-mile long, permanent stone bridge, 160 feet high, over the mouth of the Chicago river”.  [Chicago Daily Tribune, September 19, 1924] The massive bridge would take the place of a lift bridge or tunnel, plans that are under consideration as ways to connect Grant Park and the south side of the city with the north side of the river and Lake Shore Drive.  Says Fox, “It’s a reasonably safe bet that if the proposed tunnel is ever constructed, it’ll stand for a generation or two as a monument to bad judgment and then’ll be filled up … The war department already has shown its hand by refusing to have a lift bridge east of Michigan avenue … On the north a design of approach could be incorporated into the architectural treatment of the Municipal pier.  The bridge itself would be the monumental hub of the city.  A view from the crown of the arch would give to the passing stranger, as well as to the citizen of Chicago a magnificent birdseye view of Grant park and the lake shore both north and south.”  Imagine today what a difference it would make to have a massive stone bridge straight out of New York City plunked down at the entrance to the river … things would look a lot different. 
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Thursday, September 17, 2020

September 17, 1974 -- Mercantile Exchange Approves Plans for New Headquarters

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September 17, 1974 – The Chicago Tribune reports that members of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange have approved plans for a twin-towered office building that the exchange will occupy at Wacker Drive and Madison Street.  The vote is overwhelmingly positive, with 2,478 in favor of the plan and 567 standing in opposition.  It is expected that construction will begin in spring of 1975 on a site where a city parking garage is located.  The Chicago Mercantile Exchange will own the 40,000-square-foot trading floor that will be located at the base of the structure, joining the two towers together, along with ten percent of the first tower.  Metropolitan Structures, Inc. and JMB Realty Corporation will own the rest of the space in the buildings.  The new trading floor and office space will replace the exchange’s location at 444 West Jackson Boulevard, where a 25,000-square-foot trading floor is located along with adjacent office space.  The twin-towered project would be finished in 1981 according to plans drawn by architect Joseph Fujikawa.  For more on the architect you can turn to this entry in Connecting the Windy City.  When it opened what is today CME Center was the city’s first all-concrete skyscraper.  At the time it was the home of the largest open outcry futures exchange in the country.  With floor plates of 29,000 feet the LEED Gold® building encloses 2.3 million square feet of space overlooking the Chicago River.



September 17, 1969 – The City Council, by a vote of 30 to 6, approves two ordinances that clear the way for the office and residential development that Chicago now calls Illinois Center.  One ordinance establishes guidelines for the development of the area, and the other codifies the relationship between the city, the owner of the property, Illinois Central Industries, and three developers.  The plan calls for buildings of up to 90 stories with 45,000 workers, and 17,500 apartments with 35,000 residents.   In an editorial the Chicago Tribune writes glowingly about the project, asserting, “Chicagoans must feel some exhilaration to see, at long last, this strategic area built on in a manner suitable to its location in the center of the city.  And Chicagoans should take an eager, continuing, and responsible interest as Illinois Center plaza gradually develops . . . A brilliantly successful development here will be a civic asset the importance of which it would be almost impossible to exaggerate.” [Chicago Tribune, September 19, 1969]  The photo at the left shows the approximate area where the Hyatt Regency Hotel stands today.

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September 17, 1962 – The $2.75 million Loyola University Center at the southwest corner of Rush and Pearson Streets opens to students.  Loyola’s president, the Very Reverend James F. Maquire, says, “The center enables the university to accommodate meetings and gatherings of alumni and friends, to provide facilities for public lectures, luncheons, and conferences, and to serve other functions and activities for business and community groups.”  [Chicago Daily Tribune, September 16, 1962]  The new building will include two cafeterias, 18 classrooms, a bookstore, conference rooms, student lounges, and a formal meeting room for administrative meetings.  A two-story enclosed walkway will connect the University Center to Lewis Towers, the main classroom building, which sits to the east just off Michigan Avenue.  As part of the dedication ceremony, at which His Eminence the Archbishop of Chicago Albert Cardinal Meyer officiates, a mural by Park Ridge artist Melville Steinfels is dedicated.  It depicts 400 years of Jesuit education.  The student center is the next step in a move downtown that began in 1946 with a gift of Mr. and Mrs. Frank J. Lewis – an 18-story skyscraper located at 820 North Michigan Avenue, located just to the west of the city’s historic Water Tower. The site is considerably different today as Loyola’s eight-story School of Communication wraps around the north and west sides of The Clare, a senior independent living high-rise, at 55 East Pearson.  A new student center is located just to the west on the northwest corner of Pearson and Wabash Streets.  The photo shows Lewis Center as it appeared in the 1950's, shortly after its purchase.
The second photo shows the area as it appears today.



September 17, 1954 – The first new office building to be constructed in the Loop since 1933, the ten-story Sinclair Oil Corporation’s office building on the northeast corner of Wacker Drive and Randolph Street, is officially opened as more than 200 business leaders and officials from the state and city attend the ceremonies.  The new building contains 225,000 square feet of office space and 14,000 square feet of basement parking space.  The structure will consolidate various divisions of the corporation that were previously scattered in four separate locations.  The building is gone today, replaced by the Goettsch Partners tower, finished in 2010, at 155 North Wacker Drive.  The Sinclair building is outlined in the older photograph.  The award-winning Goettsch replacement is shown to the left.


September 17, 1922 –The new $1,600,000 Madison Street bridge is lowered into position for the first time at 2:00 p.m., leaving the Clark Street bridge as the only center-pier bridge left in the central area of the city.  It will be three weeks before pedestrians will be allowed across the new bridge, and it will be at least six weeks before traffic crosses the new span.  The bridge’s sidewalks will be 13.5 feet, eight feet wider than the sidewalks on the old center pier bridge that is being replaced.  Work on the new bridge began on December 1, 1919, but there is a long delay in the fabrication of the steel for the span.  It isn’t until late September of 1921 before work resumes.  In March of 1922 the bridge’s bond issue expires, and work is once again ordered to a halt.  In June Chicago voters approve a new bond issue, and work resumes on August 1.  According to historicbridges.org “This bridge stands out among the bridges of Chicago as one of the most historically and technologically significant since it is the first example of a design that Chicago would use in construction on many bridges during a period of over 40 years.  It also retains ornate sidewalk railings that greatly contribute to the visual beauty of the bridge.” The above photo shows the bridge under construction in 1922.  In the right foreground is the swing bridge which it will replace.




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Wednesday, September 16, 2020

September 16, 1974 -- Marriott to Build Michigan Avenue Hotel


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September 16, 1974 – The chairman of Arthur Rubloff and Co. and the Marriott Corporation announce that the city’s tallest hotel – a 44-story skyscraper – will be constructed at 540 North Michigan Avenue.  Costing in excess of $60 million, the structure’s 1,206 rooms will place it behind only the Conrad Hilton Hotel and the Palmer House in capacity.  Unique in the plan is that the Dunhill of London tobacco shop will be incorporated into the new hotel.  The store had been part of the old Time-Life building which stood on the site bounded by Michigan Avenue, Rush Street, Grand Avenue, and Ohio Street, but when Time-Life was demolished the tobacco shop, which had a lease until 1978, refused to budge.  The architecture firm of Harry Weese and Associates therefore designed the hotel to wrap around the Michigan Avenue frontage of Dunhill.  Plans call for a seven-story portion of the building with more than 50,000 square feet of retail space to front Michigan Avenue with the 44-story hotel tower rising on the Rush Street side of the lower building.  The hotel will be the largest Marriott in the world with two major ballrooms, one with 20,000 square feet of space, 24 meeting rooms, five restaurants and lounges, and parking for 430 cars.


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September 16, 1949 – The Haymarket Theater at 722 Madison Street, near Halsted Street, is condemned to make way for a connection between the new Congress Street Expressway and the Edens Expressway with the city paying $215,075 to the building’s owners.  The Haymarket opened in 1887 as a playhouse with seating for 2,475 on an orchestra floor and three balconies.  After a time the playhouse became a vaudeville theater, and by 1916 it was one of the city’s best-known burlesque houses.  After 1932 it became a second-run movie house with its seating by 1945 reduced to less than 1,000.  In the spring of 1950 the theater was demolished to make way for the highway.  [cinematreasures.org]


September 16, 1925 – The South Park Commission inks a contract to cover the construction of the $2,000,000 John G. Shedd Aquarium.  It will be built in Grant Park about one-tenth of a mile east of the Field Museum.  Shedd began his career as a stock clerk for Marshall Field and worked his way up the corporate ladder, taking over as president of the firm when Field died in 1906.  The aquarium was his gift to the city, one designed to complement the great museum to the west named after his former boss.  Shedd did not live long enough to see the completion of the aquarium in 1930; he died just over a year after the South Park commission made its 1925 announcement.


September 16, 1915 – A dozen years after the Iroquois Theatre fire that claimed 602 lives on Randolph Street, disaster is narrowly averted as 200 patrons at the Alcazar Theater on West Madison Street are watching the conclusion of The Red Virgin at 10:30 p.m.  A small explosion is heard in the projectionist’s booth, and quickly the theater fills with acrid smoke.  The night manager, “possessor of a stern voice,” [Chicago Daily Tribune, September 15, 1915] appears and shouts, “Don’t crowd! There are plenty of exits.  See the red lights in front of you.  There’s plenty of time.  Don’t hurry!  Don’t push!” Ushers keep the crowd moving toward the exits in an orderly fashion, and not a single member of the audience is injured. Miss Mattie Lamb plays the theater piano until the auditorium is empty despite being nearly overcome by smoke.  The only casualty is the projectionist who receives burns on one hand when the film he is showing explodes, beginning the procession toward the exits.


September 16, 1909 – The World Series Champion Chicago Cubs fall to the New York Giants in the West Side Park, 2-1, but that is not the real story of the day.  The game takes place with a special visitor in the stands, the President of the United States, William Howard Taft.  The Chicago Daily Tribune attests to the level of interest with which the Chief Executive views the game, reporting, “A leading constituent might be confiding an important party secret to the presidential left ear while another citizen, whose name appears often in headlines, might be offering congratulations on the outcome of the battle for revision downward to the right auricle, but while both ears were absorbing messages from friends both presidential eyes were steadily watching Christy Mathewson and the Giants revise downward the standing of the Cubs.”  [Chicago Daily Tribune, September 17, 1909] Fans begin lining up before noon for the late afternoon game, and when the President appears exactly on time, he is escorted to the field where he shakes the hand of each Cub’s player, moving on “to mingle with the rooters … while the Giants were completing their preliminary practice.” Cubs manager Frank Chance starts his “three-fingered ace,” Mordecai Brown against the Giants’ Christy Matthewson … two future Hall-of-Famers.  Before the Giants are retired in the first inning, the team has scored all the runs that it needs to take the contest. 




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Thursday, September 10, 2020

September 10, 1925 -- Chicago Plan Commission Urges "Immediate" Start to Outer Drive

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September 10, 1925 – Engineers for  the Chicago Plan Commission make a presentation to the executive committee, urging that an immediate start be made on the outer drive from the Field Museum through Grant Park, over the Illinois Central tracks and through the warehouse section north of the river, all the way to Chicago Avenue.   It is expected that the project will cost in excess of $9,500,000  (over $140,000,000 in today’s dollars).  Present at the meeting is a “Who’s Who” of Chicago citizens, including James Simpson of Marshall Field and Company, Julius Rosenwald, Joy Morton, Charles H. Wacker, Frank I. Bennett, Harry A Wheeler, Colonel William Nelson Pelouze, John V. Farwell, Edward B. Butler, and Michael Zimmer.  Simpson reads from the report, including one passage that states, “If the improvement is made in the near future, it can be done at the least possible expense.  If it is delayed every year that passes will add greatly to the cost.”  [Chicago Daily Tribune, September 11, 1925]  The report also underscores the importance of the huge project, stating, “The development of this large territory is inevitable in the future.  We advise the improvement to hasten this development – a territory whose progress now is retarded, because of its inaccessibility.”  Change takes time, and the plan did not approach its completion until the bridge that carried the Outer Drive, today’s Lake Shore Drive, across the Chicago River was opened in 1937.  The above photo shows the bridge under construction in 1936.

September 10, 1954 – The state civil defense director, Robert M. Woodward, graces Chicago with some upbeat news when he announces that a hydrogen bomb dropped at Madison Street and Kedzie Avenues between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. would cause 3,030,096 deaths and 1,382,421 injuries.  With an evacuation window of 15 minutes there would still be 1,876,227 deaths and 844,013 injuries.  For those wondering why we folks in our sixties and seventies sometimes act so strangely, it might be good to remember that we grew up with regular updates like this instead of the latest updates on Pokémon Go.

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September 10, 1953 – The Greater North Michigan Avenue Association presents a general plan for redeveloping and preserving the Near North Side, from the Chicago River on the south and west to North Avenue on the north and the lake on the east.  The ambitious plan has a number of long-range objectives.  First up is the rehabilitation and conservation of three industrial districts, the first of which is roughly bounded by Chicago Avenue, Wells Street and the North Branch of the river.  The second area is located at the river, North Avenue and Halsted Street while a third, smaller location, is at the southwest corner of Division Street and Larrabee Street.  The second major recommendation of the plan is the rehabilitation and conservation of an area east of Wells Street and south of Chicago Avenue, through which Ohio and Ontario Streets run.  Another component of the proposal is the conservation of the neighborhoods west of La Salle Street and north of Division Street through the adoption of a minimum standard of housing and zoning laws.  The proposal recommends the widening of State Street from the river north to Chicago Avenue, a project that has been in the city’s plans for two decades, along with the widening of Clark Street from the river north to North Avenue. Also recommended is the development of Orleans Street and Clybourn Avenue as a “semi-superhighway.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, September 11, 1953]  Also recommended is work on Ohio and Ontario Streets to make them ready to accommodate traffic flowing to and from the proposed highway to be built west of the north branch of the river.  Commuter service by the Chicago and North Western Railroad to a new terminal near Michigan Avenue and the river is recommended as well.   The chairman of the association, Newton C. Farr, says that the program as outlined would take at least a decade to carry out.


September 10, 1948 – Mayor Martin H. Kennelly gives approval to a proposal submitted to the city council, requiring that city officials and employees be required to sign non-Communist affidavits or face dismissal.  The proposal, sponsored by Forty-Fourth Ward alderman John C. Burmeister, also mandates a “loyalty committee” of three to five aldermen appointed by the mayor.  The mayor says, “I think it’s all right. We don’t know who we have working for us.”  The mayor is pictured in the above photo.


September 10, 1924 – A magic evening takes place on the lakefront as 3,000 children carrying lanterns march into the Grant Park stadium, today’s Soldier Field, in a “preliminary dedication”. [Chicago Daily Tribune, September 11, 1924] Despite a light rain the Pageant of Music and Light has spectators cheering “as the army of girls and boys marched into the arena and scattered about to form [a] sparkling wheel.”  A mixed mass chorus under the direction of William Boeppler rolls thorugh “The Heavens Declare,” following the song with a rendition of “Beautiful Savior” and the “Hallelujah Chorus” from Handel’s Messiah. A children’s choir of a thousand voices than takes over, led by Hans Biedermann.  The program concludes with the Civic Band of Chicago leading the crowd in “America.”  The official opening day for the massive stadium will occur a month later, on October 9, the Fifty-Third anniversary of the Chicago Fire. The first event held in the new sports arena will be a police track meet that features a thousand athletes from the police department, drawing 90,000 spectators.  At the urging of the city’s Gold Star Mothers the Municipal Grant Park Stadium is officially renamed Soldier Field on November 11, 1925.





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Sunday, September 6, 2020

September 6, 1970 -- Chicago Beach Hotel Gone, But Not Forgotten

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September 6, 1970 – The Chicago Tribune reports that construction crews have moved to a site at East Fiftieth Street and South Shore Drive where once stood the exclusive Chicago Beach Hotel, “a symbol of Gay Nineties and Roaring Twenties affluence.”  [Chicago Tribune, September 6, 1970]  Warren Leland, who came from a family of hoteliers and made his way to Chicago in the 1880’s, built the original Chicago Beach Hotel in 1892 to serve the huge crowds that came to the city to visit the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893.  It had 450 rooms with 175 bathrooms with frontage on Lake Michigan. The beach was lost in the 1920’s when landfill moved the shoreline eastward to make room for the southern portion of what would become Lake Shore Drive.  In 1921 a 12-story addition was built on the eastern side of the property, and the original hotel was demolished.  Today the Algonquin Apartments, designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, completed in 1950, stand on the site of the original hotel.  Like many other properties in the city, the hotel became a victim of the Depression, and in 1930 a receiver was appointed to oversee the payment of $615,000 in delinquent real estate taxes.  In 1942 a federal court turned the hotel over to the United States Army, and in just three months it was converted into Gardiner General Hospital, serving military personnel wounded during World War II.  After the war the Army converted the hospital to an office building and based Fifth Army Headquarters there until 1963 when the headquarters was moved to Fort Sheridan on the North Shore.  This is where my father, a career officer in the Army, went to work in the early 60's.  I still remember the tremendous holiday party thrown each year for those of us kids who were military dependents.  The original hotel, demolished in the early 1920's, is shown in the top photo.  Its replacement is shown in the second photo. 


September 6, 1939 – The fiftieth anniversary of Jane Addams’ founding of Hull House is celebrated as several thousand of the men and women who came to the settlement house as children fill Grant Park for a two-hour tribute to Addams who died four years earlier.  The principal speaker is Judge Florence E. Allen of the United States Court of Appeals who says, “And this should be her memorial, not that we repeat her name, but that we write upon our hearts her principles, that we carry them into concrete action.  For this woman opened to Americans new paths of spiritual life.  She lived her faith that all blessings must be made universal if they are to be made permanent.”



September 6, 1926 –The Chicago Real Estate Board submits its views on the air right development of the Illinois Central property north of Randolph street to the members of the City Council’s Railway Terminal Committee.  The report attempts to answer a series of aldermanic questions concerning the development of the extensive site between the Chicago River on the North, Randolph Street on the south, and Michigan Avenue on the west.  Looking at a portion of the questions and answers provides an interesting look at the foresight given to a project that would take another half-century to put into motion.

Q: How long in your opinion will it take to obtain a substantial air development in this territory?
A:  Not less than twenty years.

Q: Is the I. C. property as well located as the so-called Streeter district?
A:  Potentially better.

Q:  What, in your opinion, is the highest and best use of this I. C. property?
A:  Hotels and office buildings.

Q: Approximately how much frontage has this property on the Chicago river? On the yacht harbor? On Grant park?
A:  Frontage on the Chicago river, 2,800 feet; on the yacht harbor, 1,200 feet, and on Grant park, 1,750 feet.

Q:  Do you recommend one or two north and south boulevards through the Illinois Central property?
A:  One.

Q:  Should all of the east and west streets north of Randolph be extended eastward?
A:  Yes.

Q:  Is there a necessity for restricting the height of buildings on the I. C. property which obtains in the loop?
A:  Yes

The above photos show the area as it looked then and as it looks now.


September 6, 1918 – The first mail between New York and Chicago to be delivered by airplane arrives in Grant Park at 7:04 p.m. as Max Miller of the United States aerial mail service lands his plane at the end of a trip that took 23 hours and 55 minutes.  Thousands of people are in Grant Park attending the “France and Allies Day,” at a war exposition commemorating the anniversary of the first battle of the Marne.  Pilot Miller hands over the mail sacks to Captain B. B. Lipsner, the superintendent of the United States aerial mail service, and less than 90 minutes after the plane lands, the editor of the Chicago Daily Tribune receives a letter from Henry Woodhouse, a member of the board of governors of the Aero Club of America. It reads, “This epoch making first trip of the New York-Cleveland-Chicago aerial mail line affords us a splendid opportunity to express our hearty appreciation of the energetic and patriotic efforts that you and THE TRIBUNE have been making on behalf of national preparedness and to develop the aerial service.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, September 7, 1918] Pilot Miller has never landed in the city before but makes a “perfect descent” and is “cheered by the crowds lining the field and by the people who packed the Monroe street viaduct.”  Regular air mail service between New York and Chicago will begin in October with letters mailed in New York scheduled to reach Chicago ten hours later with relays of flyers stationed 150 miles apart ferrying the mail between the two cities.  In the above photo Superintendent of the Air Mail Service Benjamin Lipsner, with American flag in hand, passes it to airmail pilot Max Miller prior to an airmail flight in November 1918.


 

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Monday, August 24, 2020

August 24, 1966 -- John Hancock Center Stops Work


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August 24, 1966 – Developers of the 100-story John Hancock Center at Michigan Avenue and Delaware Place announce that they have ordered a second round of tests for 57 caissons, a portion of the caissons that will form the foundation of the building.  The action comes after voids and imperfections are found in five of those caissons, starting about 60 feet below ground level.  Engineers predict that testing and repairs will continue for three weeks.  Construction on the super-tall building was halted on August 5 when a caisson moved sideways after a 12-ton test beam was placed on top of it.  J. Theodor Dailey, a co-developer on the project, says, “Such a review is necessary because of the unique design of the building, its foundation, and soil conditions at the site.  When approved, the foundation will have undergone one of the most complete analysis in construction history.”  [Chicago Tribune, August 25, 1966].  The problems originated with the steel tubes that were used to hold back soil and water as the caisson holes were excavated.  These tubes were removed as concrete was poured, which resulted in concrete being pulled up with the tubes in some caisson holes, allowing voids to form which filled with soil or water.  Over two-dozen of the caisson holes required corrective work, adding six months to the construction schedule and another $1 million to the budget.  It is fortunate, though, that the problems were discovered and corrected.  Considering what might have happened if the problems were not detected, the Engineering News-Record opined, “Cost in dollars or in lives from damage that might have befallen a completed 100-story John Hancock Center if its faulty caissons had settled years hence is just too horrible to dwell upon.”  [Chicago Tribune, March 24, 1985]



August 24, 1968 -- Seven leaders of the Youth International Party and their candidate for the Presidency of the United States, a 150-pound pig named Pigasus, are arrested at the Civic Center, today’s Richard J. Daley Center.  The Chicago Tribune reports, “Moving quickly and without incident, 10 uniformed policemen and several detectives under the personal direction of Comdr. James Riordan of the First District, loaded the pig into a police wagon as soon as it was placed in the plaza.”  The seven leaders of the demonstration are loaded into the wagon with the pig.  The Yippie leaders are taken to police headquarters where they are charged with disorderly conduct and released on $25 bonds with a court date scheduled for September 19.  Pigasus is taken to the Anti-Cruelty Society where he is “given a bath, fed, and placed in an outside pen,” according to the society’s director.  The demonstration, attended by about 50 Yippies and watched by 200 spectators, apparently is enough to scare Country Joe and the Fish away as the San Francisco  rock group withdraws from the Hippie Festival of Love, scheduled to begin in the city later in the day. 


August 24, 1982 – Archbishop Joseph Louis Bernardin is installed as the seventh Roman Catholic archbishop of Chicago in a candlelight service at Holy Name Cathedral. Reverend John Richard Keating reads the papal letter assigning Archbishop Bernardin to the archdiocese of Chicago at 8:01 p.m. before 1,500 priests in attendance. After the reading of the letter is completed, the priests provide Archbishop Bernardin with a two-minute standing ovation.  The Archbishop’s homily is entitled “I Am Joseph, Your Brother,” and in it he promises, “We will work and play together, fast and pray together, mourn and rejoice together, despair and hope together, dispute and be reconciled together.  You will know me as a friend, fellow priest and bishop.  You will know also that I love you.  For I am Joseph, your brother.” [Chicago Tribune, August 25, 1982]
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August 24, 1920 – The full-sized plaster model of Lorado Taft’s “The Fountain of Time” is completed after years of work and stands at the head of the Midway Plaisance, west of Cottage Grove Avenue.  The sculptural piece is described as comprising “ . . . scores of figures, arising from mystery, moving through life, and vanishing in mystery.  Some are dancing, some proceed sorrowfully, some are Galahads, some are satyrs.  Towering over all is Mr. Taft’s conception of Father Time.  The huge, weird figure dominates the movement of the pushing mob it faces.”  [Chicago Daily Tribune, August 25, 1920]
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