Connecting the Windy City

Thursday, September 17, 2020

September 17, 1974 -- Mercantile Exchange Approves Plans for New Headquarters

cmecenter.com

September 17, 1974 – The Chicago Tribune reports that members of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange have approved plans for a twin-towered office building that the exchange will occupy at Wacker Drive and Madison Street.  The vote is overwhelmingly positive, with 2,478 in favor of the plan and 567 standing in opposition.  It is expected that construction will begin in spring of 1975 on a site where a city parking garage is located.  The Chicago Mercantile Exchange will own the 40,000-square-foot trading floor that will be located at the base of the structure, joining the two towers together, along with ten percent of the first tower.  Metropolitan Structures, Inc. and JMB Realty Corporation will own the rest of the space in the buildings.  The new trading floor and office space will replace the exchange’s location at 444 West Jackson Boulevard, where a 25,000-square-foot trading floor is located along with adjacent office space.  The twin-towered project would be finished in 1981 according to plans drawn by architect Joseph Fujikawa.  For more on the architect you can turn to this entry in Connecting the Windy City.  When it opened what is today CME Center was the city’s first all-concrete skyscraper.  At the time it was the home of the largest open outcry futures exchange in the country.  With floor plates of 29,000 feet the LEED Gold® building encloses 2.3 million square feet of space overlooking the Chicago River.

September 17, 1969 – The City Council, by a vote of 30 to 6, approves two ordinances that clear the way for the office and residential development that Chicago now calls Illinois Center.  One ordinance establishes guidelines for the development of the area, and the other codifies the relationship between the city, the owner of the property, Illinois Central Industries, and three developers.  The plan calls for buildings of up to 90 stories with 45,000 workers, and 17,500 apartments with 35,000 residents.   In an editorial the Chicago Tribune writes glowingly about the project, asserting, “Chicagoans must feel some exhilaration to see, at long last, this strategic area built on in a manner suitable to its location in the center of the city.  And Chicagoans should take an eager, continuing, and responsible interest as Illinois Center plaza gradually develops . . . A brilliantly successful development here will be a civic asset the importance of which it would be almost impossible to exaggerate.” [Chicago Tribune, September 19, 1969]  The photo at the left shows the approximate area where the Hyatt Regency Hotel stands today.

luc.edu

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September 17, 1962 – The $2.75 million Loyola University Center at the southwest corner of Rush and Pearson Streets opens to students.  Loyola’s president, the Very Reverend James F. Maquire, says, “The center enables the university to accommodate meetings and gatherings of alumni and friends, to provide facilities for public lectures, luncheons, and conferences, and to serve other functions and activities for business and community groups.”  [Chicago Daily Tribune, September 16, 1962]  The new building will include two cafeterias, 18 classrooms, a bookstore, conference rooms, student lounges, and a formal meeting room for administrative meetings.  A two-story enclosed walkway will connect the University Center to Lewis Towers, the main classroom building, which sits to the east just off Michigan Avenue.  As part of the dedication ceremony, at which His Eminence the Archbishop of Chicago Albert Cardinal Meyer officiates, a mural by Park Ridge artist Melville Steinfels is dedicated.  It depicts 400 years of Jesuit education.  The student center is the next step in a move downtown that began in 1946 with a gift of Mr. and Mrs. Frank J. Lewis – an 18-story skyscraper located at 820 North Michigan Avenue, located just to the west of the city’s historic Water Tower. The site is considerably different today as Loyola’s eight-story School of Communication wraps around the north and west sides of The Clare, a senior independent living high-rise, at 55 East Pearson.  A new student center is located just to the west on the northwest corner of Pearson and Wabash Streets.  The photo shows Lewis Center as it appeared in the 1950's, shortly after its purchase.

The second photo shows the area as it appears today.

September 17, 1954 – The first new office building to be constructed in the Loop since 1933, the ten-story Sinclair Oil Corporation’s office building on the northeast corner of Wacker Drive and Randolph Street, is officially opened as more than 200 business leaders and officials from the state and city attend the ceremonies.  The new building contains 225,000 square feet of office space and 14,000 square feet of basement parking space.  The structure will consolidate various divisions of the corporation that were previously scattered in four separate locations.  The building is gone today, replaced by the Goettsch Partners tower, finished in 2010, at 155 North Wacker Drive.  The Sinclair building is outlined in the older photograph.  The award-winning Goettsch replacement is shown to the left.

September 17, 1922 –The new $1,600,000 Madison Street bridge is lowered into position for the first time at 2:00 p.m., leaving the Clark Street bridge as the only center-pier bridge left in the central area of the city.  It will be three weeks before pedestrians will be allowed across the new bridge, and it will be at least six weeks before traffic crosses the new span.  The bridge’s sidewalks will be 13.5 feet, eight feet wider than the sidewalks on the old center pier bridge that is being replaced.  Work on the new bridge began on December 1, 1919, but there is a long delay in the fabrication of the steel for the span.  It isn’t until late September of 1921 before work resumes.  In March of 1922 the bridge’s bond issue expires, and work is once again ordered to a halt.  In June Chicago voters approve a new bond issue, and work resumes on August 1.  According to historicbridges.org “This bridge stands out among the bridges of Chicago as one of the most historically and technologically significant since it is the first example of a design that Chicago would use in construction on many bridges during a period of over 40 years.  It also retains ornate sidewalk railings that greatly contribute to the visual beauty of the bridge.” The above photo shows the bridge under construction in 1922.  In the right foreground is the swing bridge which it will replace.

Posted by Chicago Old and New at 12:30 AM 0 comments

Labels: 1974, Chicago Architecture, Chicago Development, Wacker Drive

Wednesday, September 16, 2020

September 16, 1974 -- Marriott to Build Michigan Avenue Hotel

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September 16, 1974 – The chairman of Arthur Rubloff and Co. and the Marriott Corporation announce that the city’s tallest hotel – a 44-story skyscraper – will be constructed at 540 North Michigan Avenue.  Costing in excess of $60 million, the structure’s 1,206 rooms will place it behind only the Conrad Hilton Hotel and the Palmer House in capacity.  Unique in the plan is that the Dunhill of London tobacco shop will be incorporated into the new hotel.  The store had been part of the old Time-Life building which stood on the site bounded by Michigan Avenue, Rush Street, Grand Avenue, and Ohio Street, but when Time-Life was demolished the tobacco shop, which had a lease until 1978, refused to budge.  The architecture firm of Harry Weese and Associates therefore designed the hotel to wrap around the Michigan Avenue frontage of Dunhill.  Plans call for a seven-story portion of the building with more than 50,000 square feet of retail space to front Michigan Avenue with the 44-story hotel tower rising on the Rush Street side of the lower building.  The hotel will be the largest Marriott in the world with two major ballrooms, one with 20,000 square feet of space, 24 meeting rooms, five restaurants and lounges, and parking for 430 cars.

chicagology.com

September 16, 1949 – The Haymarket Theater at 722 Madison Street, near Halsted Street, is condemned to make way for a connection between the new Congress Street Expressway and the Edens Expressway with the city paying $215,075 to the building’s owners.  The Haymarket opened in 1887 as a playhouse with seating for 2,475 on an orchestra floor and three balconies.  After a time the playhouse became a vaudeville theater, and by 1916 it was one of the city’s best-known burlesque houses.  After 1932 it became a second-run movie house with its seating by 1945 reduced to less than 1,000.  In the spring of 1950 the theater was demolished to make way for the highway.  [cinematreasures.org]

September 16, 1925 – The South Park Commission inks a contract to cover the construction of the $2,000,000 John G. Shedd Aquarium.  It will be built in Grant Park about one-tenth of a mile east of the Field Museum.  Shedd began his career as a stock clerk for Marshall Field and worked his way up the corporate ladder, taking over as president of the firm when Field died in 1906.  The aquarium was his gift to the city, one designed to complement the great museum to the west named after his former boss.  Shedd did not live long enough to see the completion of the aquarium in 1930; he died just over a year after the South Park commission made its 1925 announcement.

September 16, 1915 – A dozen years after the Iroquois Theatre fire that claimed 602 lives on Randolph Street, disaster is narrowly averted as 200 patrons at the Alcazar Theater on West Madison Street are watching the conclusion of The Red Virgin at 10:30 p.m.  A small explosion is heard in the projectionist’s booth, and quickly the theater fills with acrid smoke.  The night manager, “possessor of a stern voice,” [Chicago Daily Tribune, September 15, 1915] appears and shouts, “Don’t crowd! There are plenty of exits.  See the red lights in front of you.  There’s plenty of time.  Don’t hurry!  Don’t push!” Ushers keep the crowd moving toward the exits in an orderly fashion, and not a single member of the audience is injured. Miss Mattie Lamb plays the theater piano until the auditorium is empty despite being nearly overcome by smoke.  The only casualty is the projectionist who receives burns on one hand when the film he is showing explodes, beginning the procession toward the exits.

September 16, 1909 – The World Series Champion Chicago Cubs fall to the New York Giants in the West Side Park, 2-1, but that is not the real story of the day.  The game takes place with a special visitor in the stands, the President of the United States, William Howard Taft.  The Chicago Daily Tribune attests to the level of interest with which the Chief Executive views the game, reporting, “A leading constituent might be confiding an important party secret to the presidential left ear while another citizen, whose name appears often in headlines, might be offering congratulations on the outcome of the battle for revision downward to the right auricle, but while both ears were absorbing messages from friends both presidential eyes were steadily watching Christy Mathewson and the Giants revise downward the standing of the Cubs.”  [Chicago Daily Tribune, September 17, 1909] Fans begin lining up before noon for the late afternoon game, and when the President appears exactly on time, he is escorted to the field where he shakes the hand of each Cub’s player, moving on “to mingle with the rooters … while the Giants were completing their preliminary practice.” Cubs manager Frank Chance starts his “three-fingered ace,” Mordecai Brown against the Giants’ Christy Matthewson … two future Hall-of-Famers.  Before the Giants are retired in the first inning, the team has scored all the runs that it needs to take the contest. 

Posted by Chicago Old and New at 12:30 AM 0 comments

Labels: 1974, Chicago Development, Hotels, Michigan Avenue

Saturday, July 4, 2020

July 4, 1974 -- Marquette Building in Jeopardy

J. Bartholomew Photo

July 4, 1974 – The Chicago Tribune reports that an attorney for the owner of the Marquette Building on the northwest corner of Adams and Dearborn Streets has labeled a city proposal for saving the building as “premature and not pertinent.” [Chicago Tribune, July 4, 1974]  The city’s proposal had been put forth on June 10 when the city Commissioner of Development and Planning, Lewis H. Hill, suggested that the building could be saved if the owner, Romanek-Golub and Co., was given “lucrative zoning bonuses” that would allow it to raze the buildings in the block bounded by Adams, Dearborn, Clark and Monroe Streets while allowing the Marquette to remain.  The position of Romanek-Golub is that it cannot “earn a fair income on operation of the Marquette under any circumstances” and that landmark status for the building “stigmatizes any building in the eyes of lending agencies and others.”  A position paper in which the Department of Architecture at the University of Illinois Chicago Circle assesses the worth of the building states, “The preservation of the great works of architecture, which are this city’s unique, valuable, and ongoing contribution to the culture and civilization of the twentieth century, must be seen as a positive force that will enhance the quality and thus the life of the city.”

July 4, 1902 – 10,000 people gather in Independence Square at Douglas Park and Garfield Boulevard as Illinois Governor Richard Yates unveils a great fountain as a band plays, Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean and 700 school children sing along.  In his speech the governor says, “You may go around the world, and into every port, and you will find no flag so dear to the seekers for freedom as the stars and stripes that wave over there.  It represents an unequaled, a sublime, and unprecedented citizenship.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, July 5, 1902]  The sculpture by Charles J. Mulligan stands on top of a 15-foot base in the shape of the Liberty Bell.  The children in the sculpture hold Roman candles that once served as fountainheads.  They also carry a flag, bugle and drum in the celebration of an old-fashioned Fourth of July.  Today the fountain basin is dry, surrounded by a ten-foot high fence as the above photo shows.

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July 4, 1891 – The flag at Fort Sheridan is raised for the first time on its new flagstaff at 9:30 a.m. The Fifteenth Infantry is called out in full dress parade at 9:00 a.m., forming up on the road between the main entrance to the fort and the guardhouse, opposite to and facing the flagstaff.  Edith Crofton, the youngest daughter of the post’s commandant, Colonel R. E. A. Crofton, is given the honor of raising the flag.  The Chicago Daily Tribune reports, “It was no light task for a young woman to hoist a large flag to the top of a staff 210 feet high.  Nevertheless she bravely tugged at the rope and the flag slowly but surely ascended.”  [Chicago Daily Tribune, July 5, 1891]. As the flag reached the top, the assembled soldiers presented arms, and as spectators applauded, the post’s musicians played “The Star Spangled Banner.”

July 4, 1883 – A reporter for the Chicago Daily Tribune sets out for a stroll through the Lake-Front park, today’s Grant Park, as “a deliciously cool breeze fanned his perspiring brow.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, July 4, 1883] He discovers that nearly every bench had one or two occupants, concluding that “as a tramps’ paradise the park was an eminent success.  Deep, raspy snores, indicative of a tranquil slumber, floated up from various quarters of the park, and here and there could be dimly seen a recumbent figure, flat on its back, its arms and legs ungracefully distributed about it, a coat serving as a pillow and darkness as a cove.” Encountering a police officer on his way out of the park, the reporter asks if the situation is normal and if anything is being done about it. “Yes, sometimes we pull ‘em in,” responds the officer. “but not often. It’s only when they’re drunk and come down here disturbing the quiet sleepers.  They’re not all bums that sleeps here.  Some of ‘em are pretty well-to-do, but put on their old clothes, leave their valuables at home, and come down here to sleep.  It’s cooler, you know, than sleeping in a close room.  Come down and try it some night, and I’ll see that you ain’t arrested.” The above photo shows the park as the decade comes to an end.

Posted by Chicago Old and New at 2:30 AM 1 comments

Labels: 1974, Adams Street, Chicago Architecture, Dearborn Street

Tuesday, July 2, 2019

July 2, 1974 -- Mounted Patrol Unit Goes on First Assignment

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July 2, 1974 – For the first time in 25 years mounted policemen go on patrol, making the rounds of Grant Park, Lincoln Park and Washington Park as bystanders greet the new patrols with positive reviews.  “The idea,” reports the Chicago Tribune, “is to have highly mobile and highly visible policemen on duty in the parks.”   According to the official website of the Chicago Police Department, the Mounted Patrol Unit currently maintains 32 geldings, chosen “for uniformity in appearance, size and temperament.”  All mounted officers must undergo a 14-week training program with only half of the officers who begin the program making the cut.  Mounted personnel include one lieutenant, four sergeants and 27 mounted patrol officers with the unit’s stables and training facility located within the South Shore Cultural Center grounds at 7059 south Shore Drive. According to the C.P.D. website, benefits of the horseback patrol include, “visibility for an officer to see over crowds of situations as well as for increased perception of police presence when a person can see an officer in a crowd.  They provide mobility, many times allowing an officer to get to a scene faster and more efficiently than on foot or in a vehicle.  They are Ambassadors of Good Will and encourage approachability by members of the public, since many people love animals or are curious about horses.”   Mounted officers are particularly effective in crowd management with one officer on horseback equaling the presence of ten officers on foot.  The above photo presents the first graduating class of mounted officers in 1974.

July 2, 1894 –A United States Marshal reads an injunction to 2,000 strikers in Blue Island, an order restraining them from interfering with the operation of the Rock Island and 20 other railroads after which the assembled men “howled defiance at the Marshal and his deputies and promptly violated the injunction by throwing a box car across the tracks and stopping all traffic for the night.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, July 2, 1894] The injunction comes over a month after 3,000 workers go on strike at the Pullman Palace Car Company on Chicago’s South Side.  By the end of June, the strike had spread to 27 states, forcing the United States Attorney General to issue the order, which is read in Blue Island on this night. The local and state police forces are outmanned, and call for help from the federal government as stranded railroad passengers are refused food and water by local merchants.  President Grover Cleveland is forced to order federal troops from Fort Sheridan to restore order and clear the way for mail, passengers and inter-state freight to begin rolling again.

July 2, 1890:  Charles L. Hutchinson returns fro Europe, bringing with him a treasure trove of paintings destined ultimately to find their way to the Art Institute.  A year earlier Hutchinson, while in Florence, saw the collection of Prince Anatoly Nikolaievich Demidoff, a Russian industrialist and diplomat who had died shortly before.  It was Hutchinson’s original intention to make arrangements to have the prince’s collection displayed in Chicago and then returned to Florence, but upon arriving he discovered that Demidoff’s widow was looking to sell the paintings.  Hutchinson quickly arranged to meet Martin Ryerson, a wealthy Chicago steel tycoon, in Paris, and the two men get to work contacting money men back home, including Marshall Field and Phllip Armour.  For $200,000 the Chicago syndicate got thirteen paintings that Hutchinson describes in this way, “The collection is indeed superb.  It would be a worthy addition to the Louvre itself.  The names of the artists include Rembrandt, Hobbema, Van Ostade, Van Dyke, Johann Steen, Terburg, Teniers, Adrian Van der Velde, William Van der Velde, and Rubens.  With the exception of the Rembrandt there is nowhere in America anything to compare with these examples of the old Dutch artists.”  [Chicago Daily Tribune, July 3, 1890]  Jan Steen’s groovy “The Family Concert” of 1666 was part of the collection, given to the museum by Hutchinson in 1891.

July 2, 1952 – The final section of the $22,000,000 Edens expressway is opened to traffic.  The last section of the highway connects the highway north of Lake-Cook Road to Skokie Road in Highland Park.  The completed expressway is named after William G. Edens, a Chicago banker who was the sponsor of the state’s first highway bond issue 34 years earlier.  The above photo, taken in 1952, shows the beginning of the new highway passing over Cicero Avenue.

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Labels: 1974, Chicago Events, Grant Park, Lincoln Park

Monday, April 22, 2019

April 22, 1974 -- Elevated Derailment Sends 17 to Hospital ... Second in 11 Days

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April 22, 1974 – The second elevated train derailment in two weeks takes place at 1 p.m. at Wacker Drive and Wells Street as the northbound train derails as it approaches the bridge over the Chicago River.  Although there are no serious injuries on the two-car train, 17 people are transported to Henrotin Hospital for treatment. Eleven days earlier 23 passengers are injured just one block north.  That accident occurred when the motorman made the turn from Lake Street onto the Wells Street track at too great a speed.  Today’s accident is the result of a “fail-safe” switch that is triggered when the raised Wells Street bridge is closed and fails to make a complete connection with the elevated tracks.  The above photo shows the front car of the two-car train with its front wheels off the tracks as it sits above Wacker Drive.

April 22, 1963 – United States Gypsum Company employees take their places for the first time in the new 19-story building at the corner of Wacker Drive and Monroe Street after two days of moving in preparation.  The company will occupy 11 floors, the lobby and two lower levels with the remaining five floors set aside for lease.  The building will bring together 1,000 people who were formerly spread across four locations on Adams Street and Wells Street. U. S. G. chairman C. H. Shaver says the company felt a responsibility to design a building “compatible with our company’s needs, and an obligation to the community to be harmonious with its environment, aesthetically pleasing, and which exemplifies the highest type of contribution toward enhancing the Chicago skyline.” [Chicago Tribune, April 22, 1963] The tower was razed in the first years of the new millennium to clear the site for the 111 South Wacker Drive building, but while it stood it drew its share of controversy, mostly because the architectural firm of Perkins and Will turned the tower on a 45-degree angle to the streets on which it stood.  Lawrence Perkins, in his Oral History with the Art Institute of Chicago, said of the plan, “It derives from several things. To do it with a perfectly square plan would not have worked because the squares were inefficient.  If you’ve looked at the building, you’ll know that each corner is notched out so that we have eight corners on each floor.  That permits you to get more space nearer the lot line.  But by turning it we are protecting our light and air on all four sides.  We knew that we that had a bunch of uncompromising rectangles on the three and now four of the sides of the building.  We were protecting their light and air, we were protecting ours … “  The original U. S. G. building is shown in the photo above.  Below it is its replacement the Lohan Caprille Goettsch 111 South Wacker, completed in 2005.

April 22, 1971 – The Chicago Tribune learns that the Atcheson, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad’s passenger trains will be moved to Union Station, making it certain that the Dearborn Street station will be closed.  Signs are already posted at Dearborn station, notifying passengers that service will be discontinued on April 30.  The passenger operations of the Atcheson, Topeka and Santa Fe have been taken over by Amtrak and one of the government agency’s principal goals is to consolidate terminals in Chicago since they eat so much of the operating costs of passenger trains.  Chicago’s commuter trains will maintain their present distribution across several stations on the periphery of downtown.  Consolidation of these trains would add as much as 30 minutes to some routes, defeating the purpose of paying for a 30-minute train ride from the suburbs to the city.  The photo above shows the 1976 demolition of the train sheds that lay south of the station.

April 22, 1862 -- The Chicago Tribune reports that one Frederick Boetiger has filed a grievance with the Chicago Common Council that will be referred to the Finance Committee for a determination of damages. It seems that Boetiger had attempted to make his way into the city by way of Division Street, using "all due care and diligence in traversing the same". However, the street was in such bad condition that his horse became "stalled in the mud of the said street and smothered to death within the city limits." Boetiger sought compensation for his lost animal. The street on the far left of the photo above is the same street poor Mr. Boetiger got stuck on back in 1862.

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Labels: 1974, Chicago Bridges, Chicago Elevated, Chicago RIver, Lake Street, Wacker Drive, Wells Street

Thursday, February 7, 2019

February 7, 1974 -- Manhattan Building and Old Colony Denied Landmark Status

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February 7, 1974 –The Chicago Tribune reports that the city’s Planning Department has “turned thumbs down” [Chicago Tribune, February 7, 1974] on providing landmark status for the Manhattan Building at 431 South Dearborn Street and the Old Colony Building just to the north at 407 South Dearborn Street. This action comes despite the fact that the Chicago Commission on Historical and Architectural Landmarks is considering the buildings for landmark status.  Lewis W. Hill, the city’s planning and development commissioner, says that “possibilities for redevelopment on the block outweigh the historical and architectural significance of the two buildings.”  Hill said, however, that he does lean toward landmark status for the Fisher Building at 343 South Dearborn Street.  Said to be the world’s first 16-story office building, the Manhattan Building was completed in 1891 and designed by William Le Baron Jenney.  The Old Colony Building was completed in 1894 and designed by the firm of Holabird and Roche. The Fisher Building was completed two years later according to plans drawn by Burnham and Root with Charles Atwood as the lead designer.  Happily, all three buildings are still with us today.  On July 7, 1978 the Manhattan, the Old Colony and the Fisher buildings were all designated city landmarks.  The Old Colony building is shown in the above photo in 1895 when it was brand new.

February 7, 1956 – Morton Salt Company announces that its intention to build a new four-story office building in the block bounded by Wacker Drive, Washington and Randolph Streets and the Chicago River.  The company expects to use the first floor and a portion of the second and lease the rest of the building. This will provide 55,000 square feet of office space, compared to the 37,000 square feet the company now occupies at two separate locations, 120 South LaSalle Street and the Merchandise Mart.  The design will come from Graham, Anderson, Probst & White, Inc. and will consist of reinforced concrete construction with the main entrance and lobby of the building in the middle of the block on Wacker Drive.  Morton Salt was founded in Chicago in 1848 and had its first offices at Clark and Washington Streets.  In 1896 the company erected its first real office building, a replica of the old Boston statehouse, that sat on the south side of the Chicago River just west of today’s Lake Shore Drive.  The new headquarters building on the river would be finished in 1958 and is again in the news because it is no longer there.  It was demolished in 2018 to make room for a glassy skyscraper designed by Goettsch Partners that will include a 45-foot wide Riverwalk passing beneath its western face.  The building is shown above.

February 7, 1968 – Nine people are killed when a fire and explosion completely wrecks the offices of Mickelberry’s Food Procucts Company at 301 West Forty-Ninth Place.  The conflagration apparently begins when a Harrigan Oil Company gasoline truck moving through the alley behind the plant scrapes a steel garbage container, knocking the shut-off valve from the truck’s discharge pipe and sending gasoline into the basement of the plant where the boiler ignites it.  Fire fighters on the roof of the building are in the process of removing 15 to 20 employees of the plant from that location when a tremendous explosion rips the building, toppling ladders and fire fighters and sending those on the roof through the air.  More than 30 of the 79 people who are injured are neighborhood kids who hear the sirens and come running to see the excitement.  The 9-11 alarm fire brings to the scene 26 engines, five hook and ladder trucks, three snorkels, five rescue squads, ten ambulances, and seven hazardous chemical units.  Tragically, four fire fighters from Truck 18 are killed – Firemen Edward Keifker, Chales Bottger, Thomas Collins, and Captain John J. Fisher, Sr.

February 7, 1943 -- The sky falls when Michael "Hinky Dink" Kenna misses his first Sunday afternoon pre-election meeting of the First Ward Democratic club in 46 years. The 5' 1" Kenna, who, along with "Bathhouse" John Coughlin, ran the most notoriously wicked, graft-driven ward in the city, controlled "The Levee" for another three years until his death at 89 in October of 1946. John Budinger, who had been chosen to replace Kenna on the City Council said of the "empty chair" at the meeting, "When our leader called me in and told me I had the privilege of being his candidate for alderman, it was the grandest thrill that ever happened to me." Chief Bailiff Albert J. Horan assured Budinger that he would have no trouble winning the seat, one way or another. He said, "We are not afraid of cries of investigation, for we are as open as babes in their mother's arms."

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Labels: 1974, Chicago Architecture, Dearborn Street, Holabird & Root

Monday, October 22, 2018

October 22, 1974 -- Madison Street Building Loses Decorative Tile, Killing a Pedestrian

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October 22, 1974 –Shortly before noon a piece of decorative tile falls from the State and Madison building at 22 West Madison Street, killing a woman who is walking on the sidewalk.  A First District patrolman is about 15 feet away when the accident occurs, and he reports, “I heard a loud crash and turned around to see this woman and all the debris lying on the sidewalk.” [Chicago Tribune, October 22, 1974] Building Commissioner Joseph F. Fitzgerald, Jr. orders the building agents to undertake major repairs of the building’s façade, noting that in 1972 his office had found “evidence of cracking and weakness in the building facing and ordered the agents to make repairs.” It would be another 22 years before the city adopted a comprehensive policy for the maintenance of exterior walls in older buildings.  Today a critical exam of building facades is required every 4, 8 or 12 years depending on the building’s classification. If a building owner files an Ongoing Inspection and Repair Program report every other year, the critical exam is waived. The ordinance applies to all buildings 80 feet or more in height.  The tile fell from the area near the top tier of windows in the middle of the left side of the building pictured above.

October 22, 2004 – The Dave Matthews Band, under attack after a driver for the band’s touring bus is accused of emptying 300 pounds of liquid waste into the river through the grates of the Kinzie Street bridge on August 8, presents checks for $50,000 to the Friends of the Chicago River and the Chicago Park District.  A written statement from the band explains, “We have decided to take action now even though it may turn out the incident was not caused by one of our buses.  We simply want to begin the healing process.” [Chicago Tribune, October 23, 2004] In the incident of August 8 passengers of a passing river tour boat are deluged with the contents of the buses waste disposal tank, and five people are taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital for testing.  A witness is able to write down the coach’s license plate number, and the vehicle is identified as one chartered by the band, which is passing through the city on the way to a performance in Wisconsin.

October 22, 1887 – Standing Lincoln, Augustus Saint-Gaudens’ sculpture of the Great Emancipator, is dedicated at the entrance to Lincoln Park.  On the day after the dedication The Chicago Daily Tribune describes the scene, “Since the night of the great fire Lincoln Park has never contained within the same area so many human beings as thronged its plains, clustered under its trees, and in every variety of vehicle crowded its roadways yesterday afternoon.”  [Chicago Daily Tribune, October 23, 1887]  The statue, one of two sculptures in the city (The other is Storks at Play in front of the Lincoln Park Conservatory) provided for in the will of lumberman Eli Bates, is dedicated on a gray afternoon.  Chicago Mayor E. A. Roche heads the dignitaries, and Abraham Lincoln II, the 15-year-old grandson of the late president, releases the flag covering the statue as upwards of 10,000 people watch.   The statue is a good place to seek out in the next few weeks as the trees to the north show their autumn colors.  Stand before the likeness of a politician who rose above the fray, made the hard choices, and ultimately paid for it with his life.  It gives one something to think about as we head toward November. 

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Labels: 1974, Madison Street

Saturday, September 22, 2018

September 22, 1974 -- Weese Wins Award for Lake Shore East

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September 22, 1974 – The Chicago Tribune reports that Harry Weese and Associates has won the highest award of the Chicago Chapter of the American Institute of Architects for an apartment building at the southwest corner of South Lake Park Avenue at East Forty-Seventh Street.  A.I.A jurors call the design a “good design at the highest level within the narrow constraints of publicly financed housing.”  The 26-story tower, Lake Shore East, features 38 angled, vertical planes of glass and brick which “give the building’s shape and its interplay of elements many different appearances as they are viewed from various perspectives.”  [Chicago Tribune, September 22, 1974]

September 22, 1981 – Two firefighters die and six others are injured while fighting an extra-alarm fire in the Willoughby Tower office building at 8 South Michigan Avenue.  Fire Commissioner William Blair says, “There was no chance … there was no way out for them.”  The two firefighters, Joseph Hitz, a snorkel truck driver with Hook and Ladder 1 and Craig McShane, a rookie with Engine 42, fall to their deaths down an open elevator shaft from the twenty-fifth floor to the roof of an elevator stopped at the ninth floor.  The fire on the floor from which they fell started in materials a cleaning crew had left in the elevator, and as a result the car fell until its brakes activated and stopped it on the ninth floor.  Six firefighters exit an elevator on the twenty-fifth floor to find the hallway filled with smoke.  Breathing through air masks, they find an open office through which they are able to reach a fire escape at which point they discover that one of their number, Hitz, is missing.  McShane, the only firefighter who still has air in his self-contained breathing apparatus, crawls back to check, and he falls through the same open elevator shaft into which Hitz had fallen earlier.  Mayor Jane Byrne, standing at the scene as the search for the two men is being conducted, says, “I am deeply sorrowed by the loss of the lives of these two brave firemen …I have conferred with Commissioner Blair and directed him to immediately procure, by the end of the week at the latest, two-way hand radios for every Chicago firemen in hopes that this would prevent a recurrence of such tragic accidents.”  Hitz and McShane are the first Chicago firemen killed on duty since 1978 and the first multiple deaths of Chicago firefighters since 1973. The plaque, pictured above, memorializing the two firefighters, can be seen at the firehouse at 419 South Wells Street, about a mile away from the tragic fire of 1981.

September 22, 1935 – In the six hours that the Chicago Tribune opens the doors of the new home of its radio station, 4,368 people tour the facilities.  Over 500 visitors fill out forms for a chance to gain admission to the auditorium when performances begin.  The paper describes the new digs in this way, “The lighting effects, the sharp slant of the auditorium for purposes of better vision, the richly covered, deep cushioned seats and the sound proofed walls attracted appreciative comments.”  [Chicago Daily Tribune, September 23, 1935]  The building just to the north of Tribune Tower is laid out or “squared off” with Polaris, the north star, as a sighting point, an innovative approach that allows a variance of about an eighth-inch along the building’s frontage on Michigan Avenue.  On October 5 the auditorium opens with two orchestras entertaining all of the workers who had labored on the building, along with their families.  Colonel Robert R. McCormick, editor and publisher of the paper, tells them, “This victory of peace has a sadness for me, for it means I must part from the men I have watched at this building for the last year and a half . . . You have piled stone on stone, color on color, and joined wire to wire.  You have built here, forever, something that your children will thank you for.  You leave me with emotion.  God bless you and be with you always.”  [Chicago Daily Tribune, October 2, 1935]

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Labels: 1974, Chicago Architecture