Showing posts with label University of Chicago. Show all posts
Showing posts with label University of Chicago. Show all posts

Monday, June 22, 2020

June 22, 1947 -- University of Chicago Kicks Off New Argonne National Laboratory

galleries.apps.chicagotribune.com
anl.gov
June 22, 1947 – The business manager of the University of Chicago, William R. Harrell, announces that construction of the Argonne National Laboratory near Lemont will be started within a month.  Ford, Bacon and Davis, Inc. will act as the architect, engineer and construction manager for the huge project.  The U. of C. and the Atomic Energy Commission will be the prime contractors on a project that will provide a site at which 29 Midwestern universities will conduct nuclear research.  Harrell says that of the 3,700 acres chosen for the site in the southeast corner of DuPage County, 1,368 are under option with continued acquisition progressing smoothly.  The laboratory actually began in 1942 as the Metallurgical Laboratory at the U. of C., where in a squash court under the university’s Stagg Field, the world’s first nuclear reactor was constructed.  The black and white photo shows the original Argonne National Laboratory, located in what is today the Cook County Forest Preserve District’s Red Gate Woods near Palos Hills.  The second photo shows the DuPage County laboratory as it exists today.   


June 22, 1991 – The Dead Zone opens in Chicago as 10,000 to 20,000 faithful followers of the Grateful Dead camp out in the city for the weekend.  Although the Chicago Park District prohibits camping at Soldier Field, the site of the concert, the city does allow Deadheads to camp at Lake Shore Drive and Roosevelt Road.  The Chicago Tribune observes, “In the Dead Zone, the tie-dyed shirt is the national costume.  Anything vegetarian is the national food.  Hackey Sack, a bean bag game, is the national pastime.  Reality is easily sublimated.”  [Chicago Tribune, June 24, 1991]  In three and a-half hours of music the band plays 18 songs with one intermission, beginning with the 1987 release Hell in a Bucket and a cover of The Band’s The Weight as the encore.

J. Bartholomew Photo
June 22, 1911 – Art Institute of Chicago Director William R. French announces big plans for the museum, stating that two immense fountains will be commissioned with one planned for the north side of the museum with the other to be installed on the south side. Additionally, French says that a 250-foot gallery “in the manner of the Ponte Vecchio” will be constructed as a “magnificent bridge” across the Illinois Central tracks on the east side of the museum.  [Chicago Daily Tribune, June 23, 1911]. All three projects will be funded by the fund endowed by Benjamin Franklin Ferguson.  One of the sculptures will commemorate those who perished in the Cherry mine disaster in which 259 men and boys died in a coal mine fire in Cherry, Illinois. The other fountain, already in progress, will be the “Fountain of the Great Lakes,” which sculptor Lorado Taft is in the process of completing.  French says that construction of the “bridge” on the east side of the 1893 building has been approved by officials of the Illinois Central railroad, and it will serve as additional gallery space.  There is a monument to the men and boys who lost their lives in the 1909 mine fire, but you will find it in Cherry, Illinois … not in Chicago.  The Fountain of the Great Lakes did make the cut and can still be found in the south garden of the Art Institute.  You can find more about it here in Connecting the Windy City.  The two-story bridge across the Illinois Central Railroad tracks, Gunsaulus Hall, was designed by the same Boston firm that designed the original Art Institute building, Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge.  It was completed in 1916.  Lorado Taft's "Fountain of the Great Lakes" is pictured above.


June 22, 1911 – The Chicago Daily Tribune reports that it is “probable that a 250-foot gallery, “designed in the manner of the Ponte Vecchio and hung with art masterpieces” [Chicago Daily Tribune, June 22, 1911] will be built across the Illinois Central railroad tracks on the east side of the Art Institute.  It is expected that the addition, which is to cost about $150,000, will be designed by Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge, the same firm that designed the 1893 Art Institute building.  Art Institute Director William R. French indicates that the construction of the bridge has been approved by the Illinois Central officials.  Plans are to use proceeds from the million-dollar fund left by Benjamin Franklin Ferguson.  The addition is completed in 1916 and named Gunsaulus Hall after noted preacher and lecturer Frank W. Gunsaulus, who was a trustee of the Art Institute for 13 years, made valuable donations to the museum’s collection, and encouraged wealthy Chicagoans to donate their money and their collections to the Art Institute.  The addition is shown above, still spanning the railroad tracks, opened up with windows above the tracks by architect Renzo Piano as part of the construction of the Modern Wing.



June 22, 1879 – The Chicago Daily Tribune chronicles the “dangers to life and limb incident to the highway” [Chicago Daily Tribune, June 22, 1879] noting that in the previous seven weeks, there have been 59 runaways, 44 persons injured and five killed on city streets.  The statistics are so unbelievable that only a full listing will make clear what life must have been like in Chicago during the last quarter of the nineteenth century.  Imagine …

May 1:  Julius Stoehr, a medical student, was knocked down while endeavoring to stop a runaway horse and buggy on the corner of State and Washington streets, and his left arm broken below the shoulder.
May 3:  John Lyman was thrown from a team driven by Henry Rawson, near the corner of Canalport avenue and Halsted street, and badly injured about the head.
May 6:  Henry Fosberg, 8 years of age, was run over by a hack driven by some person unknown.  One wheel passed over his chest, injuring him severely.
May 6:  Two powerful horses attached to a loaded ice-wagon belonging to the North Side Ice Company ran away on Sedgwick street, and turning on Chicago avenue smashed a lamp-post and letter-box, and finally collided with a farm wagon.
May 7:  Horse and buggy owned and driven by William Mason collided with Randolph street car No. 306.  The car horses broke loose, and one ran into a lumber wagon and was severely injured.
May 10:  John McCarty, 3 years old, while playing on the street, was run down on the corner of Halsted and Monroe streets by a wagon driven by Charles Bush.
May 11:  An American Express wagon smashed a letter-box on the corner of Clark and South Water streets.
May 11:  James Conley, 7 years old, instantly killed on Bunker street by a truck owned by Armour and Co.
May 12:  Team belonging to Philip Lang ran away on Halsted street, and smashed a lamp-post.
May 12:  Horse attached to a buggy owned by W. H. Wells and Bros., ran away from there and collided with C. Schultz’s grocery wagon, badly injuring his horse.
May 12:  Team attached to hack No. 112 ran off from in front of the Tremont, smashed the carriage, and ran into a Randolph street car, killing one of the horses.  Total damage, $500.
May 12:  Horse attached to a light wagon, driven by Adam Conrad, of Mokena, Ill., ran away at South Water street.  The wagon was smashed against one of the posts of the Clark street bridge, and Conrad, a man of nearly 60, sustained such injuries that he died on the following day.
May 13:  An unknown man was run down near the corner of Union and Hubbard streets by a horse and buggy driven by Julius Anderson, of No. 311 West Division street.  The man fell on the street-car truck, and was trampled on by the horses attached to a passing car.  He died in a few minutes.
May 13:  A team and hack owned by Hoffman and Amberg ran over Bessie Wilson, 3 years old, on the corner of Green and Madison streets, Injuries slight.
May 13:  Mrs. Niell, of 5 Hubbard street, was run over on Canal street by a buggy driven by Louis Powell.  Her injuries were not serious. 
May 13:  Mrs. Gallman, of 99 Miller street, while signaling a street-car at the corner of Taylor street and Blue Island avenue, was run down by a horse and buggy driven by J. F. Potter, and sustained some severe bruises.
May 13:  J. E. Jones’ horse and buggy ran off from in front of 133 West Madison street, but the rig was not greatly damaged.
May 18:  Hobart Herkenberger, 9 years of age, was kicked in the face by a horse owned by Philo Corkell, and four teeth knocked out.
May 18:  Mr. Tunstall, residing at the Palmer House, was thrown from his buggy at Thirteenth street and Wabash avenue and terribly cut about the head.
May 19:  George Weber, 5 years old, living at No. 160 Green street, was run over by T. B. Read’s ice wagon while trying to cross the intersection of Green and Indiana streets. His hand was badly cut and his left leg broken in two places.
May 19:  Joseph Lubski and John Hupka, residing in Emma street, were thrown from a buggy, and Lubski sustained a fracture of two ribs and some severe bruises on the head.
May 21:  E. Prenitce and George Threipland were thrown from a buggy near the Twelfth-street viaduct.  Neither of them was severely injured.
May 21:  George Middleman, while riding in a Milwaukee-avenue street-car, had a rib broken by the shaft of a coal-cart running through the side of the car.
May 22:  Horse attached to Herman Leon’s butcher-wagon ran away on South Water street and wrecked two wagons, besides injuring a horse.
May 24:  Albert E. Covre’s team ran off on West Madison street, and collided at Paulina street with car No. 332, damaging it considerably and injuring one of the car-horses.
May 24:  Margaret Griffin, aged 60, was knocked down by a buggy owned and driven by C. E. Wiswall while attempting to cross the street at the intersection of Clark and Washington streets, and was severely injured.
May 24:  Joseph Leduc, 4 years old, No. 101 Bunker street, was run down on the corner of Desplaines and Bunker streets, by a brick-wagon driven by John Matson.
May 24:  Charles Zimlo and another smashed their buggy and damaged a Lincoln avenue street-car near Fullerton avenue.  The buggy was smashed and the driver and one passenger on the car were thrown off.
May 27:  George Beaubien, aged 12, was run down on the corner of School and Desplaines street by a horse and buggy driven by some person unknown.
May 28:  John Hogan, 48 Thirteenth place, was run over by a horse and buggy driven by Henry Hechman.
May 28:  Team attached to a wagon ran off on South Union street, and, at the corner of Lake street, ran into a horse and wagon driven by Louis Pankey.
May 28:  Team attached to wagon ran off from in front of No. 18 Halsted street, and, at Randolph street, collided with a horse and wagon driven by James Sweeney; Sweeney was badly bruised.
May 28:  Horse attached to Jacob Pinney’s buggy ran off on Chicago avenue, and near Franklin street, smashed up D. E. Mitchell’s buggy.  P. B. Foley, who was riding in the first-named vehicle, was badly bruised about the left hip.
May 29:  Edward Gay’s team ran off with his buggy on Ashland avenue, and Gay was thrown out and severely bruised.
May 31:  Willie Cornell, 8 years old, was run over on the corner of Morgan and Randolph streets by J. B. Able’s milk-wagon.  His right leg was broken below the knee, left leg and arm sprained, and the body badly bruised.  In this case the fault appeared to be with the child, who was playing ball.
May 31:  Charles McWilliams, 18 years old, had his right leg badly jammed between the wheel and wagon-box of one of Keeley’s beer-wagons on Archer avenue.
May 31:  A horse attached to a buggy owned by L. Frank ran away on Curtis street and collided with an Indiana streetcar.  Miss Ellen McGuire, a passenger on the car, was severely injured by broken glass.  The horse broke its legs and was shot by an officer.
May 31:  One of Kaseberg and Co’s lumber-wagon teams ran off on Hobbie street. John Abney, aged 27, tried to stop the runaways, but slipped, and both wheels of the wagon passed over him, causing instant death.
June 2:  A horse and buggy, driven by a drunken man and with two other passengers, while proceeding at a furious rate over the Milwaukee avenue viaduct, struck Mrs. Jane Farley, aged 60, causing such injuries as to necessitate her removal to the hospital.
June 3:  C. H. Boynton, lighthouse-keeper, was run down on Canal street by a horse and wagon owned by George Auer, of No. 180 West Twelfth street.
June 3:  T. Patzack and Co’s team ran off with a heavy wagon on Monroe street, and at State street ran into and smashed a buggy.  No one hurt.
June 3:  Mrs. Marpole, of No. 39 Plum street, was run over by one of Brand’s beer-wagons driven at a furious rate by Adam Hembes.  One of her ribs was broken, and she received other injuries.
June 4:  James Redden, 9 years old, was run over on West Lake street, by a horse and buggy driven by Albert Runbe.
June 5:  A team belonging to the Calvary Cemetery Company ran off on Canal street, smashed a pickle-wagon on Randolph, and did other damage.
June 7:  Mrs. Louisa Kokel was run over in an alley in the rear of 39 Clybourn avenue by a light wagon driven by Edward Cane.
June 9:  Hose-cart No. 17 collided with a truck-wagon at Lake street bridge, and the horse was so badly injured that it had to be killed.
June 9:  John Wolf’s lumber-wagon collided with Mandel Bros. delivery-wagon on Kinzie street.  Wolf was thrown out, and Gustav Fick also received some injuries.
June 10:  Team attached to a brick-wagon ran away from the corner of Larrabee and Menominee streets, and smashed a wagon and a lamp-post.
June 10:  A horse attached to a buggy driven by Matt Tooney ran away on Twenty-sixth street, near State.  Tooney was thrown out and the wheels passed over him, injuring his legs.  The runaway struck the curbing at Michigan avenue, and the horse had to be killed.
June 14:  John G. Ehrhoff, of No. 220 Freeman street, was thrown from his buggy, on Indiana street, and his right leg broken.
June 14:  A boy named Peter Fritz was run over on Thirty-first and Clark streets by Wereke Bros. grocery wagon, and received some severe cuts and bruises.
June 16:  Team owned by the Empire Warehouse Company ran into Dr. Clark’s buggy on the corner of Market and Madison streets. Nobody killed.
June 16:  Ralph Knight, 6 years old, was run down by a wagon driven by John Moore, and was badly bruised.
June 18:  An infant son of Andre Herman, of No. 152 Hastings street, was struck by the pole of a wagon drawn by a runaway team and instantly killed.
June 18:  A newsboy named Abraham Cassanger was run over outside The Tribune office by a buggy driven by Mr. Munton, of No. 85 Madison street, who attempted to drive off, but was detained.
June 19:  A horse attached to a buggy driven by C. F. Camp ran off on Twelfth street, and one of the shafts of the buggy ran into the breast of a horse driven by Daniel Corkery, of 44 Twenty-second street.
June 19:  Mrs. Dorothy Young and Mrs. Eliza Baumgarten were thrown from a buggy on State street, near Sixteenth.  Mrs. Young broke her right arm and the other lady was severely injured.
June 19:  Mr. H. A. Christy was thrown from his buggy on Michigan avenue and was badly bruised. 
June 20:  Daniel Ryan, of No. 61 Henry street, fell under a Blue Island avenue car and the front wheel passed over his foot, crushing it at the instep.
June 20:  A hay-wagon collided on Halsted street with car No. 121 and Michael Butler, driver of the wagon, was thrown to the ground and severely injured.
June 20:  Charles Ducharme, 9 years old, was run down by a runaway horse on the corner of Clark and Van Buren streets, and received injuries which may result very seriously.

Tuesday, October 1, 2019

October 1, 2018 -- Yerkes Observatory Shuts Down

skyandtelescope.com
October 1, 2018 – The Yerkes Observatory closes after 121 years of operation.  The observatory, operated by the University of Chicago and located in Williams Bay, Wisconsin, was named for Charles Tyson Yerkes, a storied Chicago traction magnate who subsidized the 20-ton telescope and the observatory which houses it.  Frederick Law Olmsted, the great landscape architect, designed the grounds on which the observatory is located.  The question of what will eventually happen to the site is complicated by a stipulation that Yerkes included in his original agreement with the university, a clause stating that the university would receive the gift “To have and to hold unto the said Trustees and their successors so long as they use the same for the purpose of astronomical investigation, but upon their failure to do so, the property hereby conveyed shall revert to the said Charles T. Yerkes or his heirs at law, the same as if the conveyance had never been made.” [chicagomaroon.com]  The story of how a observatory affiliated with the University of Chicago ended up in Williams Bay, Wisconsin is a fascinating one.  It can be found here in Connecting the Windy City.  


October 1, 1968 –The Chicago City College Board approves a proposal to buy property west of its Loop campus at 64 East Lake Street in order to build a new high-rise campus.  The school’s chancellor, Oscar Shabat, says that the school envisions a campus that will rise 25 to 30 stories. The property between 62 and 54 East Lake Street will provide 10,000 square feet of land with a frontage on Lake Street.  A key to getting the project started is still to come as the Illinois Junior College Board must approve the new building, and that body is waiting on $170 million that the Illinois Board of Education has recommended.  Nothing happens for years, and by the summer of 1974 a report prepared by the office of Mies van der Rohe states that the plan does not appear to be feasible for all kinds of reasons, the most of important of which is the “… deficiency of current plans to integrate the Loop College into the life of the Loop. The site does not offer any special potential to either act as a catalyst for area redevelopment and improvement or to become integrated into the city.” [Chicago Tribune, August 21, 1974] In 1975 a new site is selected for the college in a two-block area between Jackson Boulevard and Congress Street on the west side of State Street, the site on which the Harold Washington Library stands today.  The Chicago City Colleges board began buying land at that location, spending $494,750 for four parcels in the 400 block of South State Street.  Two months later Governor James Thompson vetoes a $7.5 million appropriation to buy any additional land for the college.  Things drag along until March, 1979 when the trustees of Chicago City Colleges approve a plan to buy an existing 25-story office building across the alley from the original location of the college at 64 East Lake Street. In July of that year Chicago City Colleges begins to move forward with the conversion of the office building at 65 East South Water Street.  In that same month the Public Building Commission approves a $14 million renovation of the South Water Street building.  The Chicago Tribune editorializes, “After years of frustration and of nursing plans too ambitious and too expensive to be realized, Loop College can at last expect to have soon a suitable physical plant.”[Chicago Tribune, July 16, 1979]  Not so fast.  Unable to agree on a price for the building on South Water Street, Chicago City Colleges turns to a condemnation proceeding which pegs the cost of the property at $4,454,818, a figure Shabat, still the head of the college, calls a little too rich for the college’s blood.  Finally, on June 13, 1980 ground is broken for an 11-story, $19.3 million college building at the original site that was purchased in 1968 with completion scheduled in 1982.  Shabat says, “I’ve waited 19 years for this day.  Now we can go forward.” [Chicago Tribune, June 14, 1980] Mayor Jane Byrne dedicates the new campus on November 13, 1982.  On December 1, 1987 the college, with 8,217 students, is renamed Harold Washington College in honor of the Chicago mayor who died in office a month earlier. 


October 1, 1930 – A thousand people listen to Frank Lloyd Wright discuss architectural trends in Fullerton Hall at the Art Institute of Chicago.  According to the Chicago Daily Tribune, “Mr. Wright discussed the use of new materials, including glass and steel in the building of skyscraper homes,” emphasizing “that a home is not made up solely of roof and walls, but is toned and dominated by its interior.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, October 1, 1930] Wright brings an exhibit with him, “a model of a skyscraper built of glass and steel and dwellings of the same materials.”  As part of his remarks Wright says, “There must be no conflict between architecture and nature.  A building should conform to the contour of its surrounding.”  The Johnson Wax Company's headquarters tower in Racine, Wisconsin, shown above, was completed nine years after Wright gave his lecture on glass and steel skyscrapers.


October 1, 1994 – Several days after United States District Court Judge Stanley Harris issues a ruling against the city in its effort to curtail the raising of bridges to permit pleasure boaters to pass freely up and down the river, the Chicago Tribune responds with an editorial.  “Shed no tears for the pleasure-seekers,” the piece argues.  “It is the city’s convenience that matters and that of the thousands of pedestrians, cars, buses and emergency vehicles that daily move through the downtown and suffer frustrating, costly delay when the bridges are up . . . If eventually the city must work out new rules with the boaters and marina owners, they should remember that they are part of the city too, and bringing it to a halt for their convenience is no small privilege.” 

Saturday, August 24, 2019

August 24, 1920 -- Lorado Taft's "Fountain of Time" in Plaster

bartholomew photo
August 24, 1920 – The full-sized plaster model of Lorado Taft’s “The Fountain of Time” is completed after years of work and stands at the head of the Midway Plaisance, west of Cottage Grove Avenue.  The sculptural piece is described as comprising “ . . . scores of figures, arising from mystery, moving through life, and vanishing in mystery.  Some are dancing, some proceed sorrowfully, some are Galahads, some are satyrs.  Towering over all is Mr. Taft’s conception of Father Time.  The huge, weird figure dominates the movement of the pushing mob it faces.”  [Chicago Daily Tribune, August 25, 1920]


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


August 24, 1982 – Archbishop Joseph Louis Bernardin is installed as the seventh Roman Catholic archbishop of Chicago in a candlelight service at Holy Name Cathedral. Reverend John Richard Keating reads the papal letter assigning Archbishop Bernardin to the archdiocese of Chicago at 8:01 p.m. before 1,500 priests in attendance. After the reading of the letter is completed, the priests provide Archbishop Bernardin with a two-minute standing ovation.  The Archbishop’s homily is entitled “I Am Joseph, Your Brother,” and in it he promises, “We will work and play together, fast and pray together, mourn and rejoice together, despair and hope together, dispute and be reconciled together.  You will know me as a friend, fellow priest and bishop.  You will know also that I love you.  For I am Joseph, your brother.” [Chicago Tribune, August 25, 1982]

Saturday, March 16, 2019

March 16, 1909 -- University of Chicago Announces Two Rockefeller Gifts

Harry Pratt Judson
findagrave.com
March 16, 1909 – University of Chicago President Harry Pratt Judson announces at spring convocation ceremonies that the school has received two large gifts from John D. Rockefeller. The oil baron makes a cash donation of $76,000 to be used for the maintenance and improvement of the physical plant.  The second gift, a yearly sum of $20,000 is to be paid for five years so that a School of Education can be developed.  The convocation speaker, Professor Paul Shorey, makes it clear that the university will maintain its independence, despite the generosity of its donors.  Shorey says, “There is a notion in many quarters that speech is not so free in an endowed school as in those institutions which the state provides for its inhabitants.  Just let me say here that the University of Chicago is the freest place in the world. Here a man may not only say what he wills but he may be the thing he wills.”  [Chicago Daily Tribune, March 17, 1909]


March 16, 1993 – The first firefighters arrive at the Paxton Residence Hotel at 1432 North LaSalle Street to find dozens of people “perched on ledges or dangling out of windows trying to escape the smoke and flames.” [Chicago Tribune, March 17, 2007] “We had people hanging out on every side,” one firefighter says.  The Paxton that night is filled nearly to capacity with 160 residents, most of them poor, elderly or both.  The blaze, which starts in Room 121 in the southwest section of the structure, roars up stairwells, fed by strong winds that whip into the building as people open windows to get relief from the smoke filling their apartments.  The first call reporting the fire comes in at 4:05 a.m., and two engines, a tower ladder, an aerial tower, a paramedic squad and a battalion chief are dispatched, arriving five minutes later.  The initial evaluation of the scene reveals heavy smoke coming out of the top three stories and people hanging out of windows on the upper floors.  A full box alarm is ordered, and two additional engines, a ladder truck and two battalion chiefs are sent to the scene.  The first firefighters find the first-floor hallway to be clear of smoke, but in the southwest corner of the building they find the stairway on fire as well as two first-floor rooms.  With a 2 1/2-inch hose line they are able to extinguish the fire in the rooms but are unable to control the fire rapidly spreading up the stairway, part of which has already collapsed.  They are forced to withdraw from the building, and as they depart, arriving units see that things are becoming increasingly dire as the amount of smoke coming from upper story windows is increasing continuously and more and more occupants are hanging out of those windows, calling for help.  Five alarms are ultimately struck with 30 pieces of fire equipment and 20 paramedic vans on the scene.  At first, though, there are more occupants in need of rescue than there are firefighters and ladders.  Buildings, power lines and trees make the use of aerial ladders nearly impossible, so ground ladders are deployed as quickly as possible.  According to an analysis of the response, “… firefighters sometimes gauged the need for rescue by the stress in the occupants’ voices … Sometimes firefighters could hear, but not see, an occupant due to the heavy smoke that remained close to the ground engulfing the building; as a result, they placed ladders close to the voice as they attempted to locate the person.” [http://www.usdeadlyevents.com/1993-march-16-paxton-hotel-single-room-occupancy-fire-chicago-il-20/] The National Fire Protection Association’s investigation reveals a number of factors that lead to the loss of 20 lives and over two dozen injuries in the Paxton fire.  The report concludes that the factors include (1) fire spread in combustible concealed spaces; (2) stairways without doors; (3) the lack of subdivisions in corridors; (4) the lack of an operating building-wide fire alarm system; and (5) the delay in fire department notification due in part to the absence of fire detection equipment.


March 16, 1966 – Prince Philip races through a packed 14-hour schedule in Chicago, ending with a $100-a-plate fundraising dinner in the Grand ballroom of the Conrad Hilton Hotel attended by 1,000 guests, with most of the proceeds from the event going to La Rabida sanitarium in Jackson Park.  The prince flies into O’Hare on the preceding evening and is taken to the Drake Hotel where he stays the night.  The next day begins with an entourage leaving the Drake, headed for City Hall on La Salle Street, where the Chicago fire department band and Omar, its Saint Bernard mascot, greet the prince.  Mayor Daley meets his royal guest in front of the building, and the Chicago Highlanders kilty band leads them into the City Council chambers, where the prince is made an honorary citizen of Chicago.  The Mayor says, “The city remembers July 1959, when the sky smiled down and Chicago opened its arms for the queen and you; it was an unforgettable occasion.  No individual so genuinely reflects the most admirable qualities of modern England in trade, in science, in sports, and culture as you do.” [Chicago Tribune, March 17, 1966] The prince then meets with executives at Marshall Field and Company and Sears, Roebuck and Company and delivers a speech at a business men’s luncheon at the Ambassador West.  From there he is taken to La Rabida where he “chatted casually with the youngsters, all dressed in their best finery.”  A stop is also made at the University of Chicago campus where Prince Philip is greeted by the university’s president, George Beadle, and his wife and Mrs. Laura Fermi.  The above photo shows the prince talking to Robert Sorenson, a C.T.A. motorman during his short stay in Chicago.


March 16, 1937 -- Workmen begin driving 1,600 piles that will form a coffer dam a third of a mile east of the outer drive bridge. Ultimately 32,000 tons of concrete will rest on the piles, serving as support for the steel gates that will lie at one end of the lock intended to control the flow of water from Lake Michigan into the Chicago River. The work comes as a result of a 1930 U. S. Supreme Court decision that ordered installation of such a lock with a deadline of December 31, 1938. Today an estimated 50,000 vessels and 900,000 passengers go through the lock each year. It is one of two entrances to the Illinois Waterway system from the Great Lakes. The other is the Thomas J. O'Brien lock on the Calumet River.

Monday, November 5, 2018

November 5, 1915 -- Lorado Taft Receives Backing of Parks Commissioners

jbartholomew photo
November 5, 1915 –The South Park Commissioners issue a formal denial which attempts to counter a popular notion that they “had ‘thrown down’ Lorado Taft, the sculptor and were trying to induce Auguste Rodin, the noted French sculptor, to come to Chicago to beautify the Midway Plaisance.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, November 6, 1915]Charles Hutchinson, a member of the South Park Board, says, “Mr. Taft is to be given the opportunity now to do the biggest thing in his life.  It is his ‘Fountain of Time.’ Under his contract he is given ten years in which to perfect his working model, and for that model alone we have given him $50,000. He has been working three years on it.” It is expected that, when erected, the Taft’s monumental sculpture will cost over a quarter-million dollars.  The president of the South Park Board, John Barton Payne, is emphatic in his backing of Taft.  “There is not a word of truth in the gossip that the commissioners are negotiating with Rodin or ever thought of such a thing,” he says.  With the support of the commissioners, the project moved on and was finally completed in 1920.  The final work was only a small portion of the original scheme proposed for the Midway Plaisance.  According to the UCHICAGOArts website the original plan included a “Fountain of Creation” at the Midway’s east end in Jackson Park with a canal running the length of the Midway, “traversed by bridges and lines with avenues of commemorative sculptures.” [arts.uchicago.edu] The grand beaux arts scheme lost favor after World War I as “critics began to view the costly proposal as pedantic and anti-modern.”  In the end, even the 120-foot wide sculpture was compromised, finished in concrete instead of the marble that was originally proposed.  Still, it makes a heck of a statement as it stands on the west end of the Midway Plaisance. 


November 5, 1912 – In a public hearing before Colonel George A. Zinn, the army engineer in the city, the Patawatomi tribe formally protests the construction of a bridge at Michigan Avenue and the river.  Attorney W. E. Johnson asserts that the Patawatomi own a large portion of the south shore of Lake Michigan, saying, “The site of the proposed bridge the city is seeking the right to erect is outside of the domain of Illinois and Chicago.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, November 5, 1912] The head of the rivers and harbors committee of the Chicago Association of Commerce answers that the committee is not ready to file formal objections to the plan and delays the hearing until November 20.  A lot of water has gone under the bridge since the Potawatomi laid claim to this section of the city over a century ago as the above photo clearly shows.


November 5, 1998 – The architecture critic for the Chicago Tribune, Blair Kamin, prints the sixth of a series of articles on plans for Chicago’s lakefront, in which he takes Mayor Richard M. Daley to task for “shying away from the bold moves necessary to get the job done” when it comes to shaping the downtown lakefront.  In the article Kamin looks at three lakefront attractions and assesses the potential and the plans for each of them.  “Navy Pier,” Kamin writes “enables us to sample the carnival midway pleasures of urban life, yet it causes suburban-style pain, particularly through the traffic jams that result from funneling thousands of cars through already-busy Lake Shore Drive and narrow feeder streets.”  Turning south to Soldier Field, Kamin says, “Wouldn’t it be wiser to look at what Soldier Field and its environs could do for the lakefront 365 days a year, not just during the 10 regular season and exhibition games that the Bears play . . . whether the Bears leave or stay, Soldier Field can be transformed from a stadium in a parking lot to a stadium in a park.”  Then, moving to the east, Kamin takes up the issues surrounding Meigs Field.  “Meigs must go,” Kamin writes.  “To stand on this peninsula – to be removed from the clamor of the city and glimpse the stunning views it affords of the skyline and the south shoreline – is to realize that Meigs is an anachronism.”  What Kamin urges is something he calls “a new architecture of both landscape and public policy.”  He recommends appointing a “powerful lakefront commission that would coordinate the efforts of the dizzying array of agencies that control the lakefront, seeing to it that the more than $500 million in projects planned for the next 12 years – roads, buildings, and revetments – turn into an ensemble that is more than the sum of its parts.”