Showing posts with label Chicago Park District. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chicago Park District. Show all posts

Sunday, September 13, 2020

September 13, 1977 -- South Shore Country Club Recommended for Landmark Status

 

September 13, 1977 – The Commission on Chicago Historical and Architectural Landmarks sends a proposal to the Chicago Planning Commissioner, Lewis W. Hill, recommending that the South Shore Country Club be designated a landmark.  This is the best hope for saving the club, designed by Benjamin Marshall and Charles Fox and opened in 1905.  The club has been threatened since the Chicago Park District bought the property in late 1974 for $9,775,000 with plans to tear down the old clubhouse and replace it with a new cultural center.   At the same meeting the commission sets dates for similar hearings to determine whether or not landmark status will be recommended for the Old Colony Building, the Fisher Building, and the Manhattan Building, three buildings that stand next to each other on the east side of Dearborn Street. 

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September 13, 1963 – It is announced that the American Dental Association is completing plans for a 22-story office building on Chicago Avenue just east of Michigan Avenue.  The architectural firm of Graham, Anderson, Probst and White will design the office building which will have 280,000 square feet of space and cost $5 million.  The association has 100,000 members and plans to use only part of the building, leasing the remainder.  The site, which has a frontage of 200 feet on Chicago Avenue and a depth of 135 feet contains two buildings which will be razed, along with a surface parking lot.  It was purchased from the American National Red Cross for $700,000.  The building still is holding its own at 211 East Chicago, right next door to the Lurie Children’s Hospital.


September 13, 1940 – Wendell L. Wilkie, the Republican candidate for President, tours nearly 50 miles through the city and its industrial areas, giving four speeches to Chicago workers.  The candidate says that “he had never been so thrilled in his life as when he stood before thousands of workers and urged them to forsake the New Deal and come into his crusade for a productive, united and strong America, one with real jobs instead of promises.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, September 14, 1940] Citizens line the curbs of many of the streets through which Wilkie’s motorcade passes, and La Salle Street is “thick with confetti and streamers.” The largest gatherings of the long day are at the Western Electric plant in Cicero and at a baseball park at Thirty-Ninth Street and Wentworth Avenue where 15,000 people crowd together to see him. The loudest applause comes when Wilkie promises “never to send American boys to fight in the trenches of Europe.” On his way back from his address in Cicero, Wilkie stops for a sandwich at a lunch counter at 4714 Cermak Road. At the end of the busy day he retires to the Stevens Hotel where he confers with political leaders.


September 13, 1908 – The Chicago Daily Tribune announces the intention of the Peoples Gaslight and Coke Company to build the “highest building of its kind” [Chicago Daily Tribune, September 13, 1908] at the corner of Michigan Avenue and Adams Street.  Fronting 196 feet on Michigan Avenue and 171 feet on Adams Street, the structure’s cost is anticipated to surpass $3 million with 1,500 offices located within the D. H. Burnham and Co. design.  The outer walls of the first three stories will be of granite.  Above that the walls will be of terra cotta “without the glossy effect, as in the Railway Exchange building.”  The new tower will be constructed in two sections, with the north section of the 20-story building finished first, followed by the section at the corner of Adams Street and Michigan Avenue.  The second half of the building is seen nearing completion in the above photo. 


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Thursday, August 13, 2020

August 13, 1946 -- Chicago Park District President Gives Nod to Northerly Island Airfield

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August 13, 1946 – The Chicago Park District’s newly elected president, James M. Gately, says that he and other commissioners favor “immediate action to create a first class auxiliary flight strip on Northerly Island.”  [Chicago Daily Tribune, August 14, 1946].  Although no formal proposal has been made, it is clear that Gately’s statement gives momentum to the creation of an airfield convenient to the business district on 80 acres “of the now rubble strewn and neglected island.”  Although Northerly Island, a man-made island created for the Century of Progress World’s Fair in the summers of 1933 and 1934, is nearly a mile long, only 3,200 feet is needed for the landing strip.  Previous park district commissioners have opposed the creation of a landing field on the island, but Mayor Edward Kelly has gone on record as saying he believes the air strip to be essential.  Along with Chicago Aero Commission head Merrill Meigs, the mayor envisions the field as a means of providing air taxi service from the city to Douglas Airport (now O’Hare International Airport) as well as a place from which privately-owned or company-owned aircraft can land and take off.  Construction begins on the new field almost immediately, and on December 10, 1948 it is officially opened.  On June 30, 1950 the airport is named after Meigs, the publisher of the Chicago Herald and Examiner and one of its early boosters.  One the night of March 30, 2003 Mayor Richard M. Daley ordered city crews to render the runway unusable with bulldozers carving huge X-shapes along the length of the strip.   For more information on the field, you can turn to this entry in Connecting the Windy City.  The above photo, taken in 1947, shows the field under construction.  The second photo shows Northerly Island as it appears today. 



August 13, 2009 – Bank of America initiates a suit against Shelbourne Development Group Inc., the developer that began construction of the 150-floor Chicago Spire, construction that was subsequently halted after foundation work was completed.  Bank of America claims that the developer has defaulted on its loan.  The bank says that it is filing a suit in United States District Court in Chicago, seeking $4.9 million in principal and interest from Shelbourne and its chairman, Garrett Kelleher. The complaint alleges that the firm has failed to obtain an “irrevocable construction loan commitment” from a lender, leading the Bank of America to declare a default. [Chicago Tribune, August 14,2009] The photo above shows the remains of the project as they look today.


August 13, 1969 –The chairman of Illinois Central Industries, Inc., William B. Johnson, announces the formation of Illinois Center Plaza Venture, the corporation that will develop the 83-acre site east of Michigan Avenue, between Randolph Street and the Chicago River.  Jupiter Corporation, Metropolitan, Inc., and the Illinois Central Corporation will be equal partners in the plan, which will see the new company purchasing the property from the Illinois Central Railroad for a base price of $83,625,000 with an escalation rider over a 15-year development period.  The site on which the proposed Standard Oil building will be constructed as well as the site of the 111 East Wacker Drive building, which is under construction, along with two adjacent sites, are excluded from the sale. The Prudential building and the Outer Drive East apartments were constructed on air rights in which the Illinois Central did not share in the profits of the buildings.


August 13, 1928 – Construction begins on the Merchandise Mart on the site of the old Chicago and North Western station on the north bank of the Chicago River between Wells Street and Orleans.  A force of 5,700 workers will speed the construction, using cement brought from Wisconsin by boat, and by May 1,1930 the first 200 tenants will begin moving into the 4,000,000 square foot building.

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August 13, 1883 – On this day Ivan Mestrovic is born in Slovania, an eastern section of what is today Croatia, the son of a sheep-breeder.  At the age of 16 he began working under the guidance of a master stonemason in Split, and by 1905, after studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, he offered his first exhibit of sculpture.  By 1908 he had developed an international reputation. Auguste Rodin hailed him as “a phenomenon among sculptors.”  [sniteartmuseum.nd.edu].  Between 1925 and 1928 he was invited to stage exhibitions at 18 different museums in the United States and Canada, a time during which he also oversaw the installation of his Native American equestrian figures at the Congress Street entrance to Grant Park.  In 1955, at the age of 62, Mestrovic came to Notre Dame University from Syracuse University in New York, where he had taught wince 1947.  He lived in South Bend with his wife, Olga, until his death in 1962. At one point in his life Mestrovic observed, “Throughout my life I carried with me an incomparable inheritance: poverty; poverty of my family and my nation.  The first helped me to never be afraid of material difficulties, for I could never have less than at the beginning.  The second drove me to persevere in my work, so that at least in my own field my nation’s poverty would be diminished.”
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Wednesday, July 1, 2020

July 1, 1963 -- Jackson Park Coast Guard Station Shuts Down

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July 1, 1963 – The United States Coast Guard station in Jackson Park closes with responsibility for the station reverting to the Chicago Park District, from which the Coast Guard has been leasing the property.  The station had been manned by only 11 men and handled only 75 to 80 calls in an average year.  The Coast Guard stations at Calumet Harbor and the lake, along with the station at the foot of Randolph Street, will pick up the slack.   The Jackson Park station was established in 1890, and, according to Chief Warrant Officer Robert Ashton, the commander of Group Chicago, “Back in the early days, there was a real need for the station … In 1902, you had to walk the beaches to spot an accident.  Now, accidents on the lake often are spotted by planes.”  [Chicago Tribune, June 30, 1963].  The old station is still there on the western edge of the Jackson Park Outer Harbor.  If you are biking or walking on the lakefront trail, you will move right past it around Sixty-Fourth Street.  The top photo shows the station early in the twentieth century.  The second photo shows the park district property in the left center of the photo with the Jackson Park Yacht Club across the basin and La Rabida Children's Hospital beyond that.

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July 1, 1940 – The 440-foot nautical-themed beach house at North Avenue Beach opens.  The facility has 14 showers and 1,440 baskets that allow men and women to check personal effects while heading for the beach.  In order to give the “ship” a credible lake-worthy appearance the art deco structure is equipped with a crow’s nest, booms, yard arms, lanterns, portholes and flags.  The North Avenue Beach was completed as part of a $1,250,000 Works Progress Administration project, that wound up in 1939, an undertaking that added 875,000 square feet of new parkland extending north to Fullerton Avenue with a new overpass at that juncture.  The beach house is a design by architect Emanuel V. Buchsbaum.  It was replaced in 2000 by a new facility with 22,000 square feet of space. The above photo shows the beach house as it appears today.



July 1, 1933 – The Museum of Science and Industry opens its doors for the first time at 10:00 a.m.  No formal ceremony is held.  Only the great Central Hall will open as many of the exhibits that will eventually be displayed are being shown at the Century of Progress World’s Fair on the lakefront a few miles to the north.  All of the exhibits at the museum will be free with the exception of the Coal Mine, for which there will be a twenty-five cent charge.  A feature of the museum will be its interactive displays, exhibits “capable of being operated by switches or levers, to demonstrate scores of processes or inventions.”  [Chicago Daily Tribune, July 2, 1933]  The museum, originally the Palace of Fine Arts at the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 housed the Field Museum of Natural History for a time, but then fell into decay.  In fact, the South Park Board voted to raze it in 1921.  Fortunately, that didn't happen.  The photo above shows the condition of the building before the effort to restore it began.

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July 1, 1917 – An investigation begins into the origins of a fire that consumes $750,000 worth of valuable film from the vaults of the Pathé Film Company in the Consumers’ Building at 220 South State Street.  The Chicago manager of Pathé, C. W. Bunn, speculates that the fire is the product of labor unions sending a message as they seek to unionize film company employees. He says “Taken in connection with threats that have been sent to me and to other film managers, I am convinced the fire was of incendiary origin.  Four employees were at work in the office.  They heard a noise in the vault, as if something had fallen.  An explosion followed and the vault door was blown out with a blast of smoke and flame.  The falling noise probably was the working of a time mechanism that touched off a bomb.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, July 2, 1917]  After the blast and fire, police officers are stationed at the offices of 16 film companies in the city as Attorney Lewis F. Jacobson, representing the film exchanges, holds a conference with police officials at City Hall.  Jacobson presents a letter that the president of Local No. 157 sent to all film company managers, in which he states, “Get busy and organize. Start at once or we will start our work.”  The deputy police commissioner then orders the arrest of the organizer and former business agent of Local 157.  Two days later a judge grants an injunction against Locals 110, 134 and 157 of the Moving Picture Machine Operators’ union, restraining the unions “From picketing, spying, assaulting, or intimidating, congregating about, at, or near the places of business of the complainants; from attempting to deal with employees toward unionization, and from boycotting or otherwise molesting exhibitors using the films of its complainants.”   [Chicago Daily Tribune, July 4, 1917].  Through quick work firemen were able to confine the Pathé fire to the sixth floor of the Consumers’ building, a building in which three other film distribution companies are located – the Universal, Mutual and the Feature.  This catches the eye of the city’s corporation counsel, who notes “flagrant violations of city ordinances in regard to the handling of moving pictures.”  Fire officials announce that they will prepare an ordinance that excludes all companies handling motion pictures from the central business district because of the danger of explosions.  The above photo shows a detail of the Consumers' Building, one of the last of the Chicago School designs, a 1913 building designed by the firm of William Le Baron Jenney, William Bryce Mundie and Elmer C. Jensen.  


July 1, 1910 – Comiskey Park opens for its first game as 24,900 fans watch the Chicago White Sox lose to the St. Louis Browns, 2-0.  Despite the loss, the opening of the new park is a success that “crowned the tremendous efforts which have been put forth in the last few weeks to get the mammoth plant ready for its christening and it passed through its baptism as if to the manor born, while tens of thousands of the Old Roman’s friends cheered at every possible opportunity to show their appreciation of the gift he had prepared for them.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, July 2, 1910] A thousand people wait in line to purchase tickets when the gates at the new park open at 1:00.  A brass band greets entering fans, who cheer the Chicago team when it “emerged from its dressing rooms, clad in new coming out gowns of dazzling white, nattily trimmed with blue and designed by G. Harris White, dentist, pitcher, and outfielder as well.”  Cheers rise again as Charles Comiskey is presented a big banner at home plate as a band on the field plays “Hail to the Chief.” In January of 1909 Charles Comiskey, who had owned the club for ten years, bought a plot of land used by the city as landfill and commissions Zachary Taylor Davis, a graduate of the Armour Institute, to design a new ballpark for the White Sox.  On March 17,1910 the cornerstone for the new park is laid.  Less than four months later the park opens. The same architect designed Weeghman Field, today’s Wrigley Field, on the north side which opened four years later.





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Saturday, June 27, 2020

June 27, 2001 -- Soldier Field Renovation Approved




June 27, 2001 –A Chicago Park District committee gives preliminary approval to a measure that will lead to a $582 million renovation of Soldier Field.  Testimony at the meeting is split between opponents and backers of the plan with the biggest outcry coming from veterans demanding assurances that the Chicago Bears will not sell the name of the field to a corporate sponsor. Korean and Vietnam War veteran Norvel West says, “If anybody is crazy enough to put their name on Soldier Field, we will stop buying their product.” [Chicago Tribune, June 28, 2001] Ultimately, Park District Superintendent David Doig receives authority to enter into four agreements to renovate Solider Field, tear down the old park district headquarters, add 17 acres of parkland to Burnham Park, and give the Chicago Bears a 30-year lease at the renovated stadium.  The above photos give a pretty good idea of the results of the measures approved that day.

June 27, 1965 – Ira Bach, the Chicago Plan Commissioner, predicts that the Chicago River in the downtown area will be transformed into “one of the world’s most beautiful waterways in the next 10 years.”  [Chicago Tribune, June 28, 1965]  He only missed the mark by forty years.  “The new Pioneer Court dedicated . . . by the Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States and the Tribune company, is the latest exquisite example of how the river bank can be beautified by an unusual development,” Bach said.  “With other major riverbank construction programs on the planning boards, other plazas and landscaped open spaces can be expected to be created along the river in the next decade.”  Three years ago in June Bach’s prediction proved, for the most part, to have come true as the 100 million dollar Riverwalk opened the entire south side of the river from Lake Michigan to Lake Street.


June 27, 1899 – The Lincoln Park Commissioners sign an agreement with the N. P. Glann Construction Company to complete the paving of Diversey Boulevard form Clark Street to the North Branch of the Chicago River.  This will be the last link in the chain of boulevards that connect Lincoln Park with the West Side park system.  It has taken three years to get final approval for the project with the work twice being put out to bid with all of the bids subsequently rejected because, according to a park commissioner, “the lowest was too high.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, June 28, 1899] The board will follow the wishes of the property owners on Diversey in determining whether crushed cobblestone or crushed granite will be used as the roadbed.  The above photo shows the intersection of Diversey Parkway, Broadway and Clark Street just about this time.

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June 27, 1888 – A day before the big picnic for “waifs,” 600 boys are given baths at the Emeline Baths at 63 West Madison Street, which would be in the 500 block of West Madison Street today, just west of the Ogilvie Transportation Center.  Some of the lads “met their fate with heroic fortitude, and some of them quailed when the awful moment arrived,” according the Chicago Daily Tribune.  The paper follows a bath first-timer by the name of Billie who has his doubts about the adventure.  “I’ll bet yer I gets drownded,” he confides to a comrade as they queue up to enter the baths. When he sees the tub of water upon being escorted to a room, he “struggled, he kicked and he yelled,” but an attendant grabs him and “a loosening of one suspender, a yank at the shirt, and Billie was clad only in a coating of dirt.”  Into the tub he went, screaming, “I’m drownded.”  The ordeal is over in minutes, and standing upon solid ground once again, Billie observes, “I never knowed I was so white afore.”  When the last boy is scrubbed and shampooed, “Every bath-room was covered with water from floor to ceiling, and the bottom of every bath-tub was covered with soot and dirt … about two bushels of hair was swept off of the floor of the barber shop.”  The manager of the bathhouse, A. L. Lehmann, observes, “A great many of those who came for the first time on this occasion last year have come every week since and paid their five cents for a bath.  I suppose some more will do it after today.  The annual free bath shows them what it is.”

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Wednesday, May 20, 2020

May 20, 1930 -- Lake Shore Drive Improvements Announced


May 20, 1930 – The Lincoln Park Commissioners begin a one-million-dollar improvement project in which three-quarters of that sum will be spent on projecting jetties along the outer drive and the other quarter-million spent on resurfacing and repairing all of the roads in the Lincoln Park system.  The Great Lakes Dock and Dredge Company will construct jetties between North and Fullerton Avenues.  The jetties are an especially important project since the outer drive has been closed for months as a result of its being undermined by waves in a winter that was stormier than usual.  Although no beach will be purposely constructed as part of the project, engineers believe that the new jetties will create a naturally forming beach in the three blocks between North Avenue and Fullerton.  Included in the work will be widening the outer drive in Lincoln Park so that it is ready when the bridge across the Chicago River’s mouth is completed.  The jetties did their work … in a normal summer the North Avenue Beach is packed on hot days, and volleyball players choke the beaches to the area north with dozens of games going on.  The above photo shows the Outer Drive, as it was called back in those days, as it moves toward Fullerton Avenue and Diversey Harbor at the top of the photo.  

May 20, 1965 – The Plaza of the Americas on the north side of the Wrigley building is opened, extending from the lot line on Michigan Avenue almost to Rush Street. This is the first of two great public spaces on Michigan avenue to be developed by private interests. Pioneer Court, jointly developed by the Tribune Company and the Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States, will open on the east side of the avenue in the upcoming month. The Plaza of the Americas is a joint undertaking of the Wrigley company and Apollo Savings and Loan Association of Chicago, which occupies the building just to the north of the Wrigley Building. That building is now the Realtor Building at 430 North Michigan Avenue. On this day in 1965 at 11:45 the flags of Chicago and the United States are raised, followed by the flags representing the nations of the Organization of American States. There is to be a pole set aside for the Cuban flag, but no flag will be raised. “It was decided that until Cuba becomes free, its flag would not be flown,” Edward P. Kelly, the chairman of Apollo Savings, says. [Chicago Tribune, May 16, 1965]
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May 20, 1925 – The Chicago City Council passes ordinances authorizing the Nickel Plate Railroad to begin construction of the first part of a $6,000,000 industrial harbor in Lake Calumet. The ordinance allows the railroad to build a belt line around the harbor, providing additional land for terminal purposes.  In return, the Nickel Plate is obligated to spend at least $600,000 to dredge a channel 200 feet wide with two turning basins in Lake Calumet.  The material dredged from this part of the operation will be used to build up additional land, which will then be leased or sold to industries seeking space near the harbor.  It is anticipated that the revenue that results will “provide the city with ample funds to complete other phases of the project.”  [Chicago Daily Tribune, May 21, 1925]. The council session is prolonged by two controversies.  One involves the number of votes needed to pass the ordinances. Those in favor of the plans maintain that only a two-thirds majority, or 33 votes, is required.  Opponents maintain that State statutes governing the sale or lease of public property must be approved by a three-fourths vote, or 37 votes.  The bill passes 36-9.  The second issue involves several amendments offered to the bill by Thirty-Seventh Ward Alderman Wiley W. Mills.  The first amendment would delete from the ordinance provisions that exempted the railroad from special assessments for the construction of a 100-foot street around the harbor.  The second amendment calls for the railroad to bear the cost of carrying One Hundred Third Street over the railroad's main line.  The original bill stipulated that the city would pay half the cost.  The third amendment eliminates language which entitles the Nickel Plate reimbursement of its entire investment if it fails to complete the work according to contract terms and the city steps in to complete the project.  Mills says, “Something is being put over here that makes other things in recent years pale into insignificance.”  As can be seen in the above aerial view, the railroad maintains a presence in the area. Although the Nickel Plate is long gone, the Norfolk Southern Railroad uses its Calumet Yard as a classification facility with some intermodal business as well.  The bridge running across the top of the photo is that One Hundred Third Street Bridge Alderman Mills was referencing.  Neat to see the city’s skyline way back there on the horizon.

May 20, 1914 – The board of the South Park Commissioners authorizes its superintendent, J. F. Foster, to begin “at once” the first phase of Grant Park improvement by beautifying a strip of land west of the Illinois Central tracks between Jackson Boulevard and Randolph Street.  Foster says, “These plans will be worked out by our landscape architects and gardeners from the original complete Grant park plan submitted by Olmstead brothers of Boston.  The park will be beautified in units.  The second portion to be improved will be that west of the Illinois Central tracks and running south from Jackson boulevard to the proposed new Illinois Central terminal to be built south of Twelfth Street extended.”  [Chicago Daily Tribune, May 21, 1914] The above photo, taken in July of 1914, shows Monroe Street as it crosses the Illinois Central tracks.  The Modern Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago sits on the right side of the street today on the lake side of the railroad tracks.

May 20, 1895 – The City Council takes another step in an effort to establish a lakefront park with the following order: “Whereas. The Second Regiment Armory and Battery D, located on the Lake-Front, between Madison and Washington streets, are being used for the benefit of private parties; and Whereas, It is important that these buildings be removed without delay; therefore, be it Ordered. That the Commissioner of Public Works is hereby directed to see that such buildings are removed at once.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, May 21, 1895] In debate over the resolution Alderman Madden observes that “the buildings were only used for dances, prize fights, dog shows, and bicycle races.” Alderman Coughlin counters that the city is using one of the buildings as a police station and a fire engine house and that “It was all very well to talk in time of peace, but when soldiers were wanted the Council gladly would accommodate the regiments controlling the armories.”  The bill passes by a vote of 51 to 10.  The armory can be seen in the above rendering on the far side of the massive Industrial Exposition Building, which was torn down to make way for the Art Institute of Chicago.
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Wednesday, January 29, 2020

January 29, 1935 -- Highland Park Mansion Sells to Maurice L. Rothschild


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January 29, 1935 – The president and namesake of Maurice L. Rothschild, Inc. purchases the 18-acre estate of the late A. G. Becker, a La Salle Street banker.  Becker built the Highland Park home in 1922 with plans drawn by architect Howard Van Doren Shaw.  The grounds around the home were designed by Jens Jensen and feature three ravines and a lake frontage of 1,000 feet.  Becker died in 1925, and his widow, Kate, occupied the residence until shortly before the sale.  The estate was saved in 2007 when Wendy and Jim Abrams stepped up to purchase the estate from developer Orren Pickell, a move that kept the coveted North Shore property from being subdivided.  Pickell had purchased the property for $19 million after U. S. Marshals had seized it from owner Mickey Segal.  The above rendering shows Howard Van Doren Shaw’s rendering for the west elevation of the main house.  For an understanding of the sumptuousness of the home and the grandeur of Jensen’s landscape design, check out this slideshow.

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January 29, 1944 –The vice-president of W-G-N Inc. announces that the radio station has placed an order for a 40,000-watt transmitter and filed for an application for a television wavelength and construction permit with the Federal Communications Commission. Although no work can begin until the conclusion of the war, W-G-N’s application will be the first permit that will lead to construction when hostilities cease.  The announcement comes on the heels of the station’s announcement on New Year’s Day that it plans to build a new building on a site owned by the Chicago Tribune that fronts on Michigan Avenue.  The building will “contain large spaces suggestive of Hollywood movie stages … The entire top floor of the building will be devoted to television, under plans tentatively approved.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, January 30, 1944]  W-G-N has also ordered four television cameras, two equipped with telephoto lenses.  It is anticipated that in-home receivers, which before the war measured 12 by 15 inches at the most, will have screens up to 18 by 24 inches when production begins … although “staggering economic problems must be solved before these potentialities may be realized.”  The photo shows preparations to lay the cornerstone at the new television building on July 6, 1950.


January 29, 1911 -- A new tunnel is opened that carries Washington Boulevard under the Chicago River, the second tunnel at this location. The first one was opened in 1869, but an Act of Congress in 1904 declared it an "unreasonable obstruction to free navigation," and the Secretary of War ordered its removal. Because the roof of the old tunnel was less than 17 feet below the surface of the river, vessels were constantly grounding themselves on it, obstructing river traffic in a narrow channel filled with ships heading to the lumber yards and grain silos to the south. When the river was reversed in 1900, the river had even less depth which prompted the action of Congress four years later. The new tunnel lay 27 feet below the surface and extended for 1,520 feet. The tunnel was still used by streetcars in the early 1950's, but the portals were filled in during the 1960's and a tunnel at Washington Street ceased to exist after close to a hundred years of service.


January 29, 1900 – Mayor Carter Harrison presents a proposal to the City Council concerning the removal of center pier bridges and other obstructions from the Chicago River.  The mayor sets forth two goals in his proposal: (1) to rid the city of all of the old swing bridges and replace them with bascule bridges; and (2) to clear the river of impediments, such as the massive turntables on which the swing bridges are seated, so that the river will have a maximum flow toward the new Sanitary and Ship Canal, opened less than a month earlier.  The mayor’s proposal states, “The trustees of the Sanitary District, with wise forethought, have kept all obstructions out of their canal.  There is not a center pier defacing its surface or interfering with its free use or shipping from Robey Street to the controlling works at Lockport.  The river, today a part of this channel, should be equally free of obstructions.  Without its free and unobstructed use the day is not far distant when the requirements of the sanitary law of a minimum flow of water may not be had.  Increased flow of water will be impossible while the center pier bridges, now obstructions in the main branch and that portion of the South Branch from Lake street to Robey street, remain.  In short the existence of center pier bridges threatens the efficiency of the canal … I would recommend that either the special committee already referred to or the standing Committee on Harbors, Viaducts, and Bridges be instructed by your honorable body to request the Trustees of the Sanitary District immediately to take up the question of removing at their own expense, all center pier bridges now serving as obstructions in that portion of the Chicago River which may properly be regarded as a part of the drainage channel and substituting in their stead modern bridges of the bascule type.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, January 30, 1900] Two years later the city’s first trunnion bascule bridge would open at Cortland Street on the North Branch, and it would be followed in rapid succession by many more.  The above photo shows the bridge at Rush Street and gives a clear idea of the impediments that the river bridges' center piers created.


January 29, 1872 – The Chicago Common Council takes up Section 7 of the proposed Fire Ordinance, which reads:  “No wood building or part of building within said city limits shall be raised, enlarged, or repaired, except as herein provided: nor shall any such building, or part of building, be removed from one lot or place to another within the said limits of said city; nor shall any such building be removed from without the city limits to any place within said city; nor shall any wooden building within the limits of said city, which may be damaged less than 50 per cent of its value, be so repaired as to be raised higher than the highest point left standing after such damage shall have occurred, nor so as to occupy a greater space than before the injury thereto.”  This is a strict covenant that attempts to make sure that the disastrous fire of three months earlier does not occur again.  But the council members go straight to work on amending the strictness out of the bill.  One amendment substitutes “fire limits” for “city limits.”  Another amendment proposes that the Board of Public Works may grant permits to move any building from one place to another as long as the move occurs outside the fire limits.  An alderman moves to amend the article with the phrase “provided it shall not be moved on to an improved street.”  An Alderman Gardner “thought the Council might just as well pass no ordinance at all as to pass that amendment.  It defeated the protection of the city, and was its death-knell.”  [Chicago Daily Tribune, January 30, 1872] Another amendment is offered, proposing that “Any person wishing to remove a wooden building, for the purpose of building brick or stone on the same lot, will be allowed to move further away from the centre of the city; also, any person owning a house on a leased lot shall have the same privilege.”  Ultimately, the amendment that carries the night is offered by Alderman Gill.  It considerably weakens the original wording of Section 7, following the words “from one lot or other in the said limits of said city,” in the original with this addition, “except it be removed in a certain direction, to-wit, from the centre of the city toward the city limits.”  That amendment is approved, and the meeting immediately adjourns.  As the city begins to rebuild, the struggle to save the ruined city from itself moves forward.  The above diagram shows that the final ordinance did do much to diminish the prominence of wooden buildings, but it also clearly shows that huge sections of the city are left out of the mandate.

Posted by Chicago Old and New at 2:30 AM 1 comments
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