Connecting the Windy City

Monday, January 28, 2019

January 28, 1961 -- Hubbard Street Fire Kills Nine Firefighters

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January 28, 1961 – Nine firefighters die while battling a fire at the Hilker and Bletsch Company, 614 West Hubbard Street.  The fire starts in the upper floors of the seven-story building and burns for some time before nearby railroad workers spot the flames.  The first alarm is sounded at 6:23 a.m., and within 20 minutes the alarm is raised to a 5-11, followed by a special alarm.  This brings over 300 firefighters, 67 pieces of equipment, four ambulances and three rescue squads to the scene.  Two fireboats stand by on the river, pumping water directly to the fire scene.  Battalion Chief George Kuhn leads a few firefighters to the top of an adjacent two-story building that holds one-gallon containers for packaging food in an attempt to run a hose into the warehouse.  Without warning the warehouse wall closest to their position collapses, burying Kuhn and those who are with him.  Firefighters race to free the trapped men, but before they have a chance to dig into the debris, the roof of the two-story building collapses, trapping a number of them.  The weather, with temperatures that stand near zero, makes a dire situation nearly impossible as water quickly freezes, and fire apparatus becomes immovable as it is frozen in place.  Fire Commissioner Robert Quinn leads men in a desperate attempt to extricate those trapped in a burning jumble of debris, but the effort is in vain.  It is not until late afternoon that the last man is found.  At a memorial service held in the City Council chambers a few days later, the city officially mourns the lives of the nine men who died in the line of duty.  Fire Commissioner Quinn says, “We here are greatly saddened by the loss.  Two men, one a veteran battalion chief, the other a candidate fireman of seven months, following normal fire fighting practices, went into a building next to a fire building to see if the fire could be kept out of the building. Without warning a portion of wall fell and cut their means of escape.  Seven other members of the department, realizing that the two men could be saved if they could force open a metal door, ran to the door and began to break it open.  As they toiled to free their comrades, the entire seven-story structure came down, ending their heroic efforts.  Where, but in the fire service, will you find such bravery?”  [fireengineering.com, April 1961]  The men who lost their lives on that freezing January morning included: Chief George E. Kuhn of the Fifth battalion, a fireman since 1929; Chief George R. Rees, of the First Battalion, a fireman since 1943; Lieutenant Louis Repkin of Truck 19, a fireman since 1949; Fireman Stanley M. Sliwinski of Engine Company 26, a fireman since 1959; Fireman Robert E. Burns, a rookie since June of 1960; Fireman Hilliard Augustine of Rescue Squad 10, a fireman since 1954; Fireman William E. Hillistad of Engine Company 44, a fireman for two years; and Fireman Ciro Zuccarello of Engine Company 26, a fireman since 1955.

January 28, 1994 – Continental Bank Corporation announces that it has agreed to join BankAmerica Corporation in a deal valued at $1.9 billion.  Continental, a banking presence in Chicago for 137 years, occupied space in the Rookery Building before it moved into its own building just north of the Board of Trade on LaSalle Street.  With Contiental’s $22.6 billion in assets, BankAmerica will become the second largest bank in the United States, just short of the assets of New York-based Citibank.  Richard Rosenberg, BankAmerica chairman and chief executive says of the merger, “There is a superb fit between the two organizations.  We complement each other remarkably well in terms of business lines, balance sheets, and geographic presence.”

January 28, 1929 – Two hundred passengers are shaken up, and forty-two are injured as a Rock Island commuter train crashes through the bumper at the La Salle Street station, the second serious train accident of the week.  Four days earlier a passenger died and 39 others were injured when two Chicago and Northwestern passenger trains collided near Lake Street.  In the Rock Island crash the vice-president of the railroad blames the cause of the accident on the engineer’s failure to have his train, made up of seven steel coaches, under control as it entered the station.  The engineer, J. Boyd, maintains that fog and steam inside the train shed clouded his view and that the wheels of the train slipped on the tracks as he applied the brakes.   

January 28, 1901 -- WARNING . . . This one is not for the faint of heart, but it does demonstrate that in the days before O.S.H.A. danger was constantly lurking and peril was always at hand. It happened that Dr. B. L. Reise was administering vaccinations to women at the Young Woman's Christian Association Building on Michigan Avenue. Miss Stella Thomas of Burlington, Iowa, seeing that she would have to wait for some time because of the length of the line, headed for her room. There is speculation that the sight of the injections was disquieting to her, and as the elevator approached the fifth floor, Miss Thomas fainted and fell to the floor of the car in such a way that her head extended through the grate of the elevator's door and was caught between the bottom of the elevator car and the lower portion of the fifth floor. Miss Thomas, who had come to Chicago just three weeks earlier to enter the Sherwood Musical College in the Fine Arts Building, died within minutes. The second building from the middle left (next to the mansion on the corner) in the 1901 photo above is the YWCA building where the accident occurred.

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Labels: 1961, Chicago RIver, Fires

Sunday, January 27, 2019

January 27, 1963 -- St. Joseph Hospital Passes Million Dollar Mark

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January 27, 1963 – The Chicago Tribune reports that the General Chairman of the St. Joseph Hospital building fund drive, John Sexton, has the first million dollars in pledges for the new $22 million hospital that is being built at 2900 Lake Shore Drive.  Ground was broken for the new St. Joseph in 1961, and it is expected that the 492-bed facility will be completed by December, 1963. The hospital will be 13 stories high and its “Y” shape will allow 85 percent of its rooms to face either Lincoln Park or Lake Michigan.  The new facility will replace the old St. Joseph Hospital, located at 2100 North Burling Street, which is largely antiquated.  One of its two wings is 90 years old while the more recent addition is nearly a half-century old.  The origin of St. Joseph Hospital goes all the way back to 1868 when three Daughters of Charity establish Providence Hospital in a two-story cottage at the corner of what is now Clark Street and Diversey Avenue.  [presencehealth.org] In 1871 the Daughters of Charity built a new hospital at what is now Burling Street and Dickens Street.  The Great Fire of 1871 spared the facility, and it served as shelter for many victims of the fire.  That same year the hospital was the first in the city to open a psychiatry unit.  In 1893 the Saint Joseph School of Nursing, affiliated with DePaul University opened and by the time of its closing in 1964, 1,504 nurses had graduated from the school.  Today the hospital is a part of Presence Health, the largest Catholic health care organization in Illinois.  The black and white photo shows the hospital under construction in the early 1960's.

January 27, 1916 – Mrs. Lois Dunning, the president of the Three Arts Club, passes judgment on a Claude Monet painting that hangs among French and Belgian works drawn from the Panama-Pacific exhibition of 1915, a collection on display at the Art Institute of Chicago.  The Monet painting, “Vetheuil,” priced at $9,000, draws the attention of Dunning as she leads 200 women “gathered to hear her discourse on art.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, January 28, 1916] “Now look at this thing,” Dunning begins.  “A 10 year old could have painted it.  I don’t know whether the artist meant the lavender foreground for a bog, a stream, or a level bit of ground.  It’s awful.  It’s one of the worst things in the gallery.”  The tour continues as Dunning points to a painting by Pierre Carrier-Belleuse, “The Ballet Slipper.” The artist, Dunning declares, “ought to have known better than to have had the girl’s dress up to her knees.  You don’t see such beastly things in American art … we don’t want to see women’s faces brutalized.  That’s what this new school of art does.  It’s a far cry from that art of long ago when flesh was painted so delicately that it looks as if one might pinch it.” 

January 27, 1929 – The Chicago Motor Club opens its new 17-story headquarters at 66 East South Water Street, inviting members of the public to inspect the gleaming interior of this new Art Moderne masterpiece.  The structure is a testament to the marriage of design and the labor necessary to bring the design into reality.  It is the first office building in the city to “embody the ‘art moderne’ theme,” [Chicago Daily Tribune, January 27, 1929] for one thing.  It is impressive that the building was completed in just 234 days, a period that included the razing of the building that originally stood on the site.  The touring bureau for the club occupies the first floor of the tower, a site that reaches 30 feet in height and has no columns or posts.  The artwork is particularly impressive.  The Tribune offers this description, “The east wall is marked by three large windows, extending from floor to ceiling.   On the west wall is painted a map of the United States.  It was executed in modernistic style by John Norton, widely known Chicago mural decorator.  The size is nineteen by twenty-nine feet.   On it are portrayed nineteen transcontinental highways, together with the various mountain ranges and national parks.” The Chicago Motor Club moved its headquarters to Des Plaines in 1986, and the building on South Water Street closed in 2004.  In 2013 MB Real Estate led an effort to convert the unused tower to hotel space, paying about $9.5 million for the building and overseeing its rebirth as a Hampton Inn. 

January 27, 1901 -- The Chicago Daily Tribune reports that there are only five wolves left within Chicago's limits where once there were thousands. When the great herds of bison on the Great Plains were slaughtered almost to extinction, the wolves that depended on them suffered as well, often turning to the herds of domestic cattle for sustenance. That, of course, only hastened their already tenuous existence as they were hunted ruthlessly with a good gray hide bringing $5 or more. "In America," the paper wrote, "no one renews the game supply and evybody seeks to destroy, blindly, selfishly, unreasoningly . . . There is no other country of equal enlightenment with this which allows its wild game, the property of the whole people, to be stolen for the individual profit of a few." The 1903 photo above shows one of the five wolves in Chicago on display at the Lincoln Park Zoo.

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Labels: 1963, Chicago Events, Chicago Places, Lake Shore Drive

Saturday, January 26, 2019

January 26, 1993 -- State Street to Be Liberated from Mall

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January 26, 1993 – Mayor Richard M. Daley announces a $30 million plan for State Street that would reopen it for traffic, an acknowledgement that turning the street into a pedestrian mall 14 years earlier was an ill-conceived idea.  A 100-page report that spells out the way in which future development will take place on the street has a central idea at its core, “State Street is making a comeback as the heart of a mixed-use district, with cultural and educational institutions, entertainment and educational institutions, entertainment center and office buildings complementing the retail core.” [Chicago Tribune, January 26, 1993]  At a time when suburban malls beckoned shoppers with acres of parking space and North Michigan Avenue blossomed into an upscale shopping destination, the State Street mall had the effect of “isolating State Street from the rest of the Loop,” as Daley says at a meeting of the Greater State Street Council. Therefore, the idea is to recognize the changes that have taken place and to build on the southern anchor of State Street – the new Harold Washington Library and the expansion of DePaul University into the former Goldblatt’s department store.  Traffic will be brought back to the street, curbs will be straightened, sidewalks narrowed to 36 feet or less, new streetlights installed and trees and shrubs planted.  There is even talk of a light-rail system running along the street. Today State Street has indeed come back.. It’s a far different place than it was 25 years ago, but a mix of college students, residents in new and re-purposed high-rises, and office workers has ensured that State Street is still that Great Street.  The above photo shows the opening of the State Street Mall on October 29, 1979.

January 26, 1923 – A Chicago Daily Tribune editorial strongly supports replacement of movable bridges in the city with permanent “fixed” bridges.  “So long as we allow dredges, tugs, freighters, and other craft to steam through the heart of the city,” the editorial begins, “blocking main streams of traffic at every street which they cross, we will allow an unnecessary handicap to be imposed upon our growth, prosperity, and comfort.  That is not wise city building.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, January 26, 1923] Replacing the movable bridges could be devastating to owners of elevators, lumber yards, and other freight concerns with valuable property along the river, the editorial concedes, but for the benefit of the entire city, the editorial goes on to add, it would be worth it to condemn the property in question and pay for the owners a fair rate.  “The general welfare of the city is more important than any fancied rights, based upon custom, of these property owners,” the editorial states.  “Probably it would not only pay the city through stimulation of growth and easier circulation of traffic but would return cash dividends through greatly reduced expenditures for bridge construction, operation, and maintenance.”  The editorial concludes, “Fixed bridges are a logical development of a greater Chicago.  We may as well begin to make up our minds to that development and prepare for it.”  The city is still preparing … every bridge on the main stem of the river and the south branch still swings open – although on a far less intrusive and far more regulated schedule than was the case in 1923.

January 26, 1953 – Chief city bridge tender Edward Scott brings news that an era on the Chicago River may be passing, saying that 16 of the city’s bridge tenders averaged less than one bridge opening a week during 1952.  The bridges on the north branch of the river at Cortland Street, Webster Avenue, Ashland Avenue, Fullerton Avenue, Damen Avenue, Diversey Parkway, Western Avenue and Belmont Avenue opened for a total of only 800 “swings” during the entire year, an average of only 50 bridge openings per man for Scott’s crew.  Since the preceding February these bridges have been left unmanned, and when passage up or down the river was required, bridge tenders moved from bridge to bridge in city cars.  The city seems to be moving in the direction of erecting fixed bridges in these locations because of the scarcity of traffic on the once busy north branch.  In a related development the Great Lakes division and Chicago district army engineers have offered the opinion that the dredging of the river north of North Avenue from 9 feet to 18 feet is unnecessary, a move that the city itself once supported but is now against.  The oldest trunnion bascule bridge in the city at Cortland Street is shown in the above photo.

January 26, 1865 -- Ralph Waldo Emerson gives a lecture, entitled "Education," at Unity Church, the second of six that he will give in Chicago. The Chicago Daily Tribune describes Emerson as "a plain unaffected gentleman, [who] speaks with marked emphasis and with the utmost propriety, without gesture, and looks more like an educated well to do farmer than the highly cultivated scholarly lecturer."

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Labels: 1993, State Street

Friday, January 25, 2019

January 25, 1906 -- Great Lakes Is Born

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January 25, 1906 – Plans are presented to the United States Secretary of War Charles Joseph Bonaparte for “the finest naval station in the world … to be erected at Lake Bluff.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, January 26, 1906]  Total cost of the new base, including the land on which it will be built, is expected to be $2,500,000.  Plans include an administration building, an instruction building, four dormitories, a mess hall, guardhouses, a powerhouse, detention barracks, officers’ quarters, a general storehouse, marine barracks and a hospital.  A railroad spur from North Chicago will run into the base, for which the Chicago and North Western Railroad will pay $14,000.  Plans are for the initial phase of construction to accommodate 1,000 recruits.  Captain Albert Ross, who will oversee construction of the new naval base, says, “We depart from old notions, with the idea that in bringing the youngster in he should not be allowed to pollute the body politic, and so the first step is detention in barracks.  He enters the front door, turns to his right, is taken up by the officer of the day to see that the papers given him are all right and that he has been enlisted properly. He then goes into the barber shop, where he is shaven and shorn, and from there into the disrobing room – all valuables are stored in lockers for that purpose – and he removes his clothes. He then goes into the bathroom where he is scrubbed; from there he is taken to the surgeons’ room, where he is examined, then to the paymaster’s issuing room where he is clothed in uniform. He comes in as a civilian and goes out as a naval recruit … we have five units to cover the training scheme – the detention, messing, sleeping, drilling, and instructing – each one under a different roof and surrounded by the best sanitary and fireproof building attainable.  No other nation in the world has gone so far in this business.”  Between 1909 and 1911, 39 buildings would be built at what is today Naval Station Great Lakes.  All of them would be designed by architect Jarvis Hunt, working from his offices in Chicago’s Monadnock building.  On July 3, 1911 Joseph Gregg of Terre Haute, Indiana was the first recruit to arrive at the base, officially opened two days earlier.  The above photo shows Building One and a parade of recruits in 1913.

William E. Hartmann\ January 25, 1961 – The Chicago Daily Tribune reports that architect William E. Hartmann, a managing partner of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, has delivered an address at the annual meeting of the State Street council in which he urges a “sweeping downtown building plan.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, January 25, 1961] Hartmann says, “I suggest a ‘City of Water.’ The idea of Lake Michigan, the Chicago river, and Buckingham fountain should be extended into further water exhibitions in the center area.  The federal and civic center might enlarge on this theme.” He goes farther, asserting that 30 percent of the downtown area should be given over to housing.  An all-weather sport stadium for 60,000 people should be located close to downtown and children should have “a Tivoli, sort of Disneyland or Freedomland, perhaps on an island in the lake.”  Hartman proposes a center for the performing arts as well with a symphony hall, opera house, and theaters.  The focus on art should continue with “public art as focal points – public sculpture, plazas and fountains.”  Finally, the architect suggests that “the iron girdle of the Loop” be replaced with an improved transit system.  With the exception of the performing arts center and the massive sports complex, it is amazing today to see how many of Hartmann’s ideas are on display in today’s Chicago – fountains, public art and sculpture, Maggie Daley and Millennium Parks, and on and on.

January 25, 1955 – The Chicago Daily Tribune goes to press with the following headline on Page One:  Halas to Quit as Bears Coach After ’55.  George H. Halas, the coach of the Bears for three decades, will continue as president of the club that he organized in Decatur, Illinois in 1920 and brought to Chicago the following year.  Says Halas, “I decided to step down two years ago.  When we began rebuilding, I made up my mind that as soon as were a strong contender again, so I could turn the club over under the most favorable circumstances, I’d move out.  I figured it would be about 1956.  Fortunately, everything went according to schedule.  We’re contenders now, we’ll be better next fall and by 1956 I won’t have to ask anybody to take over a loser.”  Halas kept his word, leaving the team in the 1956 and 1957 campaigns, but he was back again in 1958 and coached the team for another decade, winning his last championship with the club in 1963.

January 25, 1925 -- The Chicago Daily Tribune reports that because the roads through Lincoln Park are the only practical way of getting from the Loop to the residential sections of the city north of North Avenue, the park, originally designed for leisurely carriage rides, is dealing with 5,000 cars per hour passing through it. That volume comes at a cost. In 1924 there are 1,420 cars damaged in accidents with 499 people injured. The photo above shows Lake Shore Drive in the 1920's, looking north from Oak Street. At the end of the road is Lincoln Park, where things got really congested at North Avenue.

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Labels: 1906, Chicago Architecture, Chicago Events, Chicago Suburbs

Thursday, January 24, 2019

January 24, 1991 -- Navy Pier and Benjamin Thompson and Associates, an Editorial

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January 24, 1991 – The editorial board of the Chicago Tribune offers a positive appraisal of the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority’s decision to hire Benjamin Thompson and Associates to design and oversee a $150 million renovation of Navy Pier.  Noting that the firm has had success in transformational projects such as Boston’s Faneuil Hall, Baltimore’s Harborplace and New York City’s South Street Seaport, the editorial says that the choice of architect shows that “… the board in charge of reviving Navy Pier is steering in the right direction.” [Chicago Tribune, January 24, 1991]  The piece goes farther, though, urging planners to use the scope of the project to unite two opposing views as to what the future of Navy Pier should be.  “Ever since it became apparent that Navy Pier was disintegrating into Lake Michigan and needed a major bodylift, people who want to preserve it for cultural and recreational activities have been battling those who want to re-create the lively eating-and-shopping waterfront bazaars of Boston and Baltimore,” the editorial states. “But … the pier is so huge that it has room for both concepts."  Concluding the editorial is one final suggestion, “Incorporate the graceful contour of the old pier in the new one; at age 74, it’s still a beauty.”

January 24, 1991 – Hartmarx Corp. announces that it plans to close its 44-year-old Baskin store at 137 South State Street in order to move to La Salle Street.  The company will also close its other Loop store at 3 First National Plaza, shrinking its square footage in the business district by two-thirds.  The chairman of Hartmarx, John Eyler, says, “We had the opportunity to build a second headquarters store for downtown Chicago.  Once you make the decision that La Salle Street is becoming a focal point for quality retail in the Loop, you have to ask, ‘Can I afford to have another store four blocks away?’” [Chicago Tribune, January 25, 1991] In the previous several years Chas. A. Stevens, Wieboldt’s, Goldblatt’s, Montgomery Ward and Company, and Sears, Roebuck and Company have all closed their State Street stores.  During that time La Salle Street has undergone a transition.  Bruce Kaplan, the president of Northern Realty Group, Ltd., says, “Historically, La Salle Street hasn’t been a good place for retail because banks have dominated the ground floors of the buildings there.  But as the automatic teller machines started to dominate and people stopped going to the bank every Friday, they’ve begun to free up these ground floors.  The obvious answer is to put retail in them; it’s probably the highest and the best use of the space.”  For more on the State Street store and what eventually became of it, you can turn to this blog in Connecting the Windy City.

January 24, 1952 – Judge Benjamin P. Epstein of the Circuit Court rules that the Chicago Park District has the right to construct underground parking garages in Grant Park along Michigan Avenue and to finance the project through the sale of revenue bonds.  This is a test case in which the plaintiff, the Michigan Boulevard Building Company, asks for an injunction restraining the park district from selling the revenue bonds, “contending that as a nonprofit corporation the park district has no right to issue the bonds or pledge revenue from them.”  [Chicago Daily Tribune, January 25, 1952] The suit also asks for a declaratory judgment that would uphold the claim that the park district has no right to permit use of park land for the garages.  A year earlier the Illinois legislature passed bills that allowed the park district to construct the garages and to finance them through the sale of bonds.  The first of the proposed underground garages will open on September 1, 1954. The dedication of the garage is shown in the above photo with the partially completed Prudential building in the background.

January 24, 1913 -- At a joint meeting of Chicago Sanitary District officials, aldermen, and representatives of the meat packing companies on the southwest side of the city, agreement is reached to discontinue the use of Bubbly Creek as a drain for the sewage of the stockyards. The attorney for the district says, "The policy of the district always has been that the disposal of the industrial waste in the yards is an individual one for industries there. They can't have their waste discharged into Bubbly creek and from there into the Chicago river or into the canal." It was, of course, too little and too late. The damage had already been done. The unfortunate body of water begins at what once was the northern boundary of the massive Union Stockyards just north of Pershing Road about halfway between Ashland and Racine and flowed north into the Chicago River. According to a 2011 article in the Chicago Tribune when scientists studied the waterway in 2004 they found "fibrous material" on the river bottom up to three feet thick. You can define "fibrous material" any way you want, but however you define it, it ain't good. It's still there, and it's still a-bubbling.

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Labels: 1991, Chicago Architecture, Lake Michigan, Navy Pier

Wednesday, January 23, 2019

January 23, 1979 -- Ellsworth Kelly Selected for Lincoln Park Sculpture

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January 23, 1979 – The Chicago Park District Board of Commissioners approves a $100,000 stainless steel sculpture that will be placed on the northwest corner of Fullerton Avenue and Cannon Drive.  Half of the cost will be underwritten by a grant from the National Endowment of the Arts and the other half from citizens who have donated money to Friends of the Park. The sculpture’s creator will be Ellsworth Kelly.  According to the Chicago Park District website, “Ellsworth Kelly studied art at the Pratt Institute and developed metalworking techniques as an army engineer in World War II.   After the war, the G.I. Bill allowed him to study at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris.  While in France, he began producing his earliest abstract paintings. Kelly returned to America in the mid-1950s and began making his earliest freestanding sculptures.  By the early 1970s, he was exploring curves in his paintings and in totemic aluminum and steel sculptures that had subtly curving forms.” [chicagoparkdistrict.com] The commissioned work on Fullerton Avenue, “Curve XXII, would be Kelly’s first major commission for an outdoor sculpture. Today it stands on the northeast corner of Fullerton Avenue and Cannon Drive.  It replaces a monument to Carl von Linné that was moved to the University of Chicago.  For more about the Linné monument and Kelly’s sculpture you can turn to posts in Connecting the Windy City here and here.

January 23, 1893 – At a meeting of Michigan Avenue property owners in the offices of Montgomery Ward and Company, “practical steps to begin beautifying the Lake-Front and make it ‘a thing of beauty and joy forever’ for the people of Chicago” [Chicago Daily Tribune, January 24, 1893] are begun.  With a proposal pending in the City Council to lease a portion of the lakefront from Madison to Randolph Streets to a company for the production of firework displays, the group is alarmed that once such a foothold has been established, “it might be hard to dispossess them.” The opinion is unanimous that “the cupidity or corruption of city fathers and others who were periodically trying to use those blocks, originally dedicated to the public for private purposes, should be at once and forever thwarted.”  The paper reports that Montgomery Ward speaks strongly against “the tendency of the Chicago of today to be indifferent to the needs and beauties of the Chicago of the future …This is the age of commercial activity, but there should be something in life besides this ceaseless grasping for the dollar … The authorities of all other great cities in the world, and especially those of Europe, are tearing down marble blocks and widening thoroughfares to create breathing places and pleasure grounds for the people, while our city authorities are always trying to convert one of the most beautiful locations for a people’s park into a dumping ground for garbage or a speculative site for builders and railroads.”  The merchants at the meeting decide to enclose the area between Michigan Avenue and the Illinois Central tracks, from Madison to Randolph Streets, with “a handsome ornamental fence.”  At the foot of Washington Street will be a large gateway with other entrances at the north and south corners of the area off Michigan Avenue.  “Inside the grounds,” they agree, “will be laid out a delightful way for promenades, flower gardens, fountains, and statues, with plenty of seats for the people.”  The members of the group propose to make the improvements at their own expense.  The attractive scene in the above photo looks toward Michigan Avenue and the lake from Randolph Street in 1893.  The present Chicago Cultural Center stands on the empty lot.

January 23, 1952 – The Chicago Cubs announce that the organization will be raising the price of box seats at Wrigley Field to $2.50, a 50-cent increase, for the 1952 season.  The White Sox decide to keep the price of their box seat tickets at $2.00.  The Cubs soften the blow with the announcement that grandstand seat prices will remain unchanged at $1.25 and the price of bleacher seats will also be held at 60 cents.  The Chicago Daily Tribune offers a look at how these prices compare to other major league ball clubs, citing these numbers:  National League—Boston, $3.60; Brooklyn, $3.00; New York, $3.00; Pittsburgh, $2.75; Philadelphia, $2.50; St. Louis, $2.25; Cincinnati, $2.25.  American League—New York, $3.00; Detroit, $2.50; Philadelphia, $2.50; Boston, $2.40; St. Louis, $2.25; Cleveland, Washington and Chicago, $2.00.  The Cubs cite the increased cost of operating the club along with construction work in the box seat section designed to “make the park the most beautiful in big league baseball” [Chicago Daily Tribune, January 24, 1952] as contributing factors in the increase.  The above photo shows the box seats at Wrigley during the 1953 campaign, at the end of which the Cubs were 40 games out of first place.

January 23, 1949 -- The first place winner in a nation-wide architectural competition for new talent sponsored by the Museum of Modern Art in New York City is Joseph Y. Fujikawa of Chicago. Mr. Fujikawa was born in Los Angeles and began his college career in a five-year program in architecture at the University of Southern California. That was interrupted when World War iI began, and he was interred in a "relocation center" in Colorado. After three months there he managed to get into the Illinois Institute of Technology, at which Mies van der Rohe was the director of the School of Architecture. His time at I.I.T. was also interrupted by an 18-month stint in the Army, and Fujikawa graduated in 1944. His career really began with Mies's first residential building in Chicago at Promontory Point. Perhaps his two most noteworthy designs in Chicago are the Ralph Metcalfe Federal Office Building across Jackson Boulevard from the Federal Center and the former Mercantile Exchange towers at 10 and 30 South Wacker Drive, the north tower of which is pictured above. Fujikawa died in Winnetka on the last day of 2004.

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Labels: 1979, Chicago Sculpture

Tuesday, January 22, 2019

January 22, 1946 -- Chicago River Property Sold for just over a Half-Million

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johnhancockrealestate.com

January 22, 1946 –Announcement is made that the entire block bounded by Adams Street on the north, Market Street (which disappeared when Wacker Drive was completed)  on the east, Quincy Street on the south, and the Chicago River on the west has been purchased for $525,000 in cash.  There are two buildings on the site, one of six stories on Market Street and a ten-story building overlooking the river with an entrance on Adams Street. An interesting combination of sellers signs off on the deal, including the Art Institute of Chicago, the University of Chicago, and the Chicago Natural History museum.  The property was formerly owned by steel magnate Martin A. Ryerson, who bequeathed it to the three institutions in his will.  The land includes approximately 38,000 square feet and the two buildings have a total floor area of 250,000 square feet. Arthur Rubloff and Company will manage the property.  What stands on $525,000 worth of land today?  Architect Harry Weese designed 200 South Wacker Drive, which opened in 1981.

January 22, 1903 – Chalk one up to “the amazing projects that never got built” department.  The Chicago Daily Tribune reports that the South Park Board and the Lincoln Park Board will submit a bill to the legislature authorizing a $2,000,000 bond issue to construct a half-mile subway beneath the river between Michigan Avenue and Pine Street.  The south portal will be at Washington Boulevard, and the north end will be situated at Ohio Street.  Daniel H. Burnham has already drawn plans for the subway which “is to be elaborately constructed with a view to securing the highest ornamental beauty.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, January 22, 1903] The length of the project will allow the grade to be slight and “in every detail it is proposed to make it free from the ordinary objections to tunnel communication.” Lincoln Park Board President W. W. Tracy says, ‘We believe that the subway project will appeal to the north side people as the only true solution of the communication problem.  A viaduct would not offer a satisfactory solution.  The proposed subway will be an elaborate and ornamental tunnel, which will not contain any of the objectionable features of ordinary subways.” The subway, of course, was never built, and it would be another 17 years before the bridge spanning the river at Michigan Avenue would be opened.

January 22, 1953 – The president of the Federal Reserve Bank, Clifford S. Young, announces that the summer will see the addition of four stories to the 15-story building.  The bank at 230 South LaSalle Street holds nine billion dollars in its own assets and 18 billion for the treasury and banks belonging to the federal reserve system.  The architects will be Naess and Murphy, the same firm that will design the Prudential building, still two years away, and the Sun-Times building on the river that will be started the year that Prudential finishes.  The four floors of the bank on La Salle Street will add 88,000 square feet of space to the building that first opened in 1923.  The building will not need any additional foundation work to support the weight of the addition, and that addition will relate aesthetically to the classical design of the building as well as to the Continental Illinois National Bank and Trust Company of Chicago directly across La Salle Street to the east.

January 22, 1954 -- The Chicago City Council Finance Committee votes to allocate $950,000 from motor fuel tax funds for construction of a steel viaduct extending Lake Street eastward across Michigan Avenue to Beaubien Court. At that point the viaduct will turn south to Randolph Street, passing along the west side of the Prudential building, which is under construction. A new viaduct might not sound like a big deal, but that piece of infrastructure, along with Prudential, were the first steps in converting the massive railroad yards, extending from the river south to Randolph and from Michigan Avenue to the lake, into what is today's Illinois Center. The grainy photo above, taken over ten years later, shows a portion of the viaduct, the "L" shaped roadway in the lower left corner of the photo. Randolph Street is the long horizontal roadway at the bottom of the picture with the river winding through the photo's middle. Just below the river, where the second long train shed from the left stands, is the location of today's Hyatt Regency Chicago on Wacker Drive.

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Labels: 1946, Adams Street, Chicago Real Estate, Chicago RIver, Wacker Drive