Connecting the Windy City

Thursday, June 20, 2019

June 20, 1901 -- Chicago Lake Front Sees Another Lawsuit

June 20, 1901 – A Circuit Court judge finds in favor of “the inherent rights of every property-owner on Michigan avenue between Randolph street and Park row.”  [Chicago Daily Tribune, June 21, 1901]  The case pits the Chicago Yacht club, in the process of building a new clubhouse at the breakwater at the foot of Monroe Street, against a property owner on Michigan Avenue.  The most important aspect of the case is that it “holds that property-owners along Michigan avenue … have an inherent right to an unobstructed view of Lake Michigan from the street level.”  Speculation abounds … it is unclear what the future will bring.  Will the Illinois Central be forced to remove a retaining wall that obstructs the view of the lake?  Some think that even the trees and shrubbery that the South Park Commission has planted in the park east of Michigan Avenue will need to be removed. While the case goes to appeal, the construction of the clubhouse of the Chicago Yacht club, will be halted.  A similar decision was reached in an earlier case brought by catalogue merchant Montgomery Ward, but that decision was not nearly as far-reaching as the current case. Ward’s attorney, George Merrick, says, “It is a sweeping decision, but it is now the turn of the other side to move. Mr. Ward is in Europe and I have no instructions to begin any new suits.”  The above photo shows Michigan Avenue about this time and the cobblestone streets in front of the Art Institute of Chicago.

June 20, 1926 – Cardinal William Henry O’Connell arrives on the steamship South America, along with “three monsignori, twenty-five priests, and 450 laymen, on a pilgrimage from Boston,” [Chicago Daily Tribune, June 21, 1926], having sailed from Buffalo to attend the twenty-eighth Eucharistic Congress.  Mayor William Dever is the first to greet the cardinal as he steps off the gangplank of the ship, moored in the Chicago River.  The mayor begins, “Your eminence … Unofficially, I welcome you to this city.  Officially I have some little influence about, and you may be assured that we will do what we can to make you comfortable.”  Cardinal O’Connell responds to the mayor, who grew up just outside Boston, “We have deep sentiments of genuine gratitude for your courtesy in coming to greet the people of Boston and me.  We are proud to find in this giant city of the west such an efficient, capable, honest and honorable chief executive … We are proud, for we are happy to know that the beginnings of the formation of this character took place in our own archdiocese.”  The Twenty-Eighth International Eucharistic Congress was the first such congress held in the United States.  Cardinal George Mundelein, the Archbishop of Chicago was the host.  Among other things, the congress drew a half-million people to attend a mass at Soldier Field.  The closing mass at St. Mary of the Lake Seminary drew nearly one million worshippers.  It is shown in the photo above.

June 20, 1979 – Stanton R. Cook, publisher of the Chicago Tribune and president of Tribune Co., announces plans for a $150 million newspaper production plant that will be constructed on a 21-acre site between Chicago and Grand Avenue on the west side of the Chicago River.  Mayor Jane Byrne says of the plans, “This is a very important day for the City of Chicago. I am very pleased that The Chicago Tribune, which certainly sets trends, is setting a new one.”  Designed by Skidmore Owings and Merrill, the new plant will have 697,000 square feet of space with ten Goss Metroliner offset presses, allowing the paper to increase the number of copies that can be printed each hour from 60,000 to 75,000 while expanding the number of pages that can be handled per print run from 112 to 144.  Clayton Kirkpatrick, president and chief executive officer of Chicago Tribune Co., says of the plans, “It is a testimony to our belief in the future of Chicago and our commitment to the city’s continued economic growth.”  The company acquired the site on which the new facility will be built in 1967.  Today that site is poised to take on a whole new future as the company hopes to develop the site, which it calls The River District, potentially making way for commercial buildings that may house 19,000 employees and residential buildings that may hold up to 5,500 units. The top photo shows the site as it exists now, outlined in red.  The large building is the current printing facility.  The photo below that shows the projected development of the site.

June 20, 1947 – Representatives of the city, state, and federal governments participate in ceremonies as silver plated shovels move the first earth on Northerly Island, and “Chicago’s 25 year old dream of a lake front airport attained the beginning of reality.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, June 21, 1947]  Merrill C. Meigs, the chairman of the Chicago Aero Commission, acts as the master of ceremonies, saying “. . . when it is finished downtown Chicago will be only seven minutes away for the air traveller as compared with 45 minutes in most other large cities.”  Chicago Commissioner of Public Works Oscar Hewitt said, “Chicago can be the magnetic center of the whole of the valley of the Mississippi and the air crossroads of the globe.  I am willing to go on record as saying that travel and transport by air will go further in extending Chicagoland than any element in the growth of the area to date.”

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Labels: 1901, Grant Park, Lake Michigan, Michigan Avenue, Randolph Street

Wednesday, April 10, 2019

April 9, 1901 -- Montgomery Ward Agrees to Library in Grant Park, Sort of

news.lib.uchicago.edu

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April 9, 1901 – A. Montgomery Ward consents to the construction of the Crerar Library in the lakefront park – with conditions. George P. Merrick, Ward’s attorney, states that the conditions are “that the site be south of Jackson boulevard, that the lake front north of Lake Park place be incorporated into the South Park system and improved and maintained by the commissioners, and that the consent of the abutting property-owners be obtained.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, April 10, 1901]  The South Park commissioners response is that Ward is asking “what he knows cannot be granted.”  The president of the Board of Trustees of the Crerar Library is confident that Ward will come around to the library’s chosen site on the east side of Michigan Avenue between Madison Street and the Art Institute.  President Grosscup says, “The site we desire is the only one suitable and will be the only one considered … The land south of Jackson boulevard should be kept free of buildings … What we want is to place our building on a line with the Art Institute and so close to it as to be in harmony.”  The fight would drag on for over a decade before the Crerar Board of Trustees finally gives up, choosing a site on the northwest corner of Randolph and Michigan to construct its gift to the city.  For more information on the library you can turn to this entry in Connecting the Windy City.  The library, which today is located in Hyde Park at the University of Chicago, is shown above where 150 North Michigan Avenue currently stands.  Note that the old Chicago Public Library, today's Cultural Center, is seen at the left of the photo.  The St. Jane Hotel, as it is known today, originally the Carbide and Carbon building is up Michigan Avenue, the tall building at the right of the photo.  The second photo shows the site as it appears today.

April 9, 1967 – Shortly after Mayor Richard J. Daley wins reelection to office by a lopsided margin of over a half-million votes, the Chicago Tribune sits down with him in a wide-ranging interview, an interview that remains timely.  Here are some particularly cogent excerpts from that interview …

Q.  Will Chicago’s growth and redevelopment in the next four years match that of your previous four years in office …

A.  You will see, in the central city where the Loop elevated will be gone and the subway completed.  There will be expansion to the east, such as new buildings over the Illinois Central property, and to the west along Madison street, where only the other day ground was broken for a 27-story building for the Illinois Bell Telephone company … Completion of the rapid transit in the Kennedy and Ryan expressways will bring a resurgence of people to park and ride on public transportation into the central city.  We are going to build the most attractive and best convention hall in the nation on the lake front as a new McCormick Place.  There will be more development like Carl Sandburg Village on the north, the many projects between Twenty-Sixth and Thirty-First streets on the south, and rebuilding taking place on south Michigan avenue.  You will see a modern airport in the lake and islands in the lake for recreation … The Auditorium theater is nearly completed and will be another important cultural asset to our city.

Q.  You are predicting the end of slums in the near future.  How can you be certain when there seem to be so much substandard housing in the city?

A.  We will have the buildings unsuitable to live in removed by December, 1967.

Q.  The comprehensive plan of Chicago deals primarily with the period until 1980.  Are you looking far enough ahead?

A.  Each generation should make a contribution to the improvement of the city.  Our greatest challenge in urban living is to provide those living in the high rises recreation off the lake front.

Q.  When will the Loop elevated be razed and the subway completed?

A.  The subway in Wells street must be completed first.  Then we can tear down the elevated.  We are seeing evidence of what this will do for the downtown with the number of land purchases taking place along Wabash avenue and Wells street … We will see the subway completed and the elevated down by the year 1971.

Q.  Will we have a third airport in your next term?

A.  We need a third airport and we must make a study to see if it is feasible to build one in the lake … If the report is favorable, I would expect we would have an airport in the lake within ten years.

Q.  Let’s discuss sports.  Where do we stand on the proposal for a new sports stadium for Chicago?

A.  There is no question that Chicago must have a sports stadium and it is a matter I will push … It must be a stadium that is built without any expense to the taxpayer.  We are going to have championship football teams in Chicago.  When the University of Illinois expands at Circle campus, it is going to win the Big Ten championship.

Q.  If you feel confident about your predictions today, where will the Cubs and White Sox finish this year?

A.  They will both finish in first place, of course.  We are going to have a subway series in Chicago.  This is a city of champions.

* * * * * * * *

Of course, it didn’t turn out exactly the way the Mayor outlined it so neatly. For the record, the Chicago White Sox finished fourth in the American League, only four games off the lead with a record of 89-73. The Chicago Cubs finished third, 14 games back, with a season record of 87-74.)

And … the Loop elevated line is still standing.

April 9, 1975 – O’Neil Ford, a Texas architect working on plans for a transformation of the river that flows through San Antonio into a natural people-friendly attraction, speaks at the second of the Bright New City lecture series in the First Chicago auditorium.  Ford outlines the project from its slow beginnings when “a few people started doing good things to the river banks,” [Chicago Tribune, April 9, 1975] to a place where “walks, terraces, and plantings line the banks, where 60,000 people show up on a weekend for an art show with really terrible paintings and where barges and paddle boats ply the waters.”  The architect concludes his lecture by saying, “If people can make the San Antonio River that way, they can make the Chicago River work, too … If something like that isn’t done within 10 years, it will be a disgrace.”  Well, it took a little longer than ten years, but the Chicago River is looking pretty good these days and is getting better with each passing year.

April 9, 1903 -- 800 members of the newly formed janitresses union celebrate a victory in arbitration "waving gingham aprons and mop rags, and beating a tattoo on scrub pails." [Chicago Daily Tribune, April 10, 1903] The women had previously worked for 11 cents an hour until Mrs. Susan Horton, a worker in the Ashland Block at Clark and Randolph (where the Chicago Title and Trust building stands today) organizes the union, leads a process that formalizes demands, and presents them to building managers. After two weeks spent in arbitration, the women are granted an increase of seven cents to 18 cents an hour with straight time for overtime. They are to work for eight hours in the day and six hours if work is done at night. Work on Sundays and holidays will count as double overtime. The photo below shows Burnham & Root's Ashland Block, where the whole thing started.

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Labels: 1901, Grant Park, Jackson Boulevard, Michigan Avenue, Parks, Randolph Street

Tuesday, February 13, 2018

February 13, 1901 -- Carrie Nation Makes a Whirlwind Visit to Chicago

February 13, 1901 – Carrie Nation leaves Chicago at 10:00 p.m. on a Santa Fe train bound for Topeka, Kansas.  In the preceding 12 hours she leads a whirlwind tour of the city in her temperance crusade as she “visits saloons, lecturing and threatening, and calls on the Mayor, who is ‘out.’” [Chicago Daily Tribune, February 14, 1901] Despite feeling ill when she awakes at 5:30 a.m., she is in the saloon of Harry McCall at 152 Dearborn Street by mid-morning, where she immediately asks the bartenders to clothe a nude statue in the bar’s window. “I want you to take away that statue or clothe it properly at once,” she commands bartender William Luther.  “Dress it as you would wish to see your mother and sister dressed.  Now, I mean what I say, and if you don’t obey by night I’ll make souvenirs of that statue.”  The offending statue is quickly covered with a red calico wrapper and sunbonnet.   From the bar she hotfoots it over to Willard Hall, located in the Woman’s Temple building on the southwest corner of Monroe and LaSalle Streets.  Six hundred people jam the auditorium so densely that women are fainting and “a crunching sound … warned the crowd that the seats were giving way.”  The crowd is sent from the building, and Nation moves on to City Hall where City Clerk Loeffler tells her that Mayor Carter Harrison iss “not in … [as he] leaned on the railing and blew smoke rings in the air.”  The reformer “aired her views of a city government which countenances the liquor traffic, and incidentally reproved the City Clerk for smoking.”  Then it is on to police headquarters where she learns that the Chief of Police is also out.  Twenty minutes later she is at the Cook County Jail where she is turned away.  At 2:30 p.m. she enters a Turkish bath and addresses “attendants coming, going, and during operations.”  What steam can do to one’s hair!  At 4:25 p.m. she enters a salon on State Street and has her hair “arranged.”  After dinner Nation visits Dreifus’ Saloon at 56 State Street, the engine house of Fire Patrol No. 1, and delivers a short speech at Willard Hall in front of 200 people.  Shortly before 9:00 p.m. she makes her way to Riley and Edwards’ Saloon at 200 State Street, “expecting to meet a gathering of saloonmen to whom she had sent an invitation to hear her speak.”  Instead, she finds “a motley assemblage of men and women who formed a typical ‘levee’ crowd.”  Standing on top of a table she addresses the crowd as “The sounds from the piano blended with the laughter of the ribald crowd, which grew larger each moment and packed the room from the door opening on State Street to the alley in the rear.” As she speaks a voice from the crowd calls out, “There’s a beer waiting for you at the bar, grandma.”  Unperturbed, Nation talks from the top of the table. She “talked to the saloon men, she pleaded with the women to lead better lives, and begged everybody to help her in her determination to suppress the liquor business.”  She declares it “the best meeting I’ve ever attended” as she steps down from the table and heads for the railway station.  As she makes her way through the gate at the Polk Street station and her waiting train, she shouts, “Be good!  Be good!  Good-by, until I see you again.”

February 13, 1910 – The Chicago Daily Tribune reports that the Chicago Board of Education will be meeting in two days as a committee of the whole, ostensibly to discuss the leases the board holds on State Street property.  Speculation is that since even school board members who are out of town have been asked to attend, consideration will be given to the filing of charges against the school district’s architect, Dwight Heald Perkins.  School board president Alfred R. Urion says that he has obtained evidence that will be used against Perkins during inspections of a number of schools during the previous week.  Thus begins another less than stellar chapter in the city’s political history, one in which a talented architect (just venture out to Milwaukee and Addison and take a gander at Carl Schurz High School if you want proof), was railroaded out of his position by school board members who accused him of “incompetence, extravagance and insubordination.”  According to a great blog, “Chicago Historic Schools,” “These corrupt administrators were likely unhappy that Perkins had stopped the practice of giving inflated contracts to well-connected contractors and suppliers.”  It worked out – those school board hacks have long been forgotten, but the spaces that Perkins created, and the spaces with which he surrounded them, still endure.

February 13, 1926 -- Raymond Hood and John Mead Howells are awarded the gold medal for their design of the most beautiful building erected in the north central section of the country in 1925. Architect Elmer C. Jensen, a member of the jury charged with determining the recipient of the gold medal award, says of Hood and Howell's design for Tribune Tower, "The erection of this beautiful structure has been a decided aid to the cause of good architecture. Not only will it have a good effect on architecture in Chicago, but the cause throughout the whole nation gains appreciably. I wish again to emphasize the incalcuable gain which art has made through the Tribune Tower."

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Labels: 1901, Chicago Politics, Dearborn Street, La Salle Street, Monroe Street

Sunday, March 5, 2017

March 5, 1901 -- Tribune Endorses Crear Library's Grant Park Location

March 5, 1901 – In 1889 John Chippewa Crerar, a wealthy Chicago industrialist died and left approximately 2.6 million dollars to fund a library in the city. In 1894 that library was legally incorporated and by 1901 the board of directors had hatched a plan to erect a building for the library in Grant Park at the foot of Washington Street.  On this date in 1901 the Chicago Daily Tribune endorsed the plan in an editorial, stating, “If built as planned the structure will be one of which the city will be proud.  It will be an ornament to the lake front, against which the property-owners cannot make a reasonable objection.”  The only possible drawback to the plan, according to the paper, was “the smoke nuisance form the adjacent railroad tracks.”  The editorial concluded, though, that “if the smoke nuisance were always to be considered there would be no building at all in Chicago.”  There followed a long dispute over erecting the building in Grant Park, followed by a lengthy delay caused by the first world war.  Groundbreaking did not take place for the Holabird and Roche desgined building until 1919 when it was begun on the northwest corner of Michigan Avenue and Randolph Street.  It was torn down in the early 1980’s and the collection moved to the University of Chicago.

March 5, 1862 -- The Chicago Daily Tribune editorializes about the nearly intolerable condition of the Chicago River, observing that "A walk across Rush street, Madison street or Polk street bridges will work conviction of the trouble upon the happy possessor of the obtusest of noses." The paper finds that between Fullerton and Chicago Avenues over 4,000 head of cattle are being "stall-fattened," and that "The entire drainage of these sheds . . . pours directly into the river." In the three miles from Bridgeport to Madison Street the paper found "no less than seventeen packing houses . . . the aggregate number of animals slaughtered on or near the river's banks whose blood swells the crimson tide, is not less than five thousand per day." In conclusion, the editorial states, "There have been, since October last, poured into the river the blood and entrails of more than eighty thousand head of fat cattle and of four hundred thousand hogs, besides the sewage and the winter's refuse of a hundred and twenty thousand well fed people. Let us not wonder, when this conduit of corruption is leaking out its contents into the lake, that when the wind is right, the water is abominable. Rather let us account it a mercy that it is no worse."

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Labels: 1901, Chicago Event, Grant Park, Michigan Avenue