Saturday, September 15, 2018

September 15, 1976 -- Mondale Attacks Ford in Midway Speech

wsj.com
September 15, 1976 –Democratic Vice-Presidential candidate Walter Mondale, speaking to reporters at Midway Airport, says that President Gerald Ford’s record “belies and puts a falsehood to everything he says he’s now for.” [Chicago Tribune, September 16, 1976] Using notes that he had jotted down during his flight to Chicago, Mondale attacks Ford on four fronts.  In the area of health care, Mondale says that the President has made no proposal for a health-care program affordable for most Americans.  In education he asserts that the federal oversight of education under Ford “is the worst in 40 years.” Mondale finds that “The record is absolutely miserable,” showing that 2.5 million Americans have lost their jobs since Ford took office. He also finds that the Ford administration is responsible for high interest rates that make affordable housing so difficult to find.  “Their record couldn’t be worse on all of their objectives,” the Democratic candidate states.  “I think it’s clear that on the issues he has raised, he has a miserable performance record. And if trust must be earned, he doesn’t deserve the trust of the American people.” The election went down to the wire, but the Carter-Mondale ticket pulled out a narrow victory.  If 3,687 votes had been switched in Hawaii and 5,559 votes in Ohio had been switched from Carter to Ford, the incumbent would have been victorious.


September 15, 1966 – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. reveals a plan to target downtown stores in Chicago in an effort to create jobs for African Americans in the city.  Speaking to a rally of 500 in the Greater Mount Hope Baptist Church at 6034 Princeton Avenue, Dr. King says, “I’m going to march straight up Michigan avenue and straight up State street and organize every store in the city.”  [Chicago Tribune, September 16, 1966] The next day, he reveals, pickets will demonstrate in front of the Saks Fifth Avenue store on Michigan Avenue.  In his address Dr. King also criticizes Senator Everett Dirksen for his opposition to the civil rights bill.


September 15, 1961 – Three carpenters fall 43 stories to their deaths as a scaffold on which they are being lifted separates from the hoisting hook inside the core of the east tower of Marina City, under construction north of the river on State Street.  Mike Einsele, a worker inside the core, says, ‘We were raising forms inside the core and I was about five feet above them.  They were standing on the scaffolding, and I guess a cable slipped.  I heard a loud noise and I turned around to look.  The bodies bounced crazily, hitting one obstruction after another, until they hit the bottom.  I heard the thuds when they hit and I got sick.  I got out of there then.”  [Chicago Tribune, September 16, 1961]  Another worker, Will Bridges, who was working ten stories below the scaffold and who had just stepped out of the way to get a drink of water, says “Everyone inside the core heard them fall.”  Speculation about the cause suggests that the heavy forms on the scaffold that were being hoisted for the next phase of concrete work jammed against the wall of the core and twisted the hoisting hook enough so that the scaffold fell away.
Posted by Chicago Old and New at 2:30 AM 0 comments
Labels: , ,

Friday, September 14, 2018

September 14, 1908 -- Garland Court Okayed for Trolley Tracks


September 14, 1908 –Work begins on the laying of trolley track in Garland Court on the west side of the Chicago Public Library. Elaborate preparations have been made for the project, which will ultimately allow the removal of the tracks of the City Railway on Michigan Avenue and on Madison Street..  The City Railway has agreed to pay the expenses for changes in the public library building that are required because of the railway that will pass adjacent to it.  These alterations to the building will be completed according to plans prepared by Shepley, Rutan and Coolidge, the original architects of the structure. The above streetcar on Randolph is making the turn onto Garland Court on the west side of the Chicago Public Library, today's cultural center.


September 14, 1934 – United States marshals seize the excursion boat Florida at its dock east of Michigan Avenue, pending a court hearing and settlement of the claims of 21 crew members for $2,000 in back pay. The Florida has a fascinating history, as it turns out.  As far as I have been able to determine the boat is still taking up space at the bottom of the river just east of Goose Island, opposite the north end of 600 West Chicago, the old Montgomery Ward's warehouse building.  What eventually became the S. S. Florida was originally the City of Mackinac, built in 1882 as a side-wheeled cruise boat on Lake Michigan.  The latter part of its service was spent providing lakefront excursions to the 1933 Century of Progress.  In the mid-1930's it was sold to a scrapper at which time its upper decks were removed, its engines stripped, part of a conversion into a barge.  The Columbia Yacht Club bought the vessel in 1937 to serve as its club house.  On Friday, May 13, 1955 a galley fire caused the ship to sink at its dock.  Members raised the funds and raised the ship, which was used until 1982 when the club acquired the former Canadian ferry, the Abegweit, as its new base of operations.  A trucking magnate, Joe Salon, bought the ship in 1985, renaming it the Showboat Sari-S II, using his daughter's name in its new appellation, and moved it to the river a few blocks north of Ontario Street, before selling it.  The Showboat Sari-S II might be confused with another paddle-wheel steamboat that Salon ran as a restaurant, beginning in 1962.  They are two different vessels.  The last reference to the boat that I can find is in the "Metropolitan" section of the Chicago Tribune on August 28, 1992.  This brief item reports, "The U. S. Army Corps of Engineers has ordered the owner of a 215-foot boat that sank last month in a little-used part of the North Branch of the Chicago River to remove the vessel or face legal action . . . The owner of the vessel was ordered to install markers around the boat until it is removed.  The vessel sank in 16 feet of water on the east side of Goose Island just north of Chicago Avenue, said Lt. Col. David Reed, commander of the Corps District . . . Only the cabin portion is now above water, and the sunken craft obstructs about half of the navigational channel, Reed said."  Looking at a relatively recent Google Earth scan (judging by the look of the cars in the parking lot on the east side of the river), it looks like the hulk is still there. In the space where you might expect it to be found there are still buoys that warn boats using the slip to avoid that section of the river.   I can't find any reference to an attempt to raise the ship.  The last reference to her is that only the pilot house was showing.  My best guess is the whole thing just rotted away and sits submerged with a couple of feet of water covering it.  Kind of a sad story of a once proud vessel that was very much a part of the city's history. The photo above shows the boat when she was the clubhouse for the Columbia Yacht Club.  The second photo shows what I think is the boat today. 


September 14, 1939 – The Chicago Housing Authority is notified that its application for $7,719,000 of Public Works administration funding for the construction of a public housing complex has been approved.  This will be the fifth federal housing project in the city, following the Jane Addams houses, Julia Lathrop homes, Trumbull Park apartments, and the Ida B. Wells project that is under construction at Vincennes Avenue and Pershing Road.  Although the location is not disclosed so as to forestall real estate speculation, it is most likely that the new project will be near the Jane Addams homes and will comprise the Robert Brooks Homes with 835 row houses.  Elizabeth Wood, executive secretary of the Chicago Housing authority, says, “We will definitely be in competition with the lowest slum area houses.  We particularly want to afford accommodations for those families who now live in $15 a month flats.”  [Chicago Daily Tribune, September 15, 1939]  
Posted by Chicago Old and New at 2:30 AM 1 comments
Labels: , , ,

Thursday, September 13, 2018

September 13, 1940 -- Wendell Wilkie Makes the Chicago Rounds

gettyimages.com
September 13, 1940 –Wendell L. Wilkie, the Republican candidate for President, tours nearly 50 miles through the city and its industrial areas, giving four speeches to Chicago workers.  The candidate says that “he had never been so thrilled in his life as when he stood before thousands of workers and urged them to forsake the New Deal and come into his crusade for a productive, united and strong America, one with real jobs instead of promises.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, September 14, 1940]Citizens line the curbs of many of the streets through which Wilkie’s motorcade passes, and LaSalle Street is “thick with confetti and streamers.” The largest gatherings of the long day are at the Western Electric plant in Cicero and at a baseball park at Thirty-Ninth Street and Wentworth Avenue where 15,000 people crowd together to see him. The loudest applause comes when Wilkie promises “never to send American boys to fight in the trenches of Europe.” On his way back from his address in Cicero, Wilkie stops for a sandwich at a lunch counter at 4714 Cermak Road. At the end of the busy day he retires to the Stevens Hotel where he confers with political leaders.


September 13, 1908 – The Chicago Daily Tribune announces the intention of the Peoples Gaslight and Coke Company to build the “highest building of its kind” [Chicago Daily Tribune, September 13, 1908] at the corner of Michigan Avenue and Adams Street.  Fronting 196 feet on Michigan Avenue and 171 feet on Adams Street, the structure’s cost is anticipated to surpass $3 million with 1,500 offices located within the D. H. Burnham and Co. design.  The outer walls of the first three stories will be of granite.  Above that the walls will be of terra cotta “without the glossy effect, as in the Railway Exchange building.”  The new tower will be constructed in two sections, with the north section of the 20-story building finished first, followed by the section at the corner of Adams Street and Michigan Avenue.  The second half of the building is seen nearing completion in the above photo. 


September 13, 1977 – The Commission on Chicago Historical and Architectural Landmarks sends a proposal to the Chicago Planning Commissioner, Lewis W. Hill, recommending that the South Shore Country Club be designated a landmark.  This is the best hope for saving the club, designed by Benjamin Marshall and Charles Fox and opened in 1905.  The club has been threatened since the Chicago Park District bought the property in late 1974 for $9,775,000 with plans to tear down the old clubhouse and replace it with a new cultural center.   At the same meeting the commission sets dates for similar hearings to determine whether or not landmark status will be recommended for the Old Colony Building, the Fisher Building, and the Manhattan Building, three buildings that stand next to each other on the east side of Dearborn Street. 
Posted by Chicago Old and New at 2:30 AM 0 comments
Labels: , ,

Wednesday, September 12, 2018

September 12, 2006 -- FBI Headquarters Dedicated


September 12, 2006 –Although the FBI will not be moving into its new ten-story, 350,000-square-foot office building until the spring of 2007, the building is still officially opened on a rainy day as a color guard, speechifying officials, and the girls’ choir from Neuqua Valley High School contribute to the festivities.  The new $125 million headquarters at 2111 West Roosevelt Road will feature state-of-the-art facilities for processing evidence and for training the 350 agents who will eventually work there.  It is a huge improvement over the old Chicago headquarters in the Dirksen Courthouse on Dearborn Street.  “I am told it was not unusual for the temperature to change from ice age to global warming in a matter of minutes,” says FBI Director Robert Mueller in his address to hundreds of officials and guests at the dedication. He added, “Like this new building, today’s FBI is stronger, today’s FBI is more flexible and today’s FBI is more modern.”[Chicago Tribune, September 13, 2006]. Today the headquarters building is the world's first LEED for Exiting Buildings: Operation and Maintenance project to earn a Platinum level of certification.


September 12, 1915 – James A. Pugh takes his 40-foot hydroplane Disturber IV and skims it across the lakefront at over 60 miles per hour.  Off the Grant Park shore Pugh makes six runs over a half-mile stretch of the lake.  According to the Chicago Daily Tribune, “Distruber IV’s twenty-four cylinder 1,800 horse power Dusenberg motors ran as smoothly as the movement of a Swiss watch.  The roar of the heavy exhausts could be heard on Michigan avenue and brought thousands of spectators, who lined the shore of Grant park and watched the spectacular flights of ‘Dynamite Jim’ and his two mechanics.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, September 13, 1915] In the above photo Disturber IV is launched in the Chicago River in July of 1914.


September 12, 1973 – The Hyatt Regency, the first new major downtown hotel in Chicago in more than 20 years, is topped out as Mayor Richard J. Daley attends the ceremonies on Wacker Drive.  Hoisted into place at the top of the new hotel is a piece of limestone, signed by Mayor Daley and Jay Pritzker, chairman of the Hyatt Corporation, that has been salvaged from an old Illinois Central Railroad warehouse that stood on the site for over a hundred years, a structure that served as a shelter for thousands of Chicago citizens who were trapped in the Chicago Fire of 1871.  The hotel also stands on the spot where Captain Nathan Heald, the commander of Fort Dearborn, ordered the fort’s whiskey supply dumped in the water on August 13, 1812, an action that may have been the chief provocation for the attack that two days later led to the death of 63 soldiers and settlers.  [Chicago Tribune, September 13, 1973]
Posted by Chicago Old and New at 2:30 AM 0 comments
Labels: , ,

Tuesday, September 11, 2018

September 11, 1981 -- Chicago River Compared to "Venomous Snake"


September 11, 1981 –Under the heading, “Chicago’s river worse than it looks,” the Chicago Tribune’slead reports, “The Chicago River is so heavily polluted with chemical poisons in some places that the river bottom is classified as ‘hazardous waste.’” [Chicago Tribune, September 11, 1981]The article goes on to report that the United States Army Corps of Engineers, while sampling the river bottom preparatory to dredging the river, has discovered that “the mud and muck are tainted with chemicals that are just waiting to be stirred up, like a venomous snake coiled to strike.”  As a result, the Corps has delayed the dredging operation. The problem is the worst on the North Branch of the river where concentrations of PCB were found as high as 110 parts per million.  Any concentration over 50 parts per million is considered hazardous waste.  Rick Watson, an environmental engineer with the Corps, says, “We can’t dredge because we don’t have a disposal area that is environmentally acceptable … River quality depends on river use. If it is used by heavy industry and boat traffic, you will get only a certain quality. It is unreasonable to expect it to return to natural state.  That’s the price of civilization.” 


September 11, 1963 – The city council “after more than three hours of heated debate” [Chicago Tribune, September 13, 1963] passes an open housing ordinance by a vote of 30 to 16.  The ordinance bans discrimination by real estate agents, prohibiting them “from discriminating in the sale, rental, or leasing of property of race, color, religion, national origin, or ancestry.”  A “block busting” section of the ordinance makes it unlawful to “solicit for sale, lease or listing any property on the contention that loss of property value may result because of entry into the area of persons of another race, color, religion, national origin or ancestry.” The Chicago Real Estate board goes on record as saying it will take the issue to the courts. The board’s president, Percy Wagner, says, “We’re going to proceed legally but firmly. The time has come when we shall have to take a position of political action. This does not mean we will take political sides, but we will do all we can to protect property rights.”  Shortly before the vote Third Ward alderman Ralph Metcalfe says before the council, “This ordinance … means that people who have the means and good will can move where they want to.  This is a first step.  It is not the ultimate.  The world will not come to an end.  But Chicago today is at the crossroads, and we must support something that is morally right or go backward.”  Outside City Hall thousands of people march against the ordinance.  “The throng,” reports the Tribune, “composed mostly of housewives, formed close lines four and six abreast and encircled the building in a moving, chanting surge.  They waved their placards bearing such slogans as ‘What has happened to our constitutional rights?’ and “We are opposed to open occupancy.’”  Alderman Metcalfe, the winner of four Olympic gold medals and the fastest man on earth in 1934 and 1935, is pictured above.


September 11, 1954 – Three years after the two 26-floor residential buildings at 860 and 880 Lake Shore Drive are completed, the developers, Herbert S. Greenwald and Samuel N. Katzin, reveal that they have acquired the block just north of those towers, a lot bordered by Lake Shore Drive, Walton Street, DeWitt Place, and Delaware Place.   The Chicago Tribune reports that the next project will be similar to the twin towers just to the south although “the new structures will be more conservative in use of wall materials than the ‘860’ towers.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, September 12, 1954]
Posted by Chicago Old and New at 2:30 AM 0 comments
Labels: ,

Monday, September 10, 2018

September. 10, 1924 -- Soldier Field Opens with a Pageant of Festival and Light


September 10, 1924 –A magic evening takes place on the lakefront as 3,000 children carrying lanterns march into the Grant Park stadium, today’s Soldier Field, in a “preliminary dedication”. [Chicago Daily Tribune, September 11, 1924] Despite a light rain the Pageant of Music and Light has spectators cheering “as the army of girls and boys marched into the arena and scattered about to form [a] sparkling wheel.”  A mixed mass chorus under the direction of William Boeppler rolls thorugh “The Heavens Declare,” following the song with a rendition of “Beautiful Savior” and the “Hallelujah Chorus” from Handel’s Messiah. A children’s choir of a thousand voices than takes over, led by Hans Biedermann.  The program concludes with the Civic Band of Chicago leading the crowd in “America.”  The official opening day for the massive stadium would occur a month later, on October 9, the Fifty-Third anniversary of the Chicago Fire. The first event held in the new sports arena was a police track meet that featured a thousand athletes from the police department, drawing 90,000 spectators.  At the urging of the city’s Gold Star Mothers the Municipal Grant Park Stadium was officially renamed Soldier Field on November 11, 1925.


September 10, 1948 – Mayor Martin H. Kennelly gives approval to a proposal submitted to the city council, requiring that city officials and employees be required to sign non-Communist affidavits or face dismissal.  The proposal, sponsored by Forty-Fourth Ward alderman John C. Burmeister, also mandates a “loyalty committee” of three to five aldermen appointed by the mayor.  The mayor says, “I think it’s all right. We don’t know who we have working for us.”  The mayor is pictured in the above photo.


September 10, 1954 – The state civil defense director, Robert M. Woodward, graces Chicago with some upbeat news when he announces that a hydrogen bomb dropped at Madison Street and Kedzie Avenues between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. would cause 3,030,096 deaths and 1,382,421 injuries.  With an evacuation window of 15 minutes there would still be 1,876,227 deaths and 844,013 injuries.  For those wondering why we folks in our sixties and seventies sometimes act so strangely, it might be good to remember that we grew up with regular updates like this instead of the latest updates on Pokémon Go.
Posted by Chicago Old and New at 2:30 AM 0 comments
Labels: , ,

Sunday, September 9, 2018

September 9, 1917 -- St. Clement Cornerstone Placed in Northside Ceremony


September 9, 1917 –The cornerstone of the Church of St. Clement at Deming Place and Orchard Street takes place at 3:30 p.m. in a ceremony at which Cardinal George Mundelein presides.  The Reverend John Webster Melody of St. Jariath’s church delivers the principal address of the afternoon, which stresses that in the national crisis brought on by the war in Europe “liberty and democracy mean greater national opportunity and are best served by spiritual means.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, September 10, 1917]After the service a parade of 2,000 men and boys moves past over 8,000 people, most of them members of the congregation. The church was designed by architect George D. Barnett in the Byzantine-Italian Romanesque Revival style, influenced by the architect’s design of the Cathedral Basilica in St. Louis and the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul.[openhousechicago.org]. In 2018 a SMNG A project to develop a new entrance to the church and parish center rectory buildings was awarded a Chicago Small Project Award by the American Association of Architects.


September 9, 1935 – A proposal to extend Wacker Drive from where it ends at Michigan Avenue by building a road east to the point where it is expected to join the new outer drive bridge is brought up in the City Council.  The estimated cost of the project, which will allow traffic from the west side of the Loop to reach the outer drive, is $1,700,000.  When the ordinance is read, Twenty-Fifth Ward Alderman James B. Bowler asks that consideration also be given to the extension of Wacker Drive along the south branch of the river from its present end at Madison Street to Roosevelt or Cermak Roads “in order to provide a connecting link with whatever superhighways might be constructed in the future to serve the west side.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, September 10, 1935] As it turned out, the extension of Wacker Drive to Lake Shore Drive was not completed until 1975, 40 years after the city council considered the resolution in 1935.  Even in the City that Works change can take a long, long time.  The above photo shows the completion of work on the Wacker Drive extension in 1975.  At that time it linked up with the old "S" curve south of the Lake Shore Drive bridge across the river.


September 9, 1975 – The trustees of the Art Institute of Chicago announce that no new students will be admitted to the Goodman School of Drama and the final class will graduate in the spring of 1978.  The chairman of the Goodman Theater committee, Stanley M. Freehling, says that it costs the Art Institute $200,000 a year to maintain a school of 25 faculty members for students who pay an average annual tuition of $1,950.  It is stated that the decision concerning the school will not affect the professional theater at the Goodman or future seasons on its main stage.  The school moved to DePaul University in 1977, and the following year the Goodman Theater separated officially from the Art Institute and now functions as the nonprofit Chicago Theatre Group, Inc.
Posted by Chicago Old and New at 2:30 AM 0 comments
Labels: ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)