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May 7, 1902 – Hundreds of people line Lake Shore Drive north of Oak Street to pay a final tribute to Potter Palmer. The Reverend James S. Stone, rector of St. James’ Episcopal Church, leads modest services inside the Palmer mansion. The honorary pallbearers are led by Marshall Field and Robert T. Lincoln. Active pallbearers include: Carter H. Harrison, J. Ogden Armour, Frank O. Lowden, H. G. Selfridge, James H. Eckels, Cyrus H. McCormick, Watson E. Blair, and Otto Gresham. Carriages line up on Schiller, entering the mansion’s yard through the north gate as Mrs. Palmer, accompanied by her sons, Potter Palmer, Jr. and Honoré, enter them for the ride to Graceland Cemetery. Large delegations from the Iroquois Club and the Hotel Men’s Association also are present.
May 6,1942 – Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Chick Evans, and Tommy Armour tee it up at the Edgewater Golf Club with the admission fees from the 3,500 spectators going to benefit the Fort Sheridan Athletic and Recreation Fund. The team of Crosby and Evans win the match, 2 up, both men shooting 36, one over par. Armour carded a 37 and Hope a 38. The round ends after nine holes as overzealous fans “crowded [the players] at every step, seeking autographs or at least a walking proximity to the two stars. Small boys scaled the Edgewater fences by the hundreds to follow Bing and Bob.” [Chicago Tribune, May 7, 1942] As a side note the 94-acre Edgewater Golf Club is now a part of the city’s Warren Park at 6601 N. Western Avenue. When the old golf course was re-zoned in 1968 to allow real estate development on the property, a grassroots effort to save the land as open space ensued. A third of the property became the first urban state park when Illinois purchased it for $8 million in 1969. The Chicago Park District condemned another 32 acres in 1972 and a new park, complete with a nine-hole golf course was opened in 1980. The golf course is dedicated to Robert A. Black, Chief Engineer to the Chicago Park District for more than 30 years. The layout of the old golf course is pictured above. An awesome history of the course and the politics involved in its transformation can be found here.
May 5, 1912 – Chief of Police John McWeeney gets down to business and tells his lieutenants to apply “drastic measures” to striking pressmen in the newspaper strike that began with workers striking against Hearst publications in Chicago on April 30, an action that spread to all of the other newspapers in the city. “The tactics of the strikers have been a disgrace to civilization,” said the Chief. His feeling was that 528 patrolmen were “none too many . . . in view of the unexpected brutality resorted to by the strikers.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, May 6, 1912] A female news vender had been attacked at the Fifty-First Street station of the “Alley ‘L’”. A newsboy at Thirty-Ninth Street had been beaten with a blackjack. Another newsboy was attacked at Clark and North Avenue, and a reporter for the Chicago Examiner was roughed up at Madison and Halsted. It would be a long time before the violence died down; the strike finally ended in November. Above the Chicago police make a show of force as the strike continues.
May 4, 1992 – University of Chicago trustees announce that the school has selected a site east of Michigan Avenue and north of the river, as home for its downtown Graduate School of Business. “This project reflects the university’s commitment to maintaining a substantial presence downtown, while also providing a state-of-the-art facility in which to train tomorrow’s business leaders,” says Hanna H. Gray, the U. of C. president. [Chicago Tribune, May 5, 1992] Lohan Associates, a Chicago architectural firm, will design the center, and McHugh Construction Company will be the general contractor. If you are on the river sometime, notice what an understated example the Gleacher Center is of contextual design. The tier of windows on the western third of the building’s south face relate beautifully to the Mid-Century Modern style of the 1965 structure at 401 North Michigan, Gleacher’s next door neighbor to the west. The tier of windows on the eastern two-thirds of the building relate equally well to the SOM’s 1989 Post-Modernist Art-Deco throwback NBC tower just to the east. Anyone not looking for it might well miss it, but this is contextual design that shines.
May 3, 1966 – Comedian Dick Gregory is fined $1,500 and sentenced to five months in the Cook County jail on charges related to a march through Grant Park nearly a year earlier. Five police officers testify during the trial that Gregory “kicked and hit arresting officers and had to be carried to a squadrol.” [Chicago Tribune, May 4, 1966] No witnesses are called to rebut the testimony. Gregory’s lawyer, Mrs. Jean Williams, says that the length of the jail sentence stems from the fact that “it would be expedient to have him [Gregory] out of circulation in the forthcoming election.” In addition to his civil rights activism Gregory was also running for mayor of Chicago. Four years later, on March 10, 1970, the United States Supreme Court struck down disorderly conduct sentences against Gregory and others who were involved in peaceful demonstrations in the city.
May 2, 1923 – The announcement is made that the American Furniture Mart building, currently under construction on Lake Shore Drive between Erie and Huron, will be the largest building in the world when it is completed. Lawrence Whiting of Whiting & Co., the agents for the property, discloses that a careful check has revealed that the Mart’s 1,500,000 square feet will exceed its nearest rival, the recently completed General Motors building in Detroit, which supports 1,321,000 square feet. Between 1979 and 1984 the massive building became one of the first great old buildings in the city to complete a successful program of adaptive reuse. Today it has 415 condominiums divided between three separate condominium associations and 420,000 square feet of office space, dedicated primarily to medical offices associated with the extensive Northwestern medical facilities that form a large part of the neighborhood to the west.
May 1, 1970 -- Chicago rolls out the red carpet for the astronauts of Apollo 13, and a half-million people come to cheer James A. Lovell, Jr. and John L. Swigert, despite 25 m.p.h. winds that gust to 47 m.p.h. Astronaut Fred W. Haise, Jr. is unable to attend because of a kidney ailment. The celebration starts at Michigan and Ohio where the parade kicks off. At the Michigan Avenue bridge a Chicago fire boat sends up sprays of water and fireworks are set off. There is a half-hour ceremony at the Daley Center at which Governor Ogilvie, Senator Charles Percy, and Senator Ralph Tyler Smith speak. Following the public reception, an official luncheon is held at the Palmer House, attended by 800 city officials. From there Lovell and Swigert report to Orchestra Hall for a question and answer session with 2,500 high school students. As they leave for O'Hare, Lovell observes, "Chicago has always been a very friendly, warm, open city, and the welcome we received today was typical. Today really typified Chicago -- a big, friendly, windy city."
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