Connecting the Windy City

Saturday, May 16, 2020

May 16, 2009 -- Nichols Bridgeway Opens Between Millennium Park and Art Institute

May 16, 2009 –The Nichols Bridgeway, a 625-foot pedestrian bridge connecting Millennium Park to the new Modern Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago, opens.  Designed by the Pritzker prize-winning architect of the Modern Wing of the museum, Renzo Piano, it gradually rises from the Great Lawn southwest of the Pritzker Pavilion to a height of 60 feet as it meets up with the Bluhm Family Terrace on the third level of the Modern Wing.  As walkers move along the 450 tons of steel that make up the bridge, they are treated to spectacular views, west down Monroe Street toward the South Branch of the river, east to the open space of Grant Park and Lake Michigan, south to the spectacular new addition to the museum (and the railroad tracks that once occupied the entire area), and, north to Millennium Park and its lush Lurie Garden.  The bridge, built by Industrial Steel, Construction, Inc., is named after its benefactors, John D. and Alexandra Nichols.  

May 16, 2000 – The Chicago Tribune editorializes about cost overruns at Millennium Park. “Private-sector corporations generally prefer the design-build method of contracting for new facilities,” the editorial observes. “They hire a unified team of architects and builders that can deliver an agreed-to building for an agreed-to price. Then there’s the method Mayor Richard Daley is using on the Millennium Project . . . you might call it the design-as-you-build method.” At issue is a Frank Gehry-design that, as originally proposed, was supposed to cost 150 million dollars and which had by this time risen to $270 million. “And crews are still building the support structure,” the editorial sniped. “What happens when they start adding the fancy stuff?” In a stinging conclusion, the editorial asks, “And one last question for the planners: After you’ve made your last change and gotten your elegant little culture park just the way you like, where are the hoi polloi going to go for the Blues, Jazz, Gospel and Taste concerts that are too big for Millennium Park? Or is that just another small, hanging detail?” A space of over 17 years is probably time enough to judge whether the “little culture park” was worth the investment. Judging from the crowds at what is now the most popular tourist destination in the midwest, it feels as if the “small, hanging details” worked out. The photo above shows the park as it started to take shape in 2001.

wikimedia.org

May 16, 1930 – Charles B. Pike, the president of the Chicago Historical Society, presides over a ceremony at which a monument is unveiled on the bank of Portage Creek near Stickney, the site at which Father Marquette and Louis Joliet came into the vicinity of the Des Plaines River. In the 1670's Portage Creek would have been to the west of Mud Lake, through which the two French explorers had to carry their canoes and provisions after leaving the Chicago River   In his remarks Pike credits two Chicagoans, Dr. Lucius Zeuch and Robert Knight, whose research led to the establishment of the historical site. The Reverend Joseph Reiner, the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Loyola University, provides a narrative of the development of Chicago, a process that begins with Marquette’s and Joliet’s discovery of the possibility that a route might exist between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River by way of the modest Chicago River and the interior waters of Illinois.  Bertha Lerman, secretary of the Junior Citizens’ Club, pulls a canvas covering from a granite boulder that was set by the Chicago Historical Society on the old trail.  Today there is a much more elaborate work of art at the site. Located in the Chicago Portage National Historic Site in Lyons, it is on the west side of Harlem Avenue on a line with Forty-Eighth Street.  The sculpture at the site, shown above, is by Guido Rebechini.

May 16, 1910 – The Chicago Daily Tribune reports that James A. Pugh, the largest stockholder in the Chicago Canal and Dock Company, has confirmed that the company will build piers into the lake at the mouth of the river without permission of the city – if the United States War Department renews the permit that it granted the company 18 months earlier.  A member of the City Council’s committee on harbors, wharves, and bridges says, “If Pugh gets his permit and goes ahead without a city franchise to build his piers he will get into a fight.  We’ll tie the thing up in the courts, if necessary, until we can get a bill through the legislature.”  [Chicago Daily Tribune, May 16, 1910] Good luck, Mr. City Council Guy.  The terminal got built – it’s the long light-colored structure to the left of Ogden Slip, extending toward the brand new Lake Point Tower, nearing completion in 1968.  

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Labels: 2009, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago Architecture, Grant Park, Lake Michigan, Millennium Park, Monroe Street

Thursday, May 14, 2020

May 14, 2011 -- Aon Center Unveils Sky Summit

timeout.com/chicago

May 14, 2018 – The owners of the Aon Center reveal plans for an observatory on top of the building which, if built, would make Chicago the only city in the United States, beside New York City, with three observation decks.  The $185 million plan will capitalize on the building’s location, directly to the north of Millennium Park, the Midwest’s most popular tourist attraction.  The developer, 601W, estimates that the plan will generate $220 million in municipal taxes over 20 years.  601W also estimates that the observatory will pull in $30 million to $40 million in annual revenue.  The plan, tentatively called the Sky Summit, will lift cars of visitors over the building’s edge for 30 to 40 seconds, allowing riders to look down on Millennium Park and Randolph Street, 1,136 feet below them.   Exterior steel columns and the granite cladding above the building’s eighty-second floor will be removed to open up uninterrupted views form the observatory.  Tentatively, 601W will partner with Legends, the New York firm that operates that city’s One World Observatory, to operate and jointly own the Aon project. Construction on the Sky Summit was expected to begin in the spring of 2019 with a completion date sometime in 2021.  That has been delayed – with work beginning in the fall of 2020 and completion sometime in 2022.  Who knows how the current pandemic will affect that schedule? 

r-barc.com

May 14, 2011 – The Chicago Tribune reports that the president of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District’s board says that making the Chicago River safe enough for swimming would be a waste of money while increasing the chances of people drowning.  At a news conference Terrence O’Brien says, “In these difficult economic times when public agencies are facing budgetary shortfalls, people are losing their jobs and homes … it is important … that public funds are used wisely.”  [Chicago Tribune, May 14, 2011]  Earlier in the week the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency notified the District that it had failed to prove over the course of three years of hearings that cleaning up the river “would result in substantial and widespread social and economic impact.”  The E.P.A. ordered the District to implement more stringent standards for bacteria and other pollutants so that stretches of the Chicago River, the Cal-Sag Channel, and the Little Calumet River are made safe for recreation.  THAT was just eight short years ago – when virtually no one could have imagined the transformation of the river that has occurred during that time.  

May 14, 1938 –Workmen complete the razing of a three-story brick building at 601 West Sixty-Third Street, popularly known as the “Holmes murder castle.”  THIS is the building made famous 70 years later in Erik Larson’s popular book, The Devil and the White City.  It is where the owner of the building, Dr. H. H. Holmes, disposed of the bodies of six of his victims in the early 1890’s.  Holmes, who was hanged in 1896, allegedly murdered as many as 27 people before he was apprehended.  The United States government pays $61,000 for the building and lot, on which it proposes to build a post office.  The two buildings are pictured above.  The post office is still there. Note the elevated structure to the left of each building.  In the 1890’s that was the “Alley El,” the first elevated railroad in the city, one that carried passengers to and from the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893. Today it is part of the Green Line.

May 14, 1920 – The Michigan Avenue bridge is opened to traffic. It took 24 years and four city mayors to get the project completed, a project that began, according to Mayor William Hale Thompson, with a suggestion from the wife of the city controller in 1891, Mrs. Horatio N. May, who thought it might be just swell to have a link across the river at Michigan Avenue. Twenty years later the first plans for the bridge were drawn up, and in 1913 the first ordinance pertaining to the construction of the bridge was passed. Condemnation proceedings, authorization of bonds to finance the project, and the federal government’s objection to the use of steel for the bridge during wartime kept construction from beginning until April 15, 1918. Finally, at 4 p.m. on this day Mayor Thompson leads a motorcade from Congress Plaza up Michigan Avenue to the new bridge, where he cuts the ceremonial ribbon. Airplanes appear above and drop confetti. Four thousand cars follow the mayor’s automobile across the new bridge. A tiny dirt road on the north side of the river called Pine Street sits ready to become one of the city’s most impressive thoroughfares.

May 14, 1907 – At 2:40 p.m. Chicago White Sox officials begin the festivities that honor the team for the victory in six games of the “Hitless Wonder” in the 1906 World Series against cross-town rivals, the Chicago Cubs.  “For ten minutes,” the Chicago Daily Tribune reports, “a stream of autos charged intermittently through the gate and deposited city and baseball officials, ball players, and rooters all over the outfield.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, May 15, 1907] Mayor Fred Busse, Police Commissioner George Shippy, and Charles Comiskey unfurl the World Series pennant and carry it to home plate where William Hale Thompson asks for and receives “three cheers for Comiskey, three more for the White Sox, and still another three for the mayor.”  As the ovation continues, a “mounted delegation” from the stockyards gallops “into the field and rode pell mell around it to the accompaniment of vigorous applause.”  Then, the president of the National Baseball Commission, August Hermann, presents the award to the mayor and Comiskey.  Silence fills the stadium as “the ropes were being fastened by expert hands to the pennant.  The white stockinged players, who had fought for and won that emblem of supremacy, grasped the hoisting rope, forming themselves into a long line with Manager Jones in the place of honor, and began to haul away.”  And then … “Just as 15,000 throats were swelling with the first notes of the grand paean which was to have marked the climax of Chicago’s biggest baseball féte, just as the silken banner, emblematic of the highest honors of the diamond, had shaken out its folds over the White Sox park and started its upward climb in response to the tugs of the heroes of the day, Comiskey’s veteran flagstaff swayed, trembled in every fiber, then broke squarely off in the middle and toppled back to the earth which reared it.”  The pennant is temporarily draped over a liquor sign in right center field as the game begins in threatening weather and is quickly called as the field is “flooded beyond all possibility of further play” within five minutes.  Several cars have to be pulled out of the mud in the outfield with the last one pulled off the field just before dark by a team of horses.  “The pennant will be raised another day,” the paper concludes, “when President Comiskey is able to have erected a new pole strong enough to bear the strain.  But there will be no heroics.  Chicago had those yesterday.”  The presentation of the pennant at home plate is shown above.

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Labels: 2011, 2014, 2018, Chicago Architecture, Chicago Development, Millennium Park, Randolph Street

Wednesday, April 29, 2020

April 29, 2001 -- Art Institute of Chicago Announces Modern Wing Plans

J. Bartholomew Photo

April 29, 2001 – The Chicago Tribune reports that the Art Institute of Chicago has announced plans for a $200 million addition that will “create a major new entrance to the museum facing Lakefront Millennium Park and its parking garage, supply much-needed gallery and education space, and set the stage for one of the most dramatic internal reorganizations since the museum opened its doors in 1893.” [Chicago Tribune, April 29, 2001]   In order to make room for the new wing, the Goodman Theatre, sited mostly underground on the northeast corner of the museum, will be demolished.  The new building’s architect, Renzo Piano, says, “If you leave that building [the Goodman] there, you can’t do anything.”  The addition will add close to 300,000 square feet to the existing building’s 950,000 square feet of space.  Piano will also design a steel bridge that will connect the addition to Millennium Park to the north across Monroe Street.  The design for the new building, the first addition to the museum since the completion of the Rice Building in 1988, will feature a five-level structure with “three stories above ground and two below.  The top two floors will be for galleries.  The bottom two floors, both below ground, will be devoted to art storage and other ‘back of the house’ functions, such as a new loading dock that will replace the one along Monroe.  The ground floor, meanwhile, will house a visitors’ lobby, museum shop, resource facility for teachers and orientation areas for school children.”  Most striking, perhaps, will be the roof of the addition which Piano says represents his attempt “to strike up a dialogue with the football-field-size steel trellis" that [architect Frank] Gehry has designed just to the south of his band shell.  “Poetically speaking, it’s like a flying sculpture, a flying carpet,” Piano says.  Although optimistic projections called for the Modern Wing to be open by 2005, it actually opened in mid-2009, making the Art Institute of Chicago the second-largest art museum in the United States.  The Art Institute describes the Modern Wing in this way, “The building houses the museum’s world-renowned collections of modern European painting and sculpture, contemporary art, architecture and design, and photography.  The extraordinary scope and quality of these collections are a revelation, each displayed more comprehensively than ever before.  The Modern Wing allows the Art Institute to take its rightful place as one of the world’s great collections of modern and contemporary art.”  [archive.artic.edu/modernwing/overview/]  The above photo shows Renzo Piano's "flying carpet," the roof atop the Modern Wing with the entry arch from Louis Sullivan's Chicago Stock Exchange building in the foreground.

architect.com

April 29, 1982 – An announcement is made that the Chicago Dock and Canal Trust has signed a contract to exchange the land under Lake Point Tower at 505 North Lake Shore Drive for a property to be named later in the year.  American Ivsco Corp. retains ownership of the residential tower with a ground lease that will continue until about 2045.  The president of Chicago Dock, Charles Gardner, does not disclose the future owner of the land.  It is believed that the transaction is the result of the conversion of the building from rental apartments to condominiums.  Such a conversion could not legally take place unless the building and the land are held in common ownership.  Chicago Dock had owned the 3-acre parcel of land since the 1850’s and leased it to the developers of Lake Point Tower in 1965.  On June 1, 1983 Chicago Dock announced the property that it had acquired in the swap with Lake Point Tower.  Gardner disclosed that the company had acquired a 60 percent interest in the Playboy Building at 919 North Michigan Avenue, plus an undisclosed amount of cash.  It is speculated that Continental National Bank and Trust Company will be the majority owner of Lake Point Tower and the land beneath it.  

April 29, 1963 – Mayor Richard J. Daley announces plans to build an 80-story apartment building west of the Merchandise Mart on Wolf Point.  The building will be the tallest building in the Midwest and the fourth tallest in the world, rising 782 feet with a 571-foot antenna at its top.  It is projected to hold 1,300 apartments and a 320-room hotel with a plaza that rises two floors above the bridge at Orleans Street.  The cost of the project, which will occupy 5.76 acres of land, is $45 million.  Studio apartments will rent from $120 to $200 a month; the 512 one-bedroom units will go for between $180 and $280 a month; 256 two-bedroom units will rent for between $270 and $370; and 128 three-bedroom units will top out at $420.  Each apartment will have glass from floor to ceiling with seven-foot balconies extending the width of the unit.  The first tier of apartments will not begin until the building reaches the 120-foot mark with four restaurants and a theater, along with shops making up the first floors.  There will be two levels of parking below ground that will hold 800 cars.  The architect for the project is Chalres Booher Gunther, who founded PACE Associates, an engineering firm that worked on early drawings of Marina City.  One can see the similarities to the two Marina City towers on the river six blocks to the east.  The project actually got a permit from the Federal Aeronautics Administration for the antenna, but that is as far as it ever went. The top photo gives some idea of the look of the colossus.  Below that is a Chicago Tribune rendering of the space that it was projected to fill at Wolf Point.  The bottom photo shows what Wolf Point will look like when the last of the three towers is topped out in the next few years.  Probably a good thing the original plan got shelved, right?

April 29, 1928 – The Chicago Daily Tribune reports that the Gage Structural Steel Company, with offices at 3123-41 South Hoyne Avenue, has set a record for placement of steel in a tall building.  According to R. H. Gage, vice-president and engineer of the company, a record of 36 working days was established in the steelwork of the 100 North La Salle building. Gage says, “The first delivery of structural steel was made on Feb. 24, 1928, and the final delivery on April 13, 1928, and the erection of same was completed shortly thereafter in the record time of seven weeks, or thirty-six working days.  Three days were deducted for inclement weather, when the steel erectors could not work, and Saturdays were figured as half days, owing to the fact that the steel erectors quit at noon.”  [Chicago Daily Tribune, April 29, 1928] The 25-story building at the corner of La Salle Street and Washington required 1,958 tons of structural steel.

April 29, 1862 -- Report in the Chicago DailyTribune for this date: "A drunken man named Gates, who resides on Wells street, became suddenly sobered Saturday night, as follows: He was walking along the river dock between Randolph and Lake streets, when, by some means unexplained, he got into deep water. He howled lustily for help, and was rescued by two men, just as he was sinking for the last time. Never was a pickled article more suddenly or completely freshened than was Gates. He was taken in charge by the police and furnished with lodgings in the Hotel de Turtle, West Market station." Poor pickled Gates nearly met his doom just beyond the nearest bridge at Randolph Street, pictured above.

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Labels: 2001, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago Architecture, Millennium Park, Monroe Street

Thursday, October 10, 2019

October 10, 1975 -- Grant Park Proposal for "Lakefront Gardens for the Arts"

Chicago Tribune photo

google.com

October 10, 1975 – The Chicago Tribune editorializes favorably about a proposal, unveiled four days earlier, for a “Lakefront Gardens for the Arts” to be established where Millennium Park stands today.  On October 6, 1975 four civic organizations – the Metropolitan Housing and Planning Council, Friends of the Parks, the Open Lands Project, and the Chicago chapter of the American Institute of Architects – proposed a 20-acre park that would replace a surface parking lot just east of Michigan Avenue between Randolph and Monroe Streets.  A portion of the park would be built over the Illinois Central Railroad’s commuter line while another section would bridge the extension of Columbus Drive, which was still under construction at the time.  Included in the project would be a 10,000-seat outdoor music bowl that would be surrounded by a grassy area that could seat an additional 20,000 people.  The plan is an alternative to a much more modest Chicago Park District plan that involves rehabilitating the dilapidated band shell in Butler Field east of the Art Institute.  The Tribune editorial clearly states the choice:  “A comparatively small but safe investment in the Butler Field band shell, which would put the Grant Park concerts on a stronger footing; or a bold attempt to make this orchestra a key to greater things, energizing Chicago’s cultural life, giving new life to the downtown area, turning an eyesore into a park, and giving the city the most sophisticated outdoor music facility of any urban area in the nation.”  [Chicago Tribune, October 10, 1975]  Despite the scale of the project the Tribune concludes, “… the dazzling opportunities offered by the Lakefront Gardens plan should be examined and exploited to the full.”  The plan clearly did not get a full examination.  Three days after the editorial is published the Chicago Plan Commission votes, 5-1, to approve a new band shell with bids to be submitted by November 15.  It would be 25 years before talk once again turned to the site proposed for the Gardens, but it was probably worth the wait as Millennium Park, when it opened in 2004, is as fine a plot of civic green space as one will find anywhere in the world.  The two photos show the way the area looked at the time of the 1975 proposal and the way it looks today.

October 10, 1975 –The federal office building at 230 North Dearborn Street is formally dedicated in a ceremony held in the Federal Center plaza at Dearborn and Adams Streets.  The building is named after John C. Kluczinski, who represented the Fifth District in the United States House of Representatives from 1951 until his death from a heart attack in 1975.  Four premier architecture firms in the city joined forces in the Federal Center design – Ludwig Mies van der Rohe as chief designer; Schmidt, Garden and Erikson; C. F. Murphy Associates; and A. Epstein and Sons.  The 42-story office building is part of a complex of three buildings which are exquisitely unified.  According to the General Services Administration description of the plan, “The entire complex is organized on a 28-foot grid pattern subdivided into six 4-foot, 8-inch modules.  This pattern extends from the granite-paved plaza into the ground floor lobbies of the two towers, where the floors and elevator lobby walls are also granite.  The lines of the grid continue vertically up the buildings, integrating each component of the complex” [https://www.gsa.gov/historic-buildings/john-c-kluczynski-federal-building-chicago-il]

October 10, 1909 – Former United States Assistant Secretary of State John Callan O’Laughlin, a Chicago Daily Tribune reporter, writes of the vice he finds in the heart of the city.  “I have been through the red light districts of Chicago,” O’Laughlin begins, “and I am filled with a great loathing.  I have seen your dance halls, where temptation to sin is offered in the form of lights, and music, and drink.  I have seen saloons which are but the ante-rooms to iniquity.  I have visited your vice quarters, and have been astounded at the open traffic that exists therein.  I have learned of how ‘white slavery’ is conducted in Chicago.  I have been told of women imprisoned behind bars and forced to do the will of their keepers.  I have learned of police service to prevent the escape of unfortunates.  The condition that exists is at once heart-rending and disgusting.  It is a blot upon the fair name of Chicago.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, October 10, 1909] O’Laughlin urges the new police chief to get to work, saying, “It is about time for action.”  He rails at the courts for the dollar or five-dollar fines they dole out, calling the fines “a small commission received by the city from the earnings of vice.”  He suggests that the city take a lesson from Japan, saying, “It can forbid dance halls to sell liquor and to be a rendezvous at all hours for young men and girls.  It can forbid the sale of liquor in any house where women are allowed.  It can forbid the sale of liquor in houses of ill repute.  It can punish as a vagrant or otherwise every man who runs such a house or who has any connection with it or with inducing women to become inmates.  It can stop the youth of the city, including messenger boys, from entering the districts.”

October 10, 1977 – Thousands of Chicagoans stand in the sunshine along a ten-block parade route as Vice-President Walter Mondale marches down State Street with Mayor Michael Bilandic and other officials in the city’s annual Columbus Day parade.  Clearly, the Vice-President has an eye toward moving one office higher as “Three times during the parade he distressed his Secret Service contingent by plunging into crowds to shake hands, trade pleasantries, and pat children on the head.”  [Chicago Tribune, October 11, 1977]  Before the parade Mondale attends a mass celebrated by John Cardinal Cody in Our Lady of Pompeii at 1224 West Lexington Avenue.  After a reception at the church, Mondale and other officials walk two blocks west on Lexington to place a wreath at the statue of Christopher Columbus.  Most importantly, Mondale announces on his arrival in the city that a bill signed earlier in the week by President Jimmy Carter will increase federal money for community development in the city from $69 million to $134 million. 

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Labels: 1975, Chicago Park District, Grant Park, Millennium Park, Monroe Street, Randolph Street

Monday, September 9, 2019

September 9, 2003 -- Frank Gehry Appraises Work on New Pritzker Pavilion

azahner.com

September 9. 2003 – Architect Frank Gehry visits Chicago, appraising the bandshell that he designed in Millennium Park, as both the bandshell and the park are still taking shape.  He leads a tour of the bandshell for “a well-dressed, well-heeled group of Millennium Park donors.”  [Chicago Tribune, September 11, 2003]  Chicago Tribune architecture critic Blair Kamin describes the upbeat mood of the event, led by Gehry “with stand-up comic skill.”  Gehry pays particular attention to the bridge he designed that will weave sinuously across Columbus Drive, linking Millennium Park with the Daley Bicentennial Plaza, which today is Maggie Daley Park. He says that he sold Mayor Richard M. Daley on the idea for the bridge through the use of a dinner knife, saying that he didn’t threaten the mayor with it … rather, he turned it on an angle to show how the bridge with its sloping sides would look smaller than the mayor thought. Looking at the “trellis” of steel pipes that will rise above the 300 foot wide by 600 foot long great lawn in front of the bandshell, he quips that he told Cindy Pritzker, who contributed $15 million toward the $63 million bandshell that if it rains, “… you can always pull a shmata over the top and cover it,” using a Yiddish word that is sometimes used in reference to clothing.  Toward the end of the talk, someone in the audience asks the architect about the noise from Michigan Avenue and Randolph Street and how it would affect concerts in the new pavilion.  Gehry answers, “You ask the mayor to turn it off.”  The above photo shows the pavilion under construction, close to the time when the architect visited the site.

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

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

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

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Labels: 2003, Chicago Architecture, Michigan Avenue, Millennium Park, Randolph Street

Sunday, November 25, 2018

November 25, 1877 -- Baseball on the Lakefront?

drloihjournal.com

google.com

November 25, 1877 – On the day before the Chicago City Council is to vote on an arrangement that would lease a part of the lakefront on the east side of Michigan Avenue and south of Randolph Street to the “Chicago Ball Club” [Chicago Daily Tribune, November 24, 1877] a letter to the editor of the paper, signed “Michigan Avenue” justifies the transaction with these points, “Inasmuch as the idea is to pay the city $1,000 for the use of some land for which it has heretofore received nothing, it would seem to be a worthy one; but the Aldermen should carefully satisfy themselves on these points: Whether there is a reasonable chance for the sale of the property for depot purposes; and whether the character of the petitioners, and of the officers of the ball club, is such as to guarantee good management.  With no doubt on these points there should be no hesitation in taking the $1,000.  The question as to the character of the attendance at ball matches cannot possibly be put by a Council which lets another portion of this same property for circuses.  It is without doubt true that many good citizens in business and professions greatly enjoy, as an afternoon’s recreation to see the exhibition of base-ball, and there is no more reason why the City Government should discourage that entertainment than there is for the putting down the theatres by ordinance.”  The team that would eventually grow into the Chicago Cubs would find its home where the Millennium Monument stands in Wrigley Square in Millennium Park today, building two playing fields in six years, moving to the West Side in 1884 for legal reasons. An interesting look at the earliest days of the team can be found in Connecting the Windy City here.  The top photo shows a Harper's Weekly illustration of the second lakefront park in the spring of 1883.  The photo below that shows the one-time park as it appears today, the site of Wrigley Plaza and the Millennium Monument.

November 25, 1908 – Aaron Montgomery Ward issues a lengthy statement in which he reviews “in detail the administration of the self-appointed office of ‘watch dog of the lake front.’” [Chicago Daily Tribune, November 26, 1908]  Far from being a manifesto, the statement is conciliatory, ending with these words, “If the South Park commissioners or the museum trustees can find a way to prevent other buildings from being constructed on the lake front in the future, then I will be glad to withdraw my objection to the erection of the Field museum, but if the dedications and the law affirming them are destroyed for one building, any other buildings may go there within the discretion of the body exercising the trust over the park.”  Much of Ward’s statement details the history of what we know today as Grant Park, a history that begins in 1836 when the United State cedes all of the land from the river to Twelfth Street and from State Street to Lake Michigan to Chicago so that the city can raise funds through the sale of those lands in order to build a canal.  The city platted the land from Madison Street to Twelfth and From State to the lake into lots and public grounds, and on the public ground east of Michigan Avenue the maps carried the words, “Public ground, A common: to remain forever open, clear and free of any building or obstruction whatever.”  Three years later the federal government platted the land to the north, previously occupied by Fort Dearborn, in the same way and on the public ground east of Michigan Avenue appeared the words, “Public ground: to remain vacant of buildings.”  The principle purpose of the designations seems not to have been one of altruism, but of business.  Creating a large area of open space across from the little-used mud path of Michigan Avenue would induce buyers to purchase land in one of the least attractive areas of the central city. It didn’t take long for the city to begin ignoring the responsibility to maintain its open land. Ward details the encroachments that the city sanctioned, “By its permission the old exposition building was erected just north of Jackson street.  North of that was erected an armory building, and north of that building known as ‘Battery D.’ Still north of that and in the rear of those buildings, were erected barns and sheds to stable the horses and wagons used by the city in cleaning the streets from the river to Twelfth street, and from the river to Lake Michigan, and to pile old paving blocks and other material, and for other sheds.  It gave permission to the Baltimore and Ohio railway company to erect and maintain sheds where freight was unloaded form the cars into wagons.  Different express companies were given like privileges.  There were five railroad tracks on the park west of the Illinois Central’s right of way.  The city gave permission to different circuses to show on the lake front for two or three weeks at a time, the circus horses and other animals were stabled upon the park, and when the circus left the debris and offal remained, an offensive nuisance to everybody in the vicinity.  During the winter the snow taken from the streets, together with all the dead dogs, cats, rats, or other animals and garbage that might be thrown into the street was all dumped on this park.  The snow and filth taken from the streets remained there until the heat and the rains of spring and early summer melted the snow and ice and left in its place the slime and filth and dead animals, and that condition remained until the property owners were forced to clean the place at their own expense.”  By 1890 the area was in such deplorable condition that Ward went to court to obtain a restraining order against the further use of the park other than its original condition as open space.  The case ultimately ended up in the Illinois Supreme court, which found in Ward’s favor … “that neither the legislature of Illinois nor any other body could grant to the state or any one else the right to violate the dedication of the federal government and the state government.”  Then Ward turns to the proposed Field museum, saying that --  ”Nobody had a higher respect or admiration for Marshall Field during his lifetime or his generosity in donating a large sum of money for a museum than I have.”  He continues, though, saying that the South Park Board proposes much more than a museum on the park, proposing “to erect four public comfort buildings, a building for the storing of tools, an electric light power plant, sheds for the storing of water and sprinkling carts, stables for horses, a band stand, a boathouse, a refectory or restaurant building, an administration building or office building for the officers of the park board.  In other words, their plan is to provide a site on the lake front for twenty or more permanent buildings, not including the Field museum.”  Ward finishes his statement with words that are prophetic, “I may add that it has been my purpose to preserve the Lake Front park for the people in accordance with the plain intent of the government which gave to the city the land for an open park, free from all buildings, and I am still of the opinion that in so doing I have done the city and the people a real service.”  In the above 1908 photo the tallest building is the headquarters building for Montgomery Ward.  It is clear that the eastern view from its windows did not provide a scene of serenity and calm.  

November 25, 1900 – The Chicago Daily Tribune reports that General Henry Strong has bought the Lincoln Park Palace on the northwest corner of Diversey Boulevard and Pine Grove Avenue for $75,088.76.  The Palace was completed in 1893 as a “high class apartment building and hotel”.  [Chicago Daily Tribune, November 25, 1900]  The building reportedly cost $200,000 to construct and the sale came about as a result of a suit General Strong filed against Mrs. Mary Edwards, the wife of the developer, C. C. Edwards, who fell from the top of the building as he was inspecting the progress of its construction.  Mrs. Edwards supervised the completion of the building, but it never saw anywhere close to a return on the money that was invested in it, and she took up residence just to the west.  If you happen to stop by Yak-Zies on Diversey, you are in the former home of Mrs. Edwards, so order up a drink of your choice and offer a toast to poor old Widow Edwards.  She deserved better than she got.  The Lincoln Park Palace still stands today as an apartment building, The Brewster, with an unbelievable atrium that rises to the full height of its eight stories.  Glass block walkways on each floor allow light to travel from the roof’s skylights to the vestibule as they provide access to the apartments.  For more information on the Brewster and its fascinating history, please click here.

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

Labels: 1877, Chicago Cubs, Chicago Sports, Michigan Avenue, Millennium Park, Randolph Street

Friday, July 20, 2018

July 20, 1984 -- Millennium Park Before the Transformation

July 20, 1984 – Strolling through Millennium Park today, it is difficult to imagine what the area was like before the transformation began.  Back in 1984 Cindy Mitchell, the president of Friends of the Park had this to say about the area east of Michigan Avenue between Randolph and Monroe Streets, “This could be the premier spot of the downtown area, a real tourist attraction and a place for Loop workers to enjoy a lunch, but it needs a great deal of work and some creative thinking.  [Chicago Tribune, July 20, 1984]In a stroll through the garden with a Tribunereporter and photographer, Mitchell pointed out that “The flower beds have no flowers.  Benches are in need of paint.  Workmen were trying to start up the two large decorative and long-dry water fountains. When the water was turned on in the first fountain, a huge leak sprang through the deteriorated masonry.  The second fountain proved more of a challenge and refused to flow.”  That wasn’t the worst of it.  Grass along the Michigan Avenue sidewalk is nonexistent; what little grass there is in the “park” is parched.  Stairways are deteriorating at an alarming degree and most the wiring in the park lights is so far gone that few of them work.  “Deeper in the park, the pigeons munch on piles of debris and share the lawn and benches with dozing derelicts, bag people and other itinerant-looking characters, some of whom frequent the back reaches of the park along the balustrade esplanade and dissuade visitors from using the area.” Commander Robert Casey of the First Police District says of the park that, although it is generally safe, “Office workers go there to smoke marijuana, and the bums sleep there during the night.  We run the wagons in there early in the morning to get rid of the rummies.” Mitchell asserts, ‘When you’ve got a problem, you can’t just throw up your hands and say, ‘It’s impossible.’ You have to say, ‘Let’s attack this problem. We can lick it.’ It takes some vision, some planning, some creative thinking. It takes determination. After all, Chicago’s motto is, ‘I will.’” Two decades later creative thinking paid off when Millennium Park opened and the city received a beautiful new front yard. The before and after pictures show the story.

July 20, 1881 – The Directors of the Board of Trade receive assurances that an ordinance vacating a portion of LaSalle Street between Jackson Boulevard and Van Buren Street will be valid and, based upon this information, vote to purchase the property at this location for $10,000.  The next step will be to organize a Building Association since Illinois law prohibits the Board from erecting a building exceeding $100,000 in valuation.  It is anticipated that the new building will cost at least $800,000, but the matter of the building itself is left for another day.  The Chicago Daily Tribune summarizes the results of the meeting in this way, “The Board of Trade purchases the property for $10,000.  This it leases to a Building Association for a term of fifty or one hundred years at a fixed rental.  The Building Association erects the edifice, and leases to the Board of Trade what may be required at a certain rental, yet to be determined upon.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, July 21, 1881] This would be a decision that would produce a huge impact on this area. According to Homer Hoyt in his One Hundred Years of Land Values in Chicago, "From 1881 to 1883 the value of land on Jackson, Van Buren, Wells, and LaSalle streets near the Board of Trade advanced from $200 and $400 a front foot to from $1,500 to $2,000 a front foot .. the total increase in the value of land and buildings within half a mile from the Board of Trade from 1881 to 1885 was estimated by current observers at from $20,000,000 to $40,000,000."  The first Board of Trade building to stand on this site is pictured above.  Barely visible above the front entrance at the base of the tower are the two statues of Agriculture and Industry that still stand in the plaza outside the present day Board of Trade building.

July 20, 1913 – The Chicago Daily Tribune’s art critic, Harriet Moore, writes an opinion piece in which she supports the City Club in its campaign against billboards.  Her argument begins with a single question, one she asked at a previous hearing in which a City Council committee was listening to testimony from both advocates and opponents of the signs, “Is it your opinion that beauty has neither health value nor financial value in a modern metropolis?”  [Chicago Daily Tribune, July 20, 1913]  She then answers the question with three separate responses:  that beauty is a health producer (“Hideous objects and harsh sounds, assaulting eyes and ears in a manner not to be escaped, destroy the harmony of life by introducing discords, and reduce the joy of life by insulting the senses with ugliness.”); that beauty is a commercial asset in any community (“Without beauty a city is merely a place to make money in and get away from.”); and, beauty is a great investment (“Why does the whole world flock to Italy, spending there millions every year?  Because, a few centuries ago a few hundred artists builded and carved and painted beautifully.”)  Moore concludes, “Chicago has the opportunity to become one of the most beautiful cities in the world.  The lake, the long stretch of park which is to border it, Michigan avenue widened to the river and adequately connected with the Lake Shore drive, the widened Twelfth street, the new railway terminals, the enlarged business district—these and other conditions and projects will create a beautiful metropolis.  Along with these large plans for civic beauty should go eternal vigilance against all kinds of defacement and in favor of all kinds of minor improvements.  The fight against billboards is an important detail of the general campaign.”

Posted by Chicago Old and New at 4:13 AM 0 comments

Labels: 1984, Chicago Parks, Grant Park, Michigan Avenue, Millennium Park