Monday, May 5, 2014

Chicago in the Week of May 5 - 11, 1902

Events of the Week of May 5-11 in 1902

May 5:  The tug Leslie is crippled and the schooner Jeanette smashed through on the port bow after a collision with the steamer J. W. Westcott at the Washington Street Bridge.

These days it’s just a bunch of tour boats mixed in with some pleasure boaters with enough kayakers to keep everyone on egg  but back in the early 1900’s time was money, and there was plenty of money to be made on the river.  In a duel that had been heating up since their entrance to the harbor, the Westcott attempted to cut off the Leslie at the Washington Street bridge.  Bad move.  “The Westcott stuck the piles protecting the bridge’s center pier, snapping several of them and sheering across the channel and against the tug.”  [Chicago Tribune, May 6, 1902]  The Jeanette, which was being towed by the Leslie, crashed into the stern of its tug, crushing its stern and breaking its rudder, forcing the crew to seek safety on shore, while the Westcott continued unscathed.  The Jeanette “was badly damaged below the water line.”

Approach to the Washington Street Bridge (Chicago Daily News Archive)
May 5:  An agreement is reached between the Illinois Central Railroad and the city for opening up beaches between Twelfth and Fifty-Sixth Street.

The prospect of bathing beaches for South Side residents looked far more positive as a result of the trip that Illinois Central Railroad officials took between Twelfth and Fifty-First Street on this date.  The party started out from the Illinois Central offices, taking a train to Twenty-Sixth Street.  From there the group walked to Forty-Seventh Street, a trek that prompted the decision to focus attention on the section of lakefront from Forty-Seventh to Fiftieth Street.  The best choice for a bathing beach was at Thirty-Ninth Street, where today there is still an awesome view of downtown Chicago.

39th Street and the Lake without railroad tracks today
(Bronzeville & Hyde Park Real Estate Blog-Chicago)
May 6:  Mayor Carter Harrison offers an opinion that the north end of Michigan Avenue should be lined with small shops.

“There would be millions for any company of men who would gradually buy the property abutting on that part of Michigan avenue, and construct buildings suitable for small stores on the street floor and office or light manufacturing on the upper floors,” Mayor Carter H. Harrison declares.  His comments stemmed from an admission that the city was unable to repair the asphalt path that led from the post office on (the site of today’s Federal Center between Adams and Jackson on the north and south and Dearborn and Clark on the east and west) to the Rush Street Bridge, the “only automobile and bicycle path connecting the South Side park and boulevard system with the Lake Shore drive and Lincoln Park.  “I am sorry to see that path go,” said the Mayor.  “it’s hard to be broke.” [Chicago Tribune, May 7, 1902]

Mayor Carter H. Harrison (Wikipedia)
May 6:  Heirs of the Friedman estate file suit to prevent all further work on the clubhouse of the Chicago Yacht Club.

A bill of complaint is presented before Judge Kohlsaat in an effort to gain an injunction that will compel the officials of the Chicago Yacht Club to remove its three-story frame building, nearing completion, at the foot of Monroe Street.  The suit alleges “that the defendant yacht club has attempted to evade the law by driving piles outside the breakwater, the contention being that this action of the club in effect is as subversive of the law that the Lake Front Park shall be forever free from buildings as if the structure were placed within the harbor.”  [Chicago Tribune, May 6, 1902] The other contention of the suit was that the clubhouse established a precedent and that once it was completed “there would be nothing to prevent other clubs or private individuals from erecting other buildings to the north and south of it, thus shutting off the view of the lake which was guaranteed to the property-owners of the lakefront.”  Attorney H. R. Platt stated, “The view is an absolute right which under the law of the State belongs to the property-owners.”

Looks like the thing got built (www.icoyc.org)
May 7:  The funeral of Potter Palmer takes place.

“With simple ceremonies the remains of Potter Palmer were laid to rest at noon.”  [Chicago Tribune, May 8, 1902]  Outside of the Palmer mansion at 100 Lake Shore Drive (today it’s 1350 where there are a couple of tall residential towers) the street was packed with people.  “None was refused entrance [to the mansion] who could show that he had come through motives other than curiosity.”  The Reverend James S. Stone, Rector of St. James’ Episcopal Church, read the service with a passage taken from the Fifteenth Chapter of Corinthians.  There was no sermon.  Everyone who was in the Potter home was allowed to file past the casket, and the ceremony was finished in less than an hour.  The procession then proceeded north to Graceland Cemetery where attendance was limited to immediate friends and close family.  The honorary pallbearers included:  Marshall Field, Robert T. Lincoln, Carter H. Harrison, J. Ogden Armour. Frank O. Lowden. H. G. Selfridge, James H. Eckels, Cyrus H. McCormick, Watson F. Blair and Otto Gresham.

The resting place of Potter Palmer in Graceland Cemetery (JWB Photo)

May 9:  After the steamer Yakima blocks the south branch for two days the Drainage Board orders every center pier bridge on that branch to be replaced with a bascule bridge.


When the Yakima managed to ground itself at the busiest section of the Chicago River, tempers fired and accusations flew.  The steamer was freed three separate times and managed to ground itself again with each release.  City officials ordered that the lock gates at Lockport be completely closed to provide more depth to the river to facilitate the operation  A Chicago and Northwestern locomotive was even provided to yank on the ship “but its efforts failed, its huge drivers whirling on the track when full steam was used . . .”  [Chicago Tribune, May  10, 1902]  The whole thing had been a fiasco with dozens of elevated trains stranded, traffic on the river at a standstill, and “150 persons . . . imprisoned in the middle of the river.”  It was the straw that broke the river camel’s back, and the Engineering Committee of the Drainage Board ordered that every center pier bridge in the South Branch of the Chicago River was to be replaced by a bascule bridge.  The Chief of Engineers was ordered “to make surveys and prepare plans for bascule bridges at every point on the South Branch for which provision has not already been made, and the Law department was directed to begin condemnation proceedings to acquire the land necessary for the bridges and by-passes.”


The Wells Street swing bridge (Chicago Daily News Archive)

Posted by Chicago Old and New at 7:15 PM 0 comments
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Saturday, May 3, 2014

Marina City Takes New York City -- May 3, 1960

Marina City Changes the Game (JWB Photo)
Something interesting was happening In New York City on this date, May 3, of 1960.  The President of the Building Services Employees International union, William McFetridge, was in town to address the delegates of the union’s twelfth annual convention.  Standing next to a scale model of the project that would become Marina City, Mr. Mcfetridge said, “We have every reason to believe we will make a go of this venture even though all the details haven’t been ironed out.”  [Chicago Tribune, May 4, 1960]

The day before Governor Nelson Rockefeller, who had invited Mr. McFetridge and the union to bring their bucks to New York City in order to undertake a project similar to the twin towers that would make up the Chicago project.  “And I wouldn’t mind at all if it proved to be bigger than Rockefeller center,” the governor said.  [Chicago Tribune, May 3, 1960]

Plans for Marina City had begun in the late 1950’s and were revealed in September of 1959 when Mr. McFetridge said that the project in Chicago would “be a pilot project in a national program of using union reserve funds to help insure the future of the downtown areas in major cities.”  [Chicago Tribune, September 15, 1959]  

Spurred by a twofold impetus, the fact that most of the 250,000 members of the Service Employees’ union depended on work in the cores of major cities and in Chicago, specifically, the beginning of a year-old plan for downtown redevelopment totaling $1,500,000,000, the Marina City project was hyped from the beginning.  

Marina City seen from the penthouse of its taller neighbor, Trump Tower (JWB Photo)
Back in 1959 the towers were projected to rise 40 stories, contain 1,500 apartments, provide space for 1,000 motor boats, 400 cars and have an auditorium that would seat 1,000 people.  Rent for an efficiency apartment was to be $125 a month with one-bedroom apartments going for $165 and two-bedroom units renting for $210.  The city’s Commissioner of Planning, Ira Bach, said at the announcement of the plans in 1959, “This building complex will serve as a strong anchor and stimulant to the redevelopment program for the central area.”

Two days later a Tribune editorial echoed Mr. Bach’s comments, “Marina City should be welcomed, not only because its 40 story towers will be a spectacular addition to the Chicago skyline, but because it should encourage similar developments on the near north side.  Downtown Chicago carries so much of the city’s tax load that its economic health is of great importance.”  [Chicago Tribune, September 17, 1959]

Plans begin to fall into place in December of 1959 as the Chicago Title and Trust company issued its five millionth title insurance policy for the block of real estate that the Building Service Employees International union had purchased from the Chicago and North Western railroad on the north bank of the river between State and Dearborn streets, most of “Block 1” in the original plat for the city.  [Chicago Tribune, December 23, 1959]

Just in front of the billboard in this 1944
photo is where Marina City would end up (the collection of Charles W. Cushman)
The railroad had owned the property for a century, and it was on this site that the log cabin of Dr. Alexander Wolcott, a government Indian agent, built  near the cabin of John Kinzie.  The price for the land on which Marina City stands today was pegged at three million dollars when the railroad unloaded it.

As plans were refined the original design for the project changed.  It grew taller – from 40 to 60 stories – making it the tallest housing structure in the world and the fourth highest building in Chicago.  The first five floors would be used for entrances, service facilities, and stores with the next 14 floors providing space for 900 cars.  There would be 256 efficiency units, 576 one- bedroom units, and 64 two-bedroom units.  There would be space available for 700 small pleasure boats.

These plans would also change as the design was refined.

In July of 1960 the financing for the project was in place.  In case of default he Federal Housing Administration committed to insuring the $17,819,100 mortgage for the residential portion of the 36 million dollar project.  This was the largest commitment issued by the F.H.A. up to that time.  Dovenmuehle Inc. issued a mortgage loan with a 39 years term at 5.25 percent interest.  A separate mortgage was secured on the commercial section of the project and the other half of the cost of the residential towers came from private sources, principally the Building Service Employees union.  [marinacityonline.com]

Mayor Daley exchanges a handshake with Cardinal Bernard Sheil at
the groundbreaking ceremony.  Bertrand Goldberg is the man with the big smile.
(marinacityonline.com)
The Groundbreaking ceremony took place on November 22, 1960 and included a phone call from the newly elected President of the United State, John F. Kennedy, who probably figured he owed Mayor Daley the courtesy of a chat after the closely contested election.

And the distinctive towers began to rise.  The construction was not without trouble.  Three workers were killed in September of 1961 in a 43-story fall in the collapse of part of a form that they were helping to raise.  In June of that year seven workers were injured when a construction hoist fell ten floors.  There were several small fires, including one in which butane tanks being used to dry new concrete exploded in the west tower stairwell.  Even the home of the building’s developer, Charles r. Sweibel, was robbed while the family was off boating.

Less than two years after the groundbreaking ceremony the first tenant moved into Apartment 2135 in the east tower.  Daniel Aguilar, 28-years-old, and his wife, Jo, were the first tenants in the highest residential building in the world, a building that began to redefine the way Chicagoans looked at the core of their city.   [Chicago Tribune, October 14, 1962]

In an essay that was published by the Museum of Science and Industry Marina City’s architect, Bertrand Goldberg, said, “in the Marina City forms. I made it possible for people to participate in community formation. Both in the use of space and in the form of space I discovered that behavior can be influenced by the shape of space. The faceless anonymity of the corporate box which we had used for the buildings for our government, our health, our education, our business and our living, I discovered could be replaced more effectively by a new development of architectural structure and forms that supported its use by people.”  [Goldberg, Bertrand.  “Rich is Right.”  March 4, 1986]


I like to think that Chicago is a people place, and Marina City is, if it is anything else, first and foremost a place for people, a place that provides those people with one of the most breath-taking views of the city that can be found.

Still impressive trend-setters (JWB Photo)

Posted by Chicago Old and New at 5:53 PM 3 comments
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Friday, May 2, 2014

Clark Street Bridge Smash-Up -- May 2, 1929

Clark Street Sandmaster-Blasted (Chicago Daily News archive)
Indignation aplenty on this date, May 2, in 1929 as The Chicago Tribune railed against the sand companies of the city and the boats they employed to ship sand for concrete into the city, the result of an accident two days earlier that saw the 251-foot-long sandboat Sandmaster smashing the heck out of the Clark Street bridge.

“The city council and the sand companies agree that this expensive and aggravating interruption of business is not unreasonable.  They unite in rejecting less burdensome methods of bringing building sand into the city.  It could be done by carriers which would not require bridge openings.  It could be done at hours when a bridge opening would be of no consequence.  A few sandboats have the right of way in the council and thousands of trucks, cars, and pedestrians rate nothing,” the paper editorialized.  [Chicago Tribune, May 2, 1929]

Captain Ava Smith, the skipper of the Sandmaster, stated, “It wasn’t my fault.  I had the port motor going full ahead and the starboard motor in reverse.  There was plenty of room to pass through but just before we got to the bridge, the tender must have swung it back about ten feet right into the ship.”  [Chicago Tribune, May 2,1929]

In 1929 a large number of river bridges still sat on turntables that were located in the middle of the river.  When boats approached, the bridges were swung so that they paralleled the shore, leaving close quarters for ships that had to pass on either side of the opened bridge on a very busy river.  

All Clark Street traffic, including a major north-south trolley car line, had to be rerouted after the accident.  If there was any positive to the situation, a new Clark Street bascule bridge had been started, and it had been the hope that the old bridge could be kept going until the new bridge was finished sometime later in the year.  That was not to be.  It was a mess, especially for the first couple of days when almost nothing could move up or down the main stem of the river.

Streetcar traffic on the Clark Street bridge, 1906 (Chicago Daily News archive)
On the same day that the editorial ran, the Sandmaster was freed from the wreckage of the bridge while the city council went to work.  Alderman William A. Rowan introduced a resolution to mandate fixed bridges on the river.  The Commissioner of Public Works was also ordered to pursue, pending a completion of his investigation, court action against the Materials Construction Company, the owner of the boat, as a result of the $50,000 worth of damage to the bridge and the blockage of the Clark Street entrance to the Loop.

The investigation moved ahead with speed. By May 9 a survey of the records had revealed that the Sandmaster had hit 13 bridges on the river in three years in 44 separate incidents.  “The Sandmaster’s bridge-ramming career began on May 21, 1926,” The Tribune reported, “when it struck a ladder at the Fullerton avenue bridge and ended, so far as the present records are concerned when it knocked the 600 ton Clark street bridge seven feet from its foundation last week.  [Chicago Tribune, May 9, 1929]

The Fullerton Avenue and the Diversey Boulevard spans were particularly unlucky.  The ship had rammed the former bridge 18 times and the latter 13 times.  The investigation also revealed that another six inches would have thrown the Clark Street Bridge, along with the six pedestrians standing on its turntable, into the river.

On the following day, May 10, the president of the Construction Materials company, J. R. Sensibar, responded to all of the criticism.  “The injuries to bridges were, in the main, trifling damages to wooden planks and ladders,” he said.  “They were caused by the carelessness of the city, not the carelessness of the boat’s captain.  The Sandmaster has made 1,300 trips on the river. The only two serious accidents were those at the Cortland Street bridge in January, 1927, and present damage to the Clark street bridge.”  [Chicago Tribune, May 10, 1929].
 
On May 12 Mr. Sensibar (I love the name – a cross between “sense” and “sand bar”) went into more detail, more lucid and far more illustrative of his legitimate cause for outrage at the fingers that were being pointed in his direction.

“The depth [of the river] is the cause of many of the accidents,” he began, “such as boats colliding with bridges and other boats.  We load the Sandmaster so it will draw 15 feet, and it goes along throwing up a ridge of mud on each side of it, thus keeping the river dredged to 14 or 15 feet . . . Because of the present depth, we load the Sandmaster with only 1,500 tons, whereas its capacity is 3,500 tons . . . if we were able to load to capacity, the number of bridge openings would be reduced by one-half.”

Originally, the United States government had dredged the river to a depth of 22 feet, but when the Chicago Sanitary District took over the operation, things gradually changed.  Over time the sewage that was dumped into the river had decreased its depth to 14 feet.

“It would be a saving of money to the city in the long run to restore the river to its proper depth and turn it back to the government,” Mr. Sensibar concluded.

A week later things had begun to grow really tense.  Traffic across the bridge, of course, was non-existent . . . because the bridge was non-existent.  Many businesses along the busy Clark Street corridor were facing extinction, store vacancies were occurring, and an appeal was made to the Commissioner of Public Works to ask the City Council for an additional $125,000 “to pay for overtime and other items necessary to place the new bridge in service for street cars and pedestrians by July 1.”  [Chicago Tribune, May 19, 1929]

A day later Captain Smith was placed on trial for reckless navigation before United States Steam Vessel Inspectors.  Electricians testified that one of the cables carrying power to the bridge had been broken for three hours before the accident.  The bridge tender said that the other cable failed when the bridge was opening.  Still, the city asserted that Captain Smith and the Sandmaster were far enough from the bridge to have reversed engines and avoided the crash.  [Chicago Tribune, May 21, 1929]

Well, you can guess how that worked out.  Captain Smith was found guilty of reckless navigation on May 29 and his master’s license was revoked for 30 days.  The verdict stated that the accident that knocked the 600-ton bridge turntable seven feet from its foundation “might have been avoided” and that Captain Smith’s statement that he was proceeding at four miles an hour against a two mile an hour current was “not to be taken seriously.”  [Chicago Tribune, May 19, 1929]

In an amazing display of engineering the new trunnion bascule bridge at Clark Street was opened in a formal dedication ceremony on July 10 of that same year.  The river kept on flowing, the bridge started going up and down, and all was well . . . for awhile.


Clark Street bridge house today (JWB Photo)
A lot of oversimplification takes place today about the Chicago River – not surprising since it has never looked as good as it does right now.  A lot of folks assume that the river was reversed in 1900, and everything was right and just.  But the love-hate relationship with the river continued through much of the twentieth century as cars, buses, elevated trains, and pedestrians were delayed by random bridge raisings and those who made their livelihood on the river cursed a city that had grown because of their efforts and yet always seemed ready to make things as difficult for them as it could.  And boats continued to crash into bridges and into each other.
Posted by Chicago Old and New at 5:43 PM 1 comments
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Thursday, May 1, 2014

Miami Herald Building Update

Back in the day when Hancock had no top (Google image)
Been good to know you . . . (Wikipedia photo)
Some time ago I wrote about the Miami Herald building and a push to protect it by providing it with some sort of historic designation.  At the time I compared the that challenge to the effort to save Bertrand Goldberg’s Prentice Women’s Hospital in Chicago through a similar strategy.  You can find that blog here.

Well, Prentice is just about gone now, the towers licked down to the base of the structure like a child’s ring pop.  And the other day the Miami Herald building, at least part of it, got itself blown up.  So it’s on the way out, too.

Beside the unfortunate demolition of the two buildings that links the two cities, there is another architectural tie-in.  The Miami Herald headquarters was designed along the same Mid-Century Modern lines that the Sun Times building brought to the Chicago River in 1958, the two buildings designed by the same firm, that of C. F. Murphy.  Look at the two side by side, and the pedigree shows.

The Sun Times building is gone now, kicked off the lot to make room for Trump Tower, which seems like a fair trade.  Maybe the extermination of the Miami Herald building will yield similar results.   It’s hard to argue against a $236 million dollar resort complex in ritzy-glitzy land.

Still it’s tough to see the thing blown up.  We might have accepted the building somewhere in Chicago if they had just asked. 


Here’sthe demolition footage . . .
Posted by Chicago Old and New at 5:50 PM 0 comments
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