Connecting the Windy City

Saturday, September 5, 2020

September 5, 1990 --- Crate and Barrel Opens on Michigan Avenue

Crains Chicago Business

curbedchicago.com

September 5, 1990 – Gordon Segal opens the new North Michigan Avenue Crate and Barrel store, a three-level housewares emporium, as 1,100 guests, including Mayor Richard M. Daley, ogle the goods, “sliding garlic shrimp off toothpicks, or swirling red pepper steak in an ominous sauce … rubbing palms over Shaker tables, bouncing fists on mattresses and turning over price tags.”  [Chicago Tribune, September 6, 1990]. Soon after graduating from Northwestern University, Segal and his wife, Carole, open the first Crate and Barrel in 1962 in an old warehouse on North Wells Street in Old Town with merchandise displayed on packing crates and barrels.  In 1968 the Segals opened their second store in the Plaza del Lago shopping center in Wilmette.  The first store outside Illinois opened in Massachusetts in 1977, and in 2008 Crate and Barrel opened its first store outside the United States in Toronto.  There are over a hundred stores today.  Unquestionably, though, the great success of the brand began with the decision to purchase an old terra cotta-clad medical building at the corner of Michigan Avenue and Erie Street and use the site for a new store.  In a break with the design of most stores at the time, the Segals commissioned architect John Buenz of Solomon, Cordwell and Buenz to create a store that “with its sweeping white lines, glass façade and open escalators … broke with the street’s [Michigan Avenue] traditions.”  [Chicago Tribune, January 21, 2018]. The plants and flowers that were placed outside the store served as inspiration for the planters that now line the street.  In 2018 the Segals, who had sold a majority interest in the company to the Otto Group in 1998, said good-bye to the Michigan Avenue store.  It is today a 43,000 square-foot Starbucks Reserve Roastery, the third Roastery to open in the United States. 

September 5, 1982 -- The Chicago Tribune reports that Chicago transit officials have selected the Forty-Ninth Street corridor as the route that a 9.1-mile rapid transit line will use to move people from the Loop to Midway Airport.  According to the plan, the route could be in operation by the end of the 1980’s with costs kept to a minimum through the use of railroad rights-of-way for much of the distance.  It is expected that the federal government will provide 80 percent of the funding for the $453 million project.  The hope is that 18,000 to 35,000 residents of the Southwest Side will use the line, relieving the area’s population of the burden of depending on bus service in the only section of the city without rapid transit service.  Nine stations will be built along the new line, including a stop at Midway along Cicero Avenue, at Pulaski Road and Fifty-First Street, Kedzie Avenue and Forty-Ninth Street, California avenue at Forty-Ninth, Western at Archer, Ashland Avenue just north of the Stevenson and Halsted Street at Archer.  The line will connect with the Loop elevated with a proposed link between the Ryan line (today’s Red Line) and the State Street subway to get Ryan line trains off the Loop elevated structure.  Before any of this can happen, though, the Urban Mass Transportation Administration must approve an environmental impact statement.  This is another one of the projects that took decades to bring to completion.  A high-speed subway line between the Loop and Sixty-Third Street was first proposed in the 1940’s.  In 1987 the project finally kicked off, and the new line was opened on October 31, 1993.

September 5, 1931 – The general manager of the Union Station Company, O. H. Frick, announces that work will soon begin on a $2,000,000 powerhouse that will supply heat to the new post office building, Union Station, and other railroad property along the river.   The new structure will sit midway between Taylor Street and Roosevelt Road on the west bank of the river.  The new building is necessary because the present Union Station heating plant sits on the site of the new post office, currently under construction.  Graham, Anderson, Probst & White, the same architectural firm that designed Union Station and the new post office, will also design the power house.  The specifications for the new structure are impressive, according to Frick.  He says, “The first unit will have four 1,600 horse power boilers, normal rating, with a maximum rating of 4,000 horse power each.  Its capacity will be 16,000 horse power.  The maximum length of the distributing system will be about one mile and will use both overhead and underground pipe systems, thoroughly insulated to reduce condensation losses.”  The Union Station Company, jointly owned by the Pennsylvania, Burlington, and Milwaukee railroads, projects the cost of the powerhouse at $2,000,000.

September 5, 1880 – A Chicago Daily Tribune editorial issues praise for an expanding lakefront “as a beautiful breathing-spot for the people” [Chicago Daily Tribune, September 5, 1880] after which it issues a warning.  The paper first observes, “The debris from the great fires of ’71-‘74 furnished the material to fill up the basin between the Illinois Central Railway and the old breakwater, and, after various vicissitudes, the space has been leveled off, with walks and grass plots it affords an inviting retreat on sultry evenings for all classes, the working people especially finding there much needed rest and recreation.  It is hoped in the not distant future that stately maples and elms will replace the starveling poles that now disgrace it, and make it one of the most beautiful, as it is the most inviting, resort that can be found in any city in the country.”  Disrupting the process of beautification, though, is a proposal to make the area a parade ground for the military. “No one will accuse THE TRIBUNE of opposing anything that can contribute to the comfort and efficiency of our military organizations,” the editorial ends, “but the use of the park for this purpose is entirely unnecessary … by common consent base-ball has usurped a part of this north end of the park (the organization that eventually would become the Chicago Cubs began its life, playing in an area that is now occupied by the peristyle on the southeast corner of Randolph Street and Michigan Avenue) … A strong remonstrance has been prepared, and it is hoped the Council will adopt it.  Let the park be kept forever for the people.  They need it, and it is their right that they should have it.”  The photo above shows the park, looking south, about ten years after the editorial appeared.

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Labels: 1990, Chicago Event, Michigan Avenue, Wells Street

Monday, May 25, 2020

May 25, 1860 -- Wells Street Dangers

images.chicagohistory.org

May 25, 1860 – Another taste of what it must have been like in the early days of Chicago.  A letter to the editor of the Chicago Press and Tribune reads as follows: 

“Messrs. Editors:  I notice in your paper this morning another case of accident to a child from a stray horse.  It was only a week or two since that a small child on North Wells street was attacked by a horse, and was only saved from a terrible death by the timely aid of a man who was passing at the time.”

“I have often thought it very dangerous to permit animals to run at large n this way.  It was only a short time ago that I saved my wife from an attack by a cow upon the sidewalk, by seizing the animal by the horse and turning her away.”

“I trust our city authorities will take note of this matter and correct the nuisance.”  S.

The writer, in protesting the horses and cows allowed to run wild on Wells Street, could not possibly know that this would not be the last time in the city’s history that things would run wild on North Wells.  And ... as the above image of the Chicago River in 1860 shows, the city was already a hub of commerce.  Civilization -- if you take that to mean not being chased by cows in the streets -- was yet to follow.

May 25, 1966 –Half of the Chicago Fire Department turns out to fight a fire that destroys an abandoned nine-story grain elevator at Thirty-Second near Throop Street on the South Fork of the South Branch of the Chicago River. Six firefighters are injured as more than 500 firefighters and a hundred pieces of equipment guard against the flames as they threaten a nearby residential area and adjacent commercial buildings.  Despite the efforts, the flames, which at their height reach 300 feet, still ignite the roof of the Denver-Chicago Trucking terminal across the river on the west bank.  Fire boats are able to quench those flames before they do serious damage.  Flames also attack an eight-story industrial building a half-block down the east bank of the river, but hook and ladder crews douse those flames as well.  Ten railroad box cars on nearby tracks cannot be saved from the flames that are so intense that onlookers wear protective clothing to watch the inferno.  The first alarm at the former Continental Grain Company elevator comes in at 7:10 p.m. and within 20 minutes five more regular and four special alarms are called.

May 25, 1950 – A normal run on the newest of Chicago streetcars, the “Green Hornet,” turns into tragedy at the intersection of State Street and Sixty-Third Street when the streetcar slams into a gasoline tank truck, causing an explosion and fireball that kills 34 people and injures another 50.  Proceeding south on its State Street route, the streetcar with driver Paull Manning at the wheel is whizzing along at about 35 miles per hour, approaching the intersection of Sixty-Third Street.  Throughout the day, though, streetcars have been routed east onto Sixty-Third Street because of a flooded viaduct a block ahead on State Street.  At Sixty-Second Street a flagman frantically signals Manning to slow down for the open switch, but the driver either does not see him or ignores the signal.  Then the unthinkable happens.  A gasoline truck pulling two tanks is travelling north on State Street and enters the intersection just as the speeding streetcar lurches violently through the open switch, throwing passengers to the floor as it hits the cab of the truck, rupturing its gas tank.  The streetcar spins around in a half-circle, and as the truck’s gas tank erupts, the cab jackknifes, slicing open the first tanker of gas.  Four thousand gallons of gasoline flow from the tank, spilling over the curb and engulfing seven buildings on State Street.  Everything is a mass of flame.  Somehow, 30 people manage to escape the packed streetcar, but 34 people, including the driver of the streetcar and the driver of the truck, die in the inferno.  A coroner’s inquest shows among other things, that the doors of this model of streetcar would not open in either direction if just one person was applying pressure to them.  That afternoon yielded a scene that was as horrendous as a mass transit accident could ever be.  If you have ever wondered why you never see a gasoline tank truck in the city during the day, you can look back on the tragedy of this Thursday afternoon in May of 1950 and understand why.  

publication.newberry.org

May 25, 1946 – The Chicago Plan Commission, after seven years of study, reveals a projection of what Chicago is expected to look like in 1965.  The plan “envisions a city of 514 neighborhoods surrounded by a framework of thorofares, edges of industrial areas, and public lands.  The neighborhoods, in turn, will be incorporated into 59 communities, each a small city of 50,000 to 80,000 residents.  Each will contain a high school, a large park and athletic play field, and a major shopping center.”  [Chicago Daily Tribune, May 26, 1946]. Each community area would be separated from the others by industrial belts, railroads, waterways, expressways, or other barriers, providing a locally controlled population for the high school. In addition, each community would maintain a distinct central business district.  H. Evert Kincaid, the executive director of the plan commission says, “This mapping of the preliminary comprehensive city plan is a guide that should be of aid in all constructive efforts directed toward the physical development and redevelopment of the city … Property owners can proceed with capital improvements with a greater degree of security.  Tenants can be assured of a more attractive living environment, and public officials can proceed with increased confidence to provide the essential public works needed in the realization of the greater Chicago charted by the plan.”  In building the plan the commission used data collected by the federal Works Progress Administration, detailing more than 1,000,000 residential units, along with over 50,000 commercial units, and 10,000 industrial enterprises.  According to the Newberry Library, the plan “presented copious maps to show widespread ‘blight’ dominating the central area of the city.  It concluded that nine square miles – including most areas occupied by African Americans – needed to be cleared and rebuilt in the near term.”[publications.newberry.org/makebigplans]. The Newberry summary goes on to state, “… the Plan Commission proposed pursuing two incompatible goals: the high-speed mobility and residential sprawl of the automobile-suburb era as well as the dense, urban life of the streetcar-neighborhood era.  In the decades to follow, the incompatibility would become increasingly evident as Metropolitan Chicago grew and sprawled, while the city proper’s municipal population peaked and began to decline for the first time.” 

May 25, 1930 – The Chicago Daily Tribune reports that the design for the $10,000,000 outer drive “link bridge” will be the city’s first use of “modern architecture . . . expressive of its function.” [Chicago Tribune, May 25, 1930] President Warren Wright of the Lincoln Park park commission says of the design, “The approved design is a restrained modern treatment, simple, dignified and massive. It is not only in keeping with the present day trends but it is thoroughly practical. Flat stone weathers better, looks better and needs less attention and repair than ornamented surfaces. Incidentally, the design gives ample room for the operators’ houses and excellent visibility from them, while its bold and concentrated ornamentation eliminates the need for much overall treatment.” When completed in 1937 the Lake Shore Drive Bridge, one of the most important Depression projects of the Works Progress Administration, is the longest, widest, heaviest bridge in the world. Each of the bridge's 6,240 ton leaves is heavier than any bascule in existence. Today it is a massive example of industrial Art Deco design.

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Labels: 1860, Chicago History, Wells Street

Monday, April 13, 2020

April 13, 1882 -- Wells Street Bridge Tied Up All Day As Ship Runs Aground

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April 13, 1882 – Trouble comes again to the Wells Street bridge as “the monster propeller”  [Chicago Daily Tribune, April 14, 1882]  City of Rome hits bottom and comes to a dead stop.  After an ineffective attempt to free herself, two tugs, W. H. Wolf and Hackley are called, and they pull at the stuck ship for over an hour to no effect.  Two more tugs, the A G. Van Schnick and Constitution, are summoned, but even with four tugs yanking on the grounded ship, the City of Rome refuses to budge.  During this time the Wells Street bridge, the main point of entry to the Chicago and North Western train station north of the river on Wells Street, remains in the open position.  At 7:15 p.m. two more tugs are called and the six tugs manage to work the ship free from the bottom of the river.  Unfortunately, during this final exertion the fireman on the Van Schnick is severely burned when he is drenched in a discharge of boiling water from the City of Rome’s steam condenser.  He is taken to the County Hospital.  The City of Rome is carrying 75,000 bushels of corn, and as she heads toward the lake she draws 14 feet, nine inches aft and 14 feet forward, giving very little margin for error in the shallow channel.  Two Anchor Line steamers lie abreast of one another just west of the Wells Street bridge, making it very difficult for ships the size of the City of Rome to enter the draw of the bridge.  It’s another day on the crowded Chicago River.  The above photo shows the Wells Street bridge, looking north toward the Chicago and North Western terminal.  Notice the clearance on the north side of the draw ... once the bridge was rotated parallel to the banks of the river, it took a pretty nice piece of navigation to squeeze through.

April 13, 1955 – The Chicago Daily Tribune reports that a proposal to link Midway and O’Hare Airports to the Loop by way of a monorail system able to move trains at 75 to 150 miles per hour will be proposed to the city council at its next meeting on April 21.  The plan calls for the system “To run west form the Loop to Cicero av. In the Congress st. super-highway, where it would not interfere with surface railway operation, and then branch north and south, one branch going to Midway, the other to O’Hare.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, April 13, 1955] The system would be double-tracked with trains “supported on the arms of ‘T’ shaped supporting structures 26 feel high,” giving the trains 16 feet of clearance above the ground.  Estimated time from the Loop to O’Hare is 14 minutes with a little less time required for a trip to Midway.  Officials estimate the cost of the project to be close to $12,000,000 with $2,000,000 required for the construction of terminals.  Another great idea that goes nowhere.  On June 7, 1956 the City Club of Chicago recommends that the city study the idea.  The next time the concept comes up is in September of 1959 when the city’s transportation department introduces the idea of a monorail system between the Loop and the proposed exposition center on the lakefront.  Of course, that didn’t happen either.  It would take considerably more than $12,000,000 to make the idea happen today, and the conversation is still  going on over sixty years later about how to move people quickly from downtown to the outlying airports.

April 13, 1953 – Dr. Konrad Adenauer, the Chancellor of the West German Republic, stops in the city while on a goodwill tour of the United States to make a major address in which he asserts that he would never agree to “a neutralized, disarmed Germany, barred from an equal treaty making status with other nations.”  [Chicago Daily Tribune, April 14, 1953]  On this day the Chancellor’s T.W.A. plane arrives at 5:20 p.m. after circling to show Adenauer a good view of the city.  His daughter and a party of 21 people accompany him, and the German consul general meets the group as does Otto K. Eitel, owner of the Bismarck Hotel where the German leader will spend the night.  On the following day Adenauer attends a luncheon at the Chicago Club for which Robert E. Wood, the board chairman of Sears, Roebuck and Co., serves as the host.  Next on the docket is a reception in his honor at the University of Chicago at which Adenauer presents the university chancellor, Lawrence A. Kimpton, with several scholarships for study in Germany.  The day concludes at a Germania Club dinner where Adenauer makes his policy address in German.  In the photo above Dr. Adenauer is shown second from the left at the University of Chicago reception.  Dr. Kimpton is at the far right of the photo.

April 13, 1948 -- The Chicago Daily Tribune reports that Chicago Transit Authority workmen have begun salvaging rails and signal equipment form the Market Street elevated stub, which will be torn down during the summer. Once the elevated structure is out of the way, the section of South Wacker Drive on which it is located will become the north approach of the Congress Street expressway, which is in a preliminary phase of construction. The photo above shows the Market Street stub where it ended on the east side of the Civic Opera Building.

Olaf Bensontclf.org

April 13, 1902 – Speaking at the annual banquet of the Chicago Architectural Club at the Victoria Hotel, landscape architect Olaf Benson predicts that by the middle of the century Chicago will be known as the “City Beautiful.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, April 14, 1902]  benson makes it clear that such an achievement will not come easily.  He says, “We must reconstruct and remodel our city, on entirely new ‘beauty lines.’ From a state of chaos and incongruous mixture of all kinds of buildings, standing side by side, without regard to character, we must bring order and introduce a system adapted for use, comfort, beauty, and happy and contented human living.” Benson, who served as superintendent of the Lincoln Park board from 1875 to 1889, continued, “Chicago of the future will have parks and boulevards the grandest the world has ever seen … A beautiful vegetation of graceful trees and shrubs and delicate flowers will receive more consideration, and scenic landscape effects will be among the chief attractions in our parks.”  Earlier in the day Daniel Burnham returns to the city from Washington, D. C. where he has convened the first planning session of the commission appointed to beautify the nation’s capital.  Burnham says, “A general plan of procedure was outlined, but nothing definite was done by the commission, which is composed of Charles McKim, Frederick Law Olmstead, and myself.  We will not complete our task for many months.  The results of our work will be submitted to Congress next winter.”  

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Labels: 1882, Chicago Bridges, Chicago RIver, Wells Street

Sunday, March 1, 2020

March 1 -- Piper's Alley Fire Damages 15 Businesses

March 1, 1971 – Piper’s Alley, the big tourist draw in Old Town, is evacuated as fire is discovered in the loft of the Playwright’s Center, a four-story building that forms the west end of the U-shaped commercial center.  Two thousand spectators watch from the streets, and a hundred diners are evacuated from That Steak Joynt at 1610 Wells Street as a precaution.  Fire fighters say that every one of the 15 shops that make up the alley will suffer some smoke or water damage.  Fortunately the glass blower at the entrance to the alley remains unscathed.

March 1, 1959 – Mrs. Dorothy Wrigley Rich Chauncey, the newly married daughter of Philip K. Wrigley, says “the only thing marring her happiness was her father’s ire at her elopement and marriage.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, March 2, 1959] “I have the utmost respect and love for my parents,” the new bride says. “The last thing I want to do or ever intended to do was hurt them.  We both feel badly about the way they apparently feel.  But I’m sure time will heal all of this.”  On February 28 Wrigley Rich Chauncey eloped to Albuquerque, New Mexico with Chauncey “a white haired grandfather,” a Phoenix, Arizona radio station executive, and “man-about-town who first arrived in that city on a freight car.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, March 1, 1959] Under Arizona law the new bride’s divorce decree from a previous marriage is still not final, but the elopement and marriage in Albuquerque avoids the technicality.  The perturbed father of the bride says, “I thought I had an understanding with my daughter that she would wait for the year after the divorce before getting married again.  We expected that she probably would go back east with her children this summer and see her old friends.  I know she has been feeling marooned out here.”  Reached at his suite in the Arizona Biltmore in Phoenix and asked about reports that he might disinherit the new Mrs. Chauncey, Wrigley says, “That’s a little strong.  Let’s say she will not be considered an active member of the family.”

yesterdaytrails.wordpress.com

March 1, 1951 -- Speaking before a gathering of city business people at the Palmer House, Carrol M. Shanks, the president of the Prudential Insurance Company of America, gives the thinking behind the firm’s decision to locate its home office on Randolph Street. Six factors, Shanks says, contribute to the selection:  industry, farming, transportation, natural resources, industrial and agricultural wealth, and stability of the people.  “The farms of the nine mid-American states combined account for more than one-third of the total cash receipts from farm marketings in the United States,” Shanks says. [Chicago Daily Tribune, March 2, 1951] He goes on to say that 80 percent of the iron ore used in the manufacture of steel comes from the area and that much of the steel is made in the region as well.  At an earlier press conference Charles Murphy of the architectural firm of Naess and Murphy, outlines the parameters of the project, one that with its 800,000 square feet of usable space, will be the third-largest office building in the city.  The tower will stand on 400 caissons extending 100 feet to bedrock and will require 30,000 tons of steel.  Shanks, buoyant after the architect’s presentation, says at the Palmer House, “Mid-America is the arsenal and the breadbasket of the nation.  Without it the United States would be helplessly, hopelessly crippled.”  The photo shows the Prudential building under construction with the Illinois Central railroad tracks running through what today is Millennium Park.

March 1, 1872 -- The stockholders of the former Chicago White Stockings Baseball Club meet at Brewster's Hat Store on State Street near Twentieth Street to hear a report on how the earnings from the previous year will be divided among the players. The books for the club were lost in the Great Fire of 1871, which also brought about the demise of the club as the city struggled to rebuild. The White Stockings played their first professional game on April 29, 1870, beating the Louisville Unions, 47-1. Their name played off the popularity of the first successful professional baseball team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings. The White Stockings were in contention throughout that 1871 season, and in September were tied for first with the Philadelphia Athletics. Then in October the fire destroyed the team's ballpark, clubhouse and uniforms. In borrowed uniforms the team finished the season just two games out of first place. A new White Stockings team with no connection to the first one was formed in 1874, and that team was the progenitor of today's Chicago Cubs.

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Labels: 1971, Fires, Wells Street

Tuesday, February 11, 2020

February 11, 1936 -- Hollywood Stars Robbed after Terrorizing Loop Chase

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Chicago Tribune photo

February 11, 1936 – Hollywood stars Jackie Coogan and his finacée, Betty Grable, are waylaid and robbed of two diamond rings after dancing at the Congress Hotel.  As they drove toward their rooms at the Hotel Sherman on Randolph Street, two men forced Coogan to the curb at the corner of Monroe Street and Michigan Avenue.  Coogan is able to speed away from the trap and heads across the Michigan Avenue bridge to the turnaround at Tribune Tower where he reverses direction and heads south again with the pursuers close behind.  Back across the bridge the two cars head west on Wacker Drive to Wells Street, turning south on Wells to Adams Street, where the robbers pin Coogan’s car against a support for the Loop elevated line.  There the robbers take Grable’s diamond engagement ring, along with Coogan’s diamond ring and his wallet.  Police suspect the robbers are the same pair that robbed the wife of orchestra leader George Olson, Ethel Shutta, of $12,000 worth of furs and jewelry the week before.  Coogan and Grable are in town performing at the Oriental Theater.  The above Tribune photo shows Grable and Coogan having breakfast at the Hotel Sherman on the morning after the incident.

February 11, 2010 -- A 3.8-magnitude earthquake centered in a farm field near Hampshire shakes a wide area from Wisconsin to Tennessee. At first reported to be a 4.3-magnitude quake, the estimate is revised downward after data is more closely analyzed. Whatever it was, it shakes a lot of people in the area awake when it occurs at 3:59 in the morning.

February 11, 1963 – The first car to enter the garage at Marina City follows the serpentine pathway to a space on the nineteenth floor of the east tower.  Only black steel poles, about two feet high, spaced at six-foot intervals, separate the car from doom.  The garage will officially open in mid-March and will be operated by Marina City Garage and Parking Corporation.  It will accommodate 900 cars.  The rate for monthly parking is expected to be about $30.00.  Attendants will be able to access cars by way of a special elevator installed next to the core of the tower.

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February 11, 1962 – The Chicago Daily Tribune reports on a discovery by researchers for the Chicago Title and Trust Company – details of the last law case that Abraham Lincoln tried in the city, a case heard in March, 1860.  Lincoln, at the time a leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, came to the city on March 22, 1860 in order to try a case involving about five acres of land on the lake that was created after the U. S. government built a pier north of the river’s mouth.  The dispute was between William S. Johnston and two men who claimed prior rights to the property, William Jones and Sylvester March.  Lincoln represented Jones, who was one of the city’s first real estate investors and also served as the superintendent of schools, and Marsh, a meat packer.  The case was tried before Judge Thomas Drummond in a building that stood at the northeast corner of Clark and Washington Streets.  It lasted for 11 days before a jury found in favor of Lincoln’s clients after a five-hour deliberation.  The case was another in a series of cases that would continue for decades as the courts grappled with the question of the ownership of submerged lands along the city's lakefront. The lawyer who went on to become the President of the United States is shown above as he would have appeared in 1860.

February 11, 1889 – Apparently, the good citizens of Joliet are angry and determined not to take any more abuse from Chicago.  At a meeting of a joint committee composed of members of the Joliet City Council and members of a city businessmen’s association, a resolution is adopted that reads, “Resolved, That the City Council be requested to use all honorable means to prevent Chicago from sending its sewage down the Desplaines Valley.”  [Chicago Daily Tribune, February 12, 1889] Joliet Mayor J. D. Paige says, “When the works [the Chicago Water-Works] were built Chicago was to send down more water.  Instead it has given more sewage.  If we allow them to build a bigger ditch we will get more sewage.  Chicago has not complied with anything it has agreed to do.  The question is:  Is this sewage and do we want it here … The water is nastier here than it is in Chicago.  They have as much sewage there, but the putrefaction is well under way when it gets down here.  Down on Lake Joliet it is thick; you can’t force a boat through it.”  The conjecture is that the first practical step in pressing Joliet’s case will be supporting a $50,000 suit of Joliet resident Robert Mann Woods against the city of Chicago for damage to one of his buildings from the sewage in the canal.  Businesses and homes such as the one above in Lockport sat right next to the canal and were beneficiaries of whatever Chicago decided to send their way.

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Labels: 1936, Adams Street, Chicago Event, Crime, Criminal Acts, Michigan Avenue, Monroe Street, Randolph Street, Wacker Drive, Wells Street