Showing posts with label Lake Street. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lake Street. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 1, 2020

September 1, 1924 -- Loop Draws 1,252,096 Daily

images.chicagohistory.org


September 1, 1924 – The city issues a report that estimate an average of over 1,252,096 people enter the business district every twenty-four hours.  More than 182,000 are pedestrians, 233,309 enter in passenger vehicles, and 34,184 are carried in commercial vehicles while 700,000 enter the business district on surface and elevated lines, steam railroads, and bus lines.  The figures come from an extensive survey conducted during the first six months of 1924.  Of all the ways into the Loop the Madison Street bridge seems to be the leader with 25,539 pedestrians crossing the bridge each day.  South State Street saw 22,511 pedestrians enter the Loop while 13,402 individuals entered by way of South Wabash Avenue.  A large number of passenger vehicles – 16,822 – drove into the Loop over the new Michigan Avenue bridge while 24,124 vehicles came by way of South Michigan Avenue.  The lower level of the Michigan Avenue bridge was used by 2,513 commercial vehicles, followed by the bridges at Lake Street and Franklin Street.  An average of 103,693 passenger vehicles entered the Loop each day while 31,077 commercial vehicles entered.  Each passenger vehicle carried an average of 2.25 passengers.  The above photo, taken in November of 1924, shows traffic heading north on Michigan Avenue ... 360 North Michigan, today's London House Hotel, is on the left.  At the time it was a year old.



September 1, 1977 – Employees at the Oriental Theatre, the second largest theater in the Loop, are told that the venue will close its doors at the end of the month unless a new tenant is found. Mickey Gold, the theater’s manager, says, “There is no panic.  Different people have lost leases on this and other theaters in the past, and we hope it will stay open.”  The Oriental opened in 1926 with an ornate design by the firm of Rapp and Rapp. It was built on the same site on which the Iroquois Theater stood, the theater in which over 600 people lost their lives in a 1903 fire.  In its best days, the most famous performers in the country graced the Oriental's stage, but in the 1970’s the theater mirrored the general decline of the Loop.  A 1971 experiment to bring live entertainment to the Oriental with such acts as Gladys Knight and the Pips and Stevie Wonder lost promoters $115,000.  The story ends happily as on January 10, 1996 a Canadian theatrical company purchased the property with a promise to renovate it, a plan that would be helped along with a $13.5 million grant from the city.  Although the company declared bankruptcy in 1998, the project was completed and on October 18, 1998 the theater reopened with a seating capacity of 2,253. In the restoration, architect Daniel P. Coffey came up with a plan that increased the theater’s backstage area by expanding into the adjacent Oliver Building.  Today the Ford Center for the Performing Arts Oriental Theatre is one of the downtown palaces that hosts touring Broadway shows. 


September 1, 1949 – At the end of August the Chicago Daily Tribune carried a report on the death of noted landscape architect, Jens Jensen.  Oops.  Wrong guy.  It turns out that a 65-year-old Door Country, Wisconsin resident with a similar name was the guy who rode the Great Skyway and not Mr. Jensen, who is alive and well in his home in Ellison Bay.  Taking advantage of the error, the paper publishes a flattering piece on the contributions of Jensen, who came to the United States from Denmark in the early 1890’s and began work as a laborer in the west parks system of Chicago, going on to become one of the premier landscape architects of the twentieth century.  “Jens Jensen had a simple set of precepts,” the paper observes, “which he clung to stubbornly in the face of both politicians and millionaire clients, and defended with the rage of an inspired Viking when aroused.  He believed in the beauty of nature.  He detested formal gardens.  He taught the middle west the value of its native trees and plants in landscaping.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, September 1, 1949] The article continued, “To him, parks were placed where city people should find the comfort of natural beauty.  They were not for batting baseballs.  Neither were they automobile speedways.  In his judgment, 15 miles an hour was fast enough for people entering the parks to enjoy the lawns, the crab apple blooms, and the hawthorns.  In a day when efforts are made to encroach on the parks for almost every other public use, a revival of the Jensen principles would be a healthy thing for Chicago.”  Perhaps Jens Jensen's greatest work in Chicago is Columbus Park, shown in the photo above.



September 1, 1925 – Two days after the South Water Street market closes for business, the Chicago Daily Tribune rails against the street that will replace it, specifically the fact that the new road along the river will be named after Charles H. Wacker, the head of the Chicago Plan Commission.  “It is small town stuff at its worst,” the paper proclaims, “to rename South Water street because it is double decked and remade . . . We certainly acknowledge Mr. Charles Wacker’s civic spirit and his useful service in the protection and realization of the city plan . . . But to give his name to the chief thoroughfare of the city, after Michigan boulevard, is not only crude vandalism, but without fitness of proportion.  Mr. Wacker has been a useful citizen, but his service in the city does not tower above that of all other citizens . . . what of Daniel Burnham, who was the creator of the city plan, one of the most famous and gifted of our citizens? If we give Mr. Wacker’s name to our second greatest street, how are we going to honor Burnham with any respect for proportion?
Posted by Chicago Old and New at 12:30 AM 0 comments
Labels: , , , , , ,

Sunday, August 16, 2020

August 16, 1978 -- Loop Elevated Should Go ... Says Tribune Editorial



August 16, 1978 – In an editorial the Chicago Tribune states its opposition to a recommendation by the Chicago branch of the American Association of Architects that a way be found to preserve Chicago’s Loop elevated structure.  The paper asserts, “Anyone who finds a resemblance between Chicago’s elevated and San Francisco’s cable cars must have been standing at Lake and Wabash so long that the screeching has softened his brain.  No way can the “L” be considered charming, quaint, fun, or attractive to visitors . . . There is no good reason, either sensible or sentimental, to preserve the “L” one day longer than is economically unavoidable.  The noisy, dirty eyesore is of no architectural value and will interfere with the practical and esthetic pleasures and profitability of both the State Street mall and the North Loop renewal plan.”   

August 16, 1965 – United Air Lines Flight 389, carrying 24 passengers and a crew of six, disappears from radar screens only five minutes from its scheduled arrival at O’Hare International Airport.  Boats searching the lake about seven miles off Highland Park are hampered by darkness, but twisted pieces of wreckage are reported.  The last communication with the flight occurs at 9:18 p.m. as the O’Hare control tower gives directions for approach to the airport, receiving a “Roger” from the pilot.  Search planes and helicopters drop flares in an attempt to illuminate the search area, and by 1:00 a.m. more than 20 vessels are there, many of them private boats from yacht clubs along the North Shore.  A temporary morgue is also set up in the gymnasium of Highland Park High School. The plane had only been in service for three months at the time of the crash.  Three months later another Boeing 727 crashes on approach to Cincinnati, killing 62 of the 66 passengers on board.  Three days after that United Airlines Flight 227, another 727, crashes on landing at Salt Lake City International Airport, killing 43 of 91 on board.  There is widespread concern that the Boeing 727, first flown in 1963, is an accident waiting to happen.  Extensive review, however, reveals that the airplane is airworthy and properly certified. Those reviews also reveal that pilots, accustomed to flying DC-6’s and other propeller planes, were having trouble adjusting to the rapid descent of the new plane.  The Federal Aviation Agency subsequently required airlines to make changes in training procedures to emphasize the importance of stabilized approaches. The above Chicago Tribune photo shows the crowd gathered on a Highland Park beach, awaiting word from the search area.

www.loc.gov/resource
August 16, 1963 – The Commission on Chicago Architectural Landmarks appoints a committee to draft an ordinance that will provide a framework for the city to preserve its important architectural and historical places.  At the meeting, held at the Art Institute of Chicago, the commission also designates Hull House an architectural landmark and initiates an inquiry into the status of the vacant Sullivan house at 4575 Lake Park Avenue.  Its last order of business is the decision to submit a request to the building department as well as the department of city planning, asking that the commission be notified if a proposal is made to demolish the Reliance building at 32 North State Street, a building that has already been designated a landmark.  It is too bad that the initiative was launched so late, after many historic city treasures had been lost and many more were soon to be gone.  The Sullivan home on Lake Park Avenue is an example.  Originally built for architect Louis Sullivan's mother, it was finished about the time of her death in 1892.  Sullivan, himself, lived in the home until 1896 when his brother, Albert, took up residence with his family.  Despite being designated a landmark in 1960, the home was razed in 1970.  It is pictured above.



August 16, 1893 – The Chicago Daily Tribune reports that the Art Institute of Chicago and the Armour Institute have joined forces “for the purpose of establishing in Chicago a full and thorough course of study in architecture.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, August 16, 1893] W. M. R. French will direct the Art Institute coursework, and the Reverend F. W. Gunsaulus will handle the work for the Armour Institute.  The Art Institute library in 1893 had 1,300 books and 19,000 photographs with 200 books and 1,000 photographs relating directly to the subject of architecture.  The Armour Institute had 10,000 volumes in its library as well as physical and chemical laboratories and courses of study in electricity, mining, and mechanical engineering.  Director French says of the decision, “The Armour Institute, under the Presidency of the Rev. F. W. Gunsaulus, has laid out courses of technical study of the highest order. The departments of mechanical engineering, electricity, civil engineering, etc., are equal to those of the Institute of Technology of Boston, and the laboratories, shops, library, and appliances are in accord with the most approved and modern practice in technical schools.  There are already 500 applicants to enter the various departments upon the opening of the first school year, Sept. 14.”  William French is shown above at the easel. Reverend Gunsaulus is the man at the desk in the photo above that.


Posted by Chicago Old and New at 12:30 AM 0 comments
Labels: , , , , , ,

Sunday, July 26, 2020

July 26, 1983 -- State-Lake Theater Signs Television Deal

cinematreasures.org
July 26, 1983 – An agreement is signed between the city and the American Broadcasting Company in which ABC will convert the State-Lake Theater into television studios.  According to the deal the theater’s impressive marquee will be removed and the theater auditorium will be divided into two levels for broadcasting studios, one of which will hold an audience of 250 people.  Although the Chicago City Council still must approve the agreement, ABC plans also to obtain the 12-story office and retail building at 190 North State Street in which the theater is located.  The company plans to remodel the building, including the terra cotta façade and retail space on the State Street and Lake Street sides of the structure in an effort that will cost over $11 million.  The renovation will also include the elimination of the fire escapes on the south side of the building, the creation of new sidewalks along the Lake Street side and landscaping along State Street.  Dennis Harder, the city’s deputy planning commissioner, says, “ABC’s proposed renovation will be a first-class rehabilitation effort, giving the building an economic life comparable to new construction which will occur in other parts of the North Loop renewal zone.”  [Chicago Tribune, July 27, 1983].  A good retrospective of the 190 North State building and its site can be found here.


July 26, 1940 – A grade separation in Lake Shore Drive north of North Avenue opens although the $750,000 project will not eliminate traffic problems in Lincoln Park immediately.  Ramps onto and off the drive are now open, but work still continues on Lake Shore Drive north of the bath house at North Avenue while the connection to Clark and La Salle Streets to which the Lake Shore Drive ramps will lead is not scheduled to open for another two weeks.  The pedestrian bridge over Lake Shore Drive at North Avenue is also still under construction.  Basically, the roadway that opens on this day will only allow motorists access to the parking area at the North Avenue beach.  Otto K. Jelinek, traffic engineer for the park district, says, “The capacity of the pavement has been reduced by about a third, so it’s impossible to get the efficiency that we had when Beach drive was in service.”  [Chicago Daily Tribune, July 27, 1940] The 90,000 motorists trying to find their way through Lincoln Park during rush hour look forward to the end of construction.

July 26, 1902 – The Chicago Daily Tribune reports that the People’s Gaslight and Coke Company has purchased a building and leasehold interest of the property at the northwest corner of Adams Street and Michigan Avenue for $200,000 from the Lake Hotel Company.  This will be the site of the company’s new headquarters, a 21-story building designed by Daniel Burnham and Company, to be finished in 1911.  Although People’s Gas moved out in 1995, the building still makes a statement across the street from the Art Institute of Chicago with each of the columns at its base made out of a solid piece of granite that is 26 feet tall, four-and-a-half feet in diameter, weighing 30 tons.  The photo above shows the new skyscraper going up in April of 1910.  The building was built in two sections with a hollowed-out middle, the north section being completed first.



July 26, 1885 – A reporter for the Chicago Daily Tribune writes a summary of a day he spends with Health Inspector De Wolf. Beginning on La Salle Street, what was then Pacific Avenue, between Harrison and Polk Streets, “the Inspector led the way past a number of those disreputable resorts whose lawlessness has already given a name to the locality.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, July 26, 1885] The Inspector leads the way into a two-story frame building near Polk Street. In “a subterranean region, of whose existence no one viewing the premises from the street would have guessed” the group finds one room, twelve-feet square, in which the landlord lives with his wife and nine male boarders.  They all sleep in the same space.  Across the hall a widow is living with her three children, who “lounging on chairs about the room looked in need of fresh air and better food.” Her husband was a merchant who died in unfortunate circumstances and left her nothing. She takes in washing to make ends meet, and the Inspector laments, “It seems hard that a decent woman should have to rear her children in such a place, surrounded by vicious and depraved people.”  The group moves on to a tenement on the corner of State and Twelfth Streets.  The frame and brick building is packed with tenants and, until an earlier Health Department inspection there was not a single water-closet on the second or third floor.  The article states, “The consequences of this were during the summer months horrible to contemplate.  Not only the back-yard but the roofs of the surrounding sheds were knee-deep in garbage, which needed only the returning spring to make it a veritable mine of disease.”  Despite some of the conditions, though, the trip ends optimistically as the reporter praises the work of the health inspectors, writing, “Every yard was already cleaned or being cleaned and all the rubbish under the houses gathered into heaps and carted off.  In some places the garbage had lain four or five feet deep, and the exhalations from this bulk when it was stirred up by the men were deadly.”  Still, there was much work left to be done.



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

Monday, July 6, 2020

July 6, 1954 -- Chicago Transit Authority Makes Major Upgrade on Lake Street Line

chicago-l.org
July 6, 1954 – The last trips are made by wood and steel elevated cars on the Lake Street branch of the system, today’s Green Line, between the Loop and Forest Park.  The general manager of the Chicago Transit Authority, Walter J. McCarter, reports that enough modern cars have been received to provide all metal cars for the Lake Street branch.  Metal cars have not previously been used on the Lake Street line because of a city ordinance that requires any elevated branch that heads into a subway to be made up of all metal cars.  Those lines had priority for the new cars.  Wood and steel cars will continue to be used during rush hours on the Ravenswood, Douglas Park, and Garfield Park branches and for the Evanston-Wilmette line.  The wood and steel cars date as far back as 1914 and 1915 when 250 of them were built by the Cincinnati Car Company.  A second order of 200 similar cars was delivered between 1922 and 1924.  The St. Louis Car Company delivered 200 of the new 6000-series cars to the C.T.A., beginning in August 1950.  Interestingly, the C.T.A. had purchased 600 brand new streetcars in 1947 and 1948 “when it became painfully evident that a tremendous shift was underway in travel habits from public transit to private automobiles”. [Chicago-l.org]  The agency solved two problems at the same time by rebuilding the streetcars into rapid transit cars.  Although the existing streetcar could not be modified as a whole, all of the components, right down to light fixtures and window frames, were used to outfit a new body shell, work which the St. Louis Car Company did between 1950 and 1959.  Three generations of equipment used on the Lake Street line are shown above – a wood car, a 4000-series car (the ones replaced in the early 1950’s), and a car of the bicentennial era.


July 6, 1964 – The 35-story Equitable building, now 401 North Michigan Avenue, is topped out in a light rain as a 35-foot white beam with the names of 6,000 Chicagoans written on it is hoisted into place at the top of the tower.  Also on the beam is the number 192,113,484, corresponding to the population of the United States at this time.  The building, designed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill in the mid-century modern style, is already 75 percent rented.  At a luncheon for about 200 civic and business leaders at the Sheraton Chicago Hotel, James F. Coates, the chairman of the Equitable Life Assurance Company of the United States, says that the landscaped area to be built south of Tribune Tower and in front of the Equitable building will be “the most beautiful in the world.”  [Chicago Tribune, July 7, 1964]  Today the trees that have stood in that area for 44 years have all been cut down and the area to the southwest of the tower is the site of the Michigan Avenue Apple store, which opened in the Fall of 2017.  In the above photo 401 North Michigan sits on Michigan Avenue with another Skidmore design, NBC Tower, to the east.



July 6, 1935 – The razing of the old Coast Guard station at the mouth of the Chicago River begins, work that is expected to take three weeks to complete.  Dedicated in 1903, the station’s days became numbered when part of it was destroyed by fire in 1933.  As soon as the demolition is complete, work will begin on a new station with work expected to wind up by late fall.  The old station had responded to 8,454 calls for assistance.   The old station with flag still flying proudly is shown above, along with the photo showing the station today.

July 6, 1915 – On its way to the Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco, the Liberty Bell Special makes a stop at the La Salle Street station on a rainy evening.  Three hundred police officers are stationed around the station as “modern patriots by the thousands – grown patriots and patriots of the public schools, war patriots and peace patriots, Republican, and Democrat, and Socialist patriots – stormed the station.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, July 7, 1915] Some were fortunate to gain entrance to the station, but “tens of thousands” had to remain outside in a downpour. When the train arrives, over an hour behind schedule, three Army buglers, “trim and ramrod straight” signal its entrance. Then the line of people that stretches from Van Buren to Monroe Streets begins an orderly entrance to view the Liberty Bell, which stands on a specially constructed flat car, suspended in a wooden frame. A special guest is 10-year-old Margaret Cummins of 1102 Wellington Avenue, whose great-great-great grandfather, Jacob Mauger, took the bell to his farm and buried it when he learned that British soldiers were coming to seize it.  The bell remains in the city until midnight when it begins the next leg of its coast-to-coast trip.  This is the second trip that the Liberty Bell has made its appearance in the city ... the first visit was a much longer stay at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition as the above photo shows.
Posted by Chicago Old and New at 2:30 AM 0 comments
Labels: , , ,

Tuesday, May 12, 2020

May 12, 1860 -- Republican Convention Begins with Wigwam Dedication



images.chicagohistory.org
hines.com
May 12, 1860 – The convention of the Republican Party begins with the dedication of the Great Wigwam, at the corner of Lake and Market [what is now Wacker Drive] Streets.  The building, the largest convention hall in the United States, was begun just a month earlier.  Built entirely of wood, the building could hold close to 11,000 people with a stage that could seat between 600 and 700 people.  The two-story structure had a gallery on three sides “the pitch [of which] is such that from every part a perfect view of the speaker’s stand can be gained.”  [Chicago Daily Tribune, May 14, 1860]   The cost of the Wigwam was between $5,000 and $6,000 [somewhere between $155,000 and $185,000 in today’s dollars].  The interior was “rough and unplaned” … the wall in back of the raised stage was the brick wall of the adjoining store.  Between 7,000 and 8,000 people are on hand for the dedication, finding that the hall “presents a feature most satisfactory in its acoustic qualities.’ A Tribune reporter finds that even in the remotest areas of the gallery he “could hear distinctly the fuller tones of the speaker’s voice.”  The Wigwam was meant to be a temporary structure and was demolished before the 1871 fire, but it played host to one of the biggest events in the city’s, perhaps even the country’s, history when on May 18, 1860 Abraham Lincoln won the presidential nomination of the Republican Party on the third ballot.  Today, 191 North Wacker Drive stands at this location, one of three buildings in a row designed by New York architecture firm Kohn, Pedersen and Fox.  The original Wigwam and 191 North Wacker are shown in the photos above.

May 12, 2011 – The Chicago Tribune reports that the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency has ordered Chicago to improve its sewage treatment system so that the river will be clean enough for “recreation in and on the water.” [Chicago Tribune, May 13, 2011] The new order goes far beyond those of a state panel that a year earlier had issued guidelines that would make the river clean enough for canoers and paddlers who “briefly fell into the water”. The ruling will necessitate the overhaul of two out of three of the city’s massive sewage treatment plants. The Metropolitan Water Reclamation District estimates the cost will be close to $1 billion while the EPA puts the estimate at something less than $250 million. “We’ve got a chance for our generation to do something big for this important river,” says Senator Dick Durbin.



May 12, 1947 –A doleful editorial in the Chicago Daily Tribune begins, ‘Chicago is in a civic slump, however much it may be thriving industrially.  Dozens of improvement projects are languishing in this, the very city that once was a pioneer in every kind of municipal enterprise.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, May 12, 1983] “We have many things to be proud of,” the editorial continues, “but most of them were achieved long ago.  Now we cannot even get rid of smoke, to say nothing of obsolete railroad terminals.”  As a result, Chicago, the paper observes, is losing ground to other cities, “New York is building bridges, tunnels, and roads to overcome the handicaps of its site. Los Angeles has vastly extended its boundaries and is getting water from sources hundreds of miles away.  San Francisco has solved its problems of expansion by building bridges that are unequaled in all the world.” In the meantime, “Chicago, the erstwhile city of ‘I Will,’ the city that once was a national symbol of energy and originality, lives on her past.”  As the Tribune nears its one-hundredth anniversary, the column concludes, “Those who should be pulling Chicago out of its slump may expect to hear form The Tribune frequently and not admiringly as this newspaper enters its second century.” Contrasting the 1947 photo taken looking east from where today's River Point tower stands with the site as it appears today shows that, fortunately, the lack of vision that the paper lamented did not last forever.



May 12, 1941 – A two-car elevated train slams into a bumper on the dead-end tracks of the Market stub at the Madison Street-Wacker Drive station, runs over a platform, and finally comes to a stop with its front end dangling over the street 50 feet below.  Fortunately, there are no passengers on board the train. The train’s motorman says that the brakes did not hold as he tried to stop at the station.  When this portion of the elevated opened in 1893, Market Street, like much of the West Loop was primarily made up of light industry, warehouses, and small businesses, and it was in this area that the Lake Street elevated ended its run before the Loop elevated system was completed.  As early as 1897, when the Loop began operation, the stub was slated for demolition.  Yet, it kept operating, primarily as an overflow route, when the Loop reached capacity, until the late 1940’s when it was demolished, making way for today’s double-decked Wacker Drive.  A photo of the Market Street stub appears above, along with a photo of the accident in 1941.

May 12, 1880 – A Criminal Courts judge upholds the right of the city to transfer the control of Michigan Avenue and Thirty-Fifth Street to the South Park Commissioners, upholding the Boulevard Act of 1879.  The judge states that on February 21, 1869 the charter of the Board of South Park Commissioners gave that body the responsibility for existing highways and “to lay out new ones within the defined limits of the South Parks, and to manage and control them, free to all persons, but subject to such necessary rules and regulations as shall from time to time be adopted by said Commissioners for the well ordering and government of the same.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, May 13, 1880] Subsequent legislation added to the charter but did not impair it.  The Boulevard Act of 1879 went even farther as the judge observed in his opinion, “It is an act to enable the Park Commissioners ‘to take, regulate, control, and improve public streets leading to public parks, and to levy and collect special taxes or assessments to pay for the improvement itself.’  It authorizes the Park Commissioners to ‘connect’ the present park system, including existing boulevards and driveways, with any point within the city by the use of ‘connecting street or streets, or parts thereof,’ and it authorizes the city, town or village ‘to invest any such Park Boards with the right to control, improve and maintain any of the streets of such city’ … ‘for the purpose of carrying out the provisions of this act.’”  The commissioners, in other words, had the legal authority to connect any road leading to or abutting a park to city streets that would make a connection to a park, and they had the right, with permission of the city, to levy taxes to build and maintain such connections.  The judge upholds the right of the South Park Commissioners to assume responsibility for Michigan Avenue south of the river since it is an important connection to the roads and boulevards leading to city parks. The above photo shows Michigan Avenue in 1885 at its intersection with Van Buren Street.
Posted by Chicago Old and New at 2:30 AM 0 comments
Labels: , , , , ,

Friday, April 10, 2020

April 10, 1865 -- Lee Surrenders; Chicago Celebrates

wbez.org
April 10, 1865 – As a new day begins, the Dearborn Light Artillery fires a hundred guns … “their echoes waking up the sleepers who had not left their beds at the stroke of the bell.”  [Chicago Daily Tribune, April 11, 1865]  The bell is sounded to wake citizens to the news that General Robert E. Lee has surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia, and war is all but over.  The Tribune reports, “The halcyon of peace – victorious peace – hovered o’er the head and the angel of prosperity was seen approaching with a balm for the healing of the nation.”  As the sun begins to rise, the streets of the city are full with bonfires burning, gunfire echoing, and flags flying in all quarters.  Business is suspended for the day, and schools are dismissed at noon.  A meeting of the committees of the Board of Trade is held at the Tremont House, ending in a resolution that a salute of 200 guns be made at 4:00 p.m. and the court house bell would be rung.  A hastily assembled parade is formed before the appointed hour, and thousands march up Lake Street to Franklin, down Franklin to Washington, east on Washington to Clark, down Clark to Van Buren, east on Van Buren to Michigan Avenue, and up Michigan to the starting point on Lake Street.  At one point the procession stretches nearly four miles.  In the evening “fireworks by the thousand and candles by the million” are set off with “scarcely a dark window … seen in the central part of the city.”  Bonfires blaze on every corner of Clark Street from Lake Street to Van Buren in the central part of the city.  The Tribune ends its coverage of the day with these words of hope for the future, “May the sun of peace now rising never know setting more.”


 April 10, 2017 – The Chicago Cubs open Wrigley Field Plaza for the first time as Crane Kenney, the club’s president of business operations, says, “Our vision was to create a neighborhood center where families, fans, and visitors can find entertainment, unique and local food options and daily attractions in an urban park setting.” [Chicago Tribune, April 10, 2017] As part of the festivities the team hoists its World Series Champion banner at 6:15 p.m. prior to a 7:00 p.m. start of the first home game of the season against the Los Angeles Dodgers.  The Park at Wrigley fills a triangular spot just to the west of the ballpark between Clark Street and Waveland Avenue.  It features a two-story flagship Cubs Store that sells team gear and memorabilia.  It also includes a fountain and an artificial turf mini-field on which kids can run around and adults can soak up the Wrigley Field ambiance.  Plans are to use the area as an ice skating rink during the winter months.

April 10, 1992 – The U. S. Steel Group’s South Works closes its doors, ending a run at this location that goes all the way back to 1882 when the company began as the Chicago Railway Mill Company, and the mill that once produced steel beams for most of Chicago’s skyscrapers and jobs for thousands of area residents” ends its run [http://forgottenchicago.com/articles/south-works/], leaving an uncertain future.  A U. S. Steel spokesman, Thomas R. Farrall, says, “We want to get value from the facilities.  The mill is one direction real estate and development is another direction.”  [Chicago Tribune, April 10, 1992] About 730 workers will lose their jobs with the closing.  Only 30 of those are eligible for pensions. Various development schemes have been hatched over the intervening years.  The latest one for the 420-acre site, released early in 2017 envisions a build-out in four phases, each phase contributing 3,000 low- and mid-rise buildings, built around a harbor and spread over 30 city blocks along the lake shore.  The area that the South Works covered is shown in the photo above.

April 10, 1955 -- The Chicago Daily Tribune editorializes about a $5,000,000 appropriation 
bill sponsored by State Representative William E. Pollack, a Republican from Chicago, to locate a four-year campus for the University of Illinois on the North branch of the Chicago River around California Avenue. "The university's budget requests have been cut drastically." states the editorial. "For the university to expand its operations and expenditures in Chicago when it can't get enough funds for the proper operation of the facilities that it now has would be the height of folly." [Chicago Daily Tribune, April 10, 1955] Ten days later Mayor Richard J. Daley would begin his first term as the Mayor of Chicago, and he would say toward the end of his career that helping to arrange for a branch of the University of Illinois in Chicago was his greatest achievement. The university's library is named for him. The photo below shows His Honor officially opening the new university on February 22, 1965, ten years after and over six miles south of Representative Pollack's proposal.
twitter.com/chicago_history
April 10, 1937 – Fire breaks out at 4:00 a.m. at the South Shore depot that sits alongside the Illinois Central Railroad station just east of Randolph Street.  It doesn’t take long before “flames burst through the roof of the structure, lighting up Michigan avenue in the vicinity of the public library, and attracting hundreds of motorists and loopgoers to the scene.”  [Chicago Daily Tribune, April 11, 1937]  The fire brings a large response from the Chicago Fire Department as fire fighters keep their distance battling the 2-11 fire while crowds on the Randolph Street viaduct watch the heroics.  The twelve-year-old structure was first used by the Illinois Central but was turned over to the South Shore in 1931.  This is the second time a fire has gutted the depot.  In a May, 1934 fire, five fire fighters were injured.  In the above photo the station stands just to the right of the peristyle, which was torn down in February, 1953.  Today this is the northwest corner of Millennium Park.
Posted by Chicago Old and New at 2:30 AM 1 comments
Labels: , , , , ,

Tuesday, March 31, 2020

March 31, 1831 -- Post Office Established in Chicago


chicagology.com
March 31, 1831 – The United States government establishes a post office in the tiny hamlet of Chicago and appoints Jonathan N. Bailey as post master.  The post office is located in a log cabin approximately where Wacker Drive meets Lake Street today.  According to information gleaned from the December, 1922 issue of Fort Dearborn Magazine [chicagology.com], before the establishment of the post office, mail was brought to Chicago every other week from Niles, Michigan. The small outpost of Chicago had only about a dozen families at the time, along with the garrison at Fort Dearborn. Post Master Bailey served in his position until November 2, 1832 when his son-in-law, John S. C. Hogan, took over the job, moving the post office to the southwest corner of Franklin and what is today’s Wacker Drive.  Chicagology.com notes that the mail carrier “was necessarily a man of tough fibre and strong nerve, for, burdened as he was with his pack, mail pouch and loaded musket, he was forced to keep on his feet day and night wading through snow so deep at times as to require snow shoes.  When overcome with sleep he wrapped himself in his blanket and lay down in a snow-bank, taking such rest as he could with the wolves howling around him.”  By 1837 these intrepid carriers had been replaced by stage coaches that brought the mail to Chicago with increasing frequency.


 March 31, 2003 – Under cover of darkness trucks carrying construction equipment move onto Meigs Field and shortly after midnight bulldozers begin to dig six huge “X” marks into the airstrip, stranding 16 privately owned aircraft on the tarmac of an airport that will never function again.  Mike Daffenberg, an air traffic controller at the airport, says he found out he was out of a job on his way to the airport from DeKalb for his 6:00 a.m. shift.  “I felt I was laid off by the radio this morning,” he said.  [Chicago Tribune, April 1, 2003] Mayor Richard M. Daley is unapologetic, and the Tribune observes, “Still stewing because federal authorities were quicker to restrict airspace over Mickey and Minnie at Disney World and Disneyland than they were for Chicago, Daley said his unilateral closure of Meigs was prompted in part by fears that the nation’s homeland security bureaucracy was moving too slowly to address the city’s needs.”  A spokesman for the Aircraft Pilots and Owners Association, Warren Morningstar, says, “We have our version of shock and awe right in downtown Chicago.  What we really are upset about is that the mayor has no honor, and his word has no value.” 
chicago.curbed.com
March 31, 1980 – The City Council Building and Zoning Committee unanimously approves plans for River City on the east side of the river’s South Branch, a residential development that will host 1,500 units on a 12-acre site.  The plan is for townhouses and apartments to be placed in six- to eight-story buildings on former railroad land between Polk Street and Roosevelt Road. This will be the second go-round for architect Bertrand Goldberg’s plan for developing a no-man’s land just south of the Loop.  The Chicago Plan Commission rejected his plan for a group of 72-story residential towers, asserting that it would violate density provisions.  Developers of River City are Chessie Systems, Inc., Jerrold Wexler and Edward Ross of Jupiter Corp., and Goldberg.  Ultimately, the project would be scaled back ever further with about 450 residential units filling a serpentine structure.  The community made news at the beginning of 2018 when residents voted to convert the building from condominiums to rental apartments, a decision that created more furor when preservationists objected to a renovation plan that saw the concrete interior walls of the ten-story building painted white.  In the re-purposed building, one can expect to pay close to $2,000 a month for a two-bedroom apartment and a bit under $3,500 for a three-bedroom unit.

March 31, 1893 – The Japanese flag is raised at noon on the Wooded Island in Jackson Park, and dedication ceremonies begin at the Hooden, or sacred palace, that will be the Japanese exhibit at the World’s Columbian Exposition.  Nearly every fair official is present, along with a number of businessmen and leading members of the Japanese community in the city.  The 300 or so guests in attendance are allowed to inspect the temple for a short time before the ceremonies begin.  The architect of the three buildings that make up the exhibit, M. Kuru, explains the plan as the festivities begin, saying “… the three buildings here reproduced represent the styles of architecture which were in vogue from the tenth century to the eighteenth.  Although each of these three epochs has an architectural style distinctive of its own and reproduced here with absolute accuracy they are planned under a general architectural design.  The whole plan is taken from the Hoodo, which is now existing in Uji, Japan.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, April 1,1893] The first portion of the ceremony ends with a note of gratitude to the 24 Japanese laborers who constructed the exhibit.  They respond “in a peculiar manner and clapping their hands.”  Then George R. Davis, the Secretary General of the Fair, rises to speak, constructing his own edifice of over-the-top prose.  “In all time past,” he says, “in all time to come, no celebration of the accomplishments of man, has or will, in my opinion, equal the untold splendor of the Columbian Exposition … to no people of the earth does the Columbian Exposition offer grander or more distinguished advantages and opportunities than to our antipodean friends.  Japan stands in the foreground as a wonderful example of the swift progress of modern development and education.  Japan, in the full consciousness of its wealth and power, realizing to the fullest extent the advantages to be secured, has been prompt and generous in support of the Exposition.  I am glad that I may in this public manner give expression to our satisfaction with the result you have accomplished and the zeal which you and your colaborers have shown in your work through the last winter.”  Potter Palmer and Daniel Burnham also deliver addresses after which the President of the South Park Commissioners, Joseph Donnersberger, discloses that at the conclusion of the fair only two buildings are to remain in Jackson Park – the Japanese pavilion and the Life-Saving Station.  “One was for art,” he says, “the other for utility.”  After the ceremony wraps up the assembled dignitaries retire to the Manufactures Building, where a luncheon is served.  In its appraisal of the exhibit the Chicago Daily Tribune reports, “In the government exhibit will be shown many rare and valuable relics and curiosities.  Many of these belong to the Emperor … The work of the interior decoration was placed in the hands of the Tokyo Art Academy … the material used in the construction is unpainted wood and the spectator is filled with admiration for the many ingenious and effective ways in which these people employ their raw material, their methods of getting the best effects from the natural colors of wood, and the exquisite polish they manage to put upon it.”  The Wooded Island and the Japanese exhibit can be seen in the lower right corner of the above photo.  Off the photo to the left is the building that would become today's Museum of Science and Industry.

March 31, 1890 -- The Chicago Daily Tribune reports that "The Accountant," a painting by Rembrandt van Rijn, will remain in Chicago on display at the Art Institute. The treasure comes by way of Chicago oil man P. C. Hanford, who purchased the painting, valued at the time at $60,000. "I did not want to see it go away from Chicago," said Hanford. "I was waiting for some of our rich people to buy it -- one of the men who could spend the money and not feel it. I am not rich, but I love art. I waited till the last moment. We are going to have a World's Fair here and anything that we can get hold of in the way of art we ought to keep here." [Chicago Daily Tribune, March 31, 1890] You won't find the painting at the Art Institute today. Mr. Hanford sold the work on January 31, 1902 for £4,600 or a little over $22,000. 
Posted by Chicago Old and New at 2:30 AM 10 comments
Labels: , , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)