Showing posts with label Lincoln Park. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lincoln Park. Show all posts

Saturday, October 3, 2020

October 3, 1949 -- David Adler ... Spontaneity, Grace and Elegance




October 3, 1949 –The Chicago Daily Tribune praises the life and work of David Adler, who died on September 27.  Adler was born in Milwaukee in 1882, studied at Princeton University, and, after a time in Europe, joined the office of architect Howard Van Doren Shaw in 1911. He failed the architect’s exam in 1918, and it wasn’t until 1928 that he was awarded an honorary license.  At that point he had over 30 commissions to his name, all of them authenticated by architects who had a background in structural engineering.  During the 1920’s, though, Adler designed some stunning residential homes, many of them on the North
Shore.  The Tribune observes, “Somebody once said that Adler’s houses had the quality of Mozart’s music and, indeed, they have Mozartean spontaneity, grace, and elegance in line and decoration.  They are always fresh but never eccentric or startling.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, October 3, 1949]  The paper points out a set of row houses near the Elks’ memorial in Lincoln Park as a particular achievement, pointing out that they “display his genius for dealing freshly with established styles and conventional forms.”  The row houses are landmarked and have a fascinating history as can be seen in Chicago’s historic preservation report that can be found at the city site here.  Adler designed them with a partner, Henry Corwith Dangler. In the past couple of years they have seen an impressive renovation effort, resulting in two city homes at Adler on the Park.  According to the @properties website one unit, at 2700 North Lakeview, is listed at $6,600,000. The three photos above show the row houses as they looked in 1922 when they were completed, a few years back when they were serving as what appeared to be a halfway house, and as Adler on the Park.

Chicago Tribune photo

October 3, 1933 – The Illinois Commission to A Century of Progress and the Dante Alighieri Society host a luncheon to honor the Marchese and Marchessa Guglielmo Marconi.  After the luncheon and a visit to the Hall of Science, today’s Museum of Science and Industry, the Marconis are given a reception in the Italian pavilion at the World’s Fair site, which is closed to the public where Marconi, Italian Consul Castruccio and David Sarnoff, all make speeches that are broadcast to Italy.  In the evening the president of the Century of Progress, Rufus C. Dawes, and his wife entertain 125 people at a dinner held in honor of the Marconi’s at the Federal building.  President Walter Dill Scott of Northwestern University presents the Italian inventor with an honorary Doctor of Science degree.  Although everyone in the entourage is exhausted, Marconi insists on traveling back to the fair grounds to visit the amateur radio station, W9USA.  In the darkened Travel and Transport Building of the closed fair, he finds two operators on duty who do not seem to know their visitor, complimenting the men on their transmitting equipment.  One responds, “But it was only built by an amateur,” to which the inventor replies, “Ah, but I am only an amateur myself.”  [rfcafe,com], quite a modest reply, considering he shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1909 and is credited today as being the inventor of radio.  In the above Tribune photo Marconi and his wife meet with Cardinal George William Mundelein after attending services at Holy Name Cathedral during their stay in Chicago.


October 3, 1906 – The Chicago Daily Tribune decrees in its lead on this date, “Chicago is the baseball center of the earth.”  [Chicago Daily Tribune, October 4, 1906] “Since last night a combination pennant pole, marking the site of Chicago has served as the earth’s axis, and around it something less than 2,000,000 maddened baseball fans are dancing a carmagnole of victory, while in every other city in the American and National leagues there is woe.”  After the New York Yankees lose to the Philadelphia Athletics, the city realizes that the magic number has been reached, and the White Sox have clinched the American League pennant.  In one week the team will meet its crosstown rival, the Chicago Cubs, in the World Series.  At the end of July the White Sox were mired in sixth place.   The paper observes that, despite the hopelessness of the situation, “People who cannot understand how the White Sox can win pennants should have visited the American league park and seen Comiskey and Jones working with their bunch of mediocre material, trying to make them into a pennant winning team.  Now Comiskey has a theory that team play will beat individual ability.  He was teaching his team the points.”  After finishing the season with a team batting average of .230, the worst in the American League, the White Sox defeat the Cubs in the World Series in six games.


October 3, 1885 – On this date the Chicago Daily Tribune reports on a letter that the Chief Librarian of the city has sent to the Chairman of the Council Committee on Buildings.  The letter provides detail about the location of the city’s first library, housed in a converted water tank on Dearborn Street, just east of today's Rookery Building.  Mr. Poole, the librarian, urges the temporary removal of the library to the new City Hall, just up the street on Washington Boulevard, citing the grave risk of the city’s entire collection of books being destroyed by fire.  The present location of the library is "overcrowded already, many valuable books being in consequence stored in out-of-the-way corners for want of a place to put them.”  The library has four floors and no elevator.  On the fourth floor is a newspaper reading room of 3,292 square feet, a periodical reading room with 2,307 square feet, and a room for patent books and documents continuing 2,503 square feet.  The floor below contains the main collection in 16,324 square feet of space.  Since the collection of the library is increasing by 10,000 volumes a year and the threat of fire can not be ignored in a city that burned to the ground just 14 years earlier, Librarian Poole is a bit distressed that he has not received an answer from Alderman Mahony, to whom he had directed the letter.  The book room of the "water tank library" can be seen in the engraving above.
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Friday, August 28, 2020

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


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




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


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

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


August 28, 1900 – For five hours “in ranks twelve deep, the white-haired veterans of the Grand Army of the Republic passed in their last grand parade . . . Never again can they meet in such numbers.  They are growing gray haired and aged, and gradually death is mustering them out.  But yesterday they marched 23,000 strong through the down-town streets of Chicago . . .”  [Chicago Daily Tribune, August 29, 1900]  Beginning at 10:00 a.m. the veterans of the Union Army march down Michigan Avenue until 3:45 p.m.  Commanding General of the Army Nelson A. Miles, upon reviewing the ranks, says, “It was a parade which all Europe, with all its armies combined, could not duplicate.  It was a spectacle which perhaps no American shall witness again.”  Although the 23,000 attendees make up only a small portion of the 2,880,000 men who fought, the encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic taxes the city’s resources.  Trains bring 195,000 people to six different railroad stations.  Elevated and surface line trains handle 725,000 passengers on the night of August 28, and 140,000 people arrive in the city on the day before the parade, putting a huge strain on hotels.
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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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Tuesday, December 31, 2019

December 31, 1967 -- Riverview Amusement Park Leads Year in Farewells


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December 31, 1967 – Chicago said farewell to a number of buildings and institutions during 1967, a list detailed on the last day of the year in a Chicago Tribune article.  Riverview Amusement Park closed for good, ending a 63-year run.  Gone for good were the Bobs, the Fireball, the Silver Flash, Flying Turns and Shoot the Chutes (“Keep your hands inside the boat … don’t rock the boat”).  The Edgewater Beach Hotel also closed.  With the northward expansion of Lake Shore Drive the hotel, which opened in 1916, was separated from the lake, making the first two words in its name a promise on which it could no longer deliver.  It was used as a dormitory for Loyola University students for a couple of years but was finally demolished between 1969 and 1971.  The headquarters of the Greek Orthodox Church at 1549 Astor Street, across the street from the Cardinal’s mansion, was razed to make way for a residential tower, and, immediately to the north, the Old Swift mansion that sat at Astor and North Avenue across from Lincoln Park was demolished as well.  Also on North Avenue, the Plaza Hotel at North and Clark, fell to the wrecker’s ball as did the Werner Storage Company garage where seven members of “Bugs” Moran’s gang were gunned down on Valentine’s Day in 1929.  The oldest riding stable in Lincoln Park, the New Parkway at 2153 North Clark, also closed, ending an era.  New Parkway had been in business since the 1890's, and in 1966 sent out 600 riders every weekend to Lincoln Park.  No one complained, I would guess, when the immense Cutty Sark billboard on the south bank of the river just east of Michigan Avenue departed the city.  Also departing was the Italian Court at 619 North Michigan Avenue at Ontario street.  Built between 1919 and 1926, the complex of shops and artists’ apartments revolved around a lovely restaurant, Le Petit Gourmet.  Finally, on December 2 at 6:00 p.m. the Twentieth Century Limited, the express train of the New York Central Railroad that operated between Grand Central Station in New York City and the La Salle Street Station in Chicago, made its last run, arriving in Chicago nine hours and 50 minutes late, due to a freight train derailment in Ohio.

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December 31, 1902 –The Chicago Daily Tribune prints the results, taken form Railway Age magazine, that show the number of railroads that enter and leave Chicago on a daily basis.  A total of 23 separate railroads send trains into and out of the city, a number made even more impressive by the fact that some railroads such as the Chicago and North Western and the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul run multiple lines into the city.  596 passenger trains run into Chicago each day while 594 depart.  Particularly notable is the number of through passenger trains that make a stop in the city on their trip to the east and west. Union Station leads that total with 94 with Polk Street servicing 74 passenger trains each day.  Central Station handles 72, Wells Street 65, and Grand Central 64.  The Illinois Central Railroad is the leader in suburban passenger trains with 251 each day with the Chicago and North Western operating 223 daily suburban trains into and out of the city.  


December 31, 1978 – The Chicago Tribune reports that the Chicago Police Department and the F.B.I. have found security at the Art Institute of Chicago “to be inadequate, lax, and outmoded.” [Chicago Tribune, December 31, 1978], the tough assessment coming four days after three Cézanne oil paintings, valued at $3 million, are found missing from a storage room.  The stolen paintings include “Madame Cézanne in a Yellow Armchair”, “Apples on a Tablecloth” and “House on the River.” After police find that there is no list of people to whom keys to the room had been distributed, Arthur M. Wood, the chairman of the museum’s board of directors, says that “all safekeeping and security practices are under intense review.”  Commander William Murphy, the Chicago Chief of Police, finds at least three deficiencies in the institution’s security system.  First, works of art have been kept in storage rooms with simple door locks and no reinforced doors.  Secondly, the system of checking out keys to such rooms has been “haphazard” with virtually no attention given to whom keys have been given.  No one has any idea, apparently, of how many keys even exist to the room where the theft occurred.   Murphy guesses that at least 400 employees have had access to the room in which 25 post-Impressionist paintings are stored. Finally, a “nonchalant” attitude has taken over about enforcing security rules that had been in place for years.  An F.B.I. agent working the case says, “What you’ve got is essentially a broom closet.  It is far from the kind of vault you would expect the Art Institute to keep its valuables in.”  It didn’t take long to track down the paintings … stealing was easy for Art Institute worker Laud “Nick” Pace.  Unloading the loot was much more difficult.  Pace, who disguised the works as packages as he walked them out the door of the museum, was caught several months later and sent up the river for a decade.  "Madame Cézanne in a Yellow Armchair" is pictured above, safely back home.


December 31, 1943 – A year ends, one that began with President Franklin Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill meeting in Casablanca and, midway through, marks the surrender of the German army in North Africa to the British and Americans.  Even in the darkest hours of the war Chicago begins to look toward to what will come afterward.  On this day the Chicago Daily Tribune makes that clear in an editorial, stating, “If Chicago wants to avoid being by-passed by the great air transport companies of the post-war age, it will have to see that they get the terminal facilities they need.”  The editorial board sees neither airport currently in existence as practical.  The place we know today as Midway is “nine miles from the heart of the city and accessible only thru the most densely populated sections.”  Douglas Field, today’s O”Hare, “would be 19 miles from the loop.”  What is the alternative?  The editorial favors something that has been talked about for a decade or more – an airport on the city’s lakefront.  “An airport built in this area on made ground,” the editorial states, “would be free of obstacles such as usually surround municipal airports, could be readily expanded to any size needed to accommodate great, new planes, and would be only a few minutes’ drive from the heart of the city.”  The editorial continues, “The present outer breakwater runs from the vicinity of South Water street almost continuously to the Shedd aquarium at the foot of Twelfth street.  Extending land outward from this breakwater would provide ample room for an airport and would give airplanes plenty of space to gain altitude, even in a westward takeoff, before reaching tall buildings.  It would in no way interfere with navigation, and would be less than a five minute ride to the loop over a short causeway.”  The editorial even makes reference to the fact that the Wolverine and the Sable, Navy aircraft carriers steaming along the lakefront, have taken meteorological surveys of the area north of Thirty-First Street and have found that it is “usually free of smoke and has wind velocity and ceiling suitable for a large airport.”  Imagine what the city’s lakefront would look like today if the clamor for this kind of new airport had gained a large enough audience to see it actually built.  Above, the early 1940's photo of Northerly Island -- later Meigs Field and now Northerly Island again -- gives some idea of what an airport facility much larger than this would have done to the lakefront.





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