Showing posts with label World's Columbian Exposition. Show all posts
Showing posts with label World's Columbian Exposition. Show all posts

Monday, May 18, 2020

May 18, 1893 -- Susan B. Anthony at the Women's Congress

worldsfairchicago1893.com
May 18, 1893 – Susan B. Anthony appears on this day at the World’s Congress of Representative Women, a week-long convention in which 150,000 attendees came to World’s Congress Auxiliary Building, today’s Art Institute of Chicago, to listen to speeches by nearly 500 women, at 81 different meetings.  Of the 100 congresses that were held during the run of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition, this would be the most heavily attended.  The Women’s Congress was arranged under the supervision of Bertha Honoré Palmer, and of all the speakers who appeared, Susan B. Anthony, now in her seventies but still delivering at least 100 speeches a year, was the most popular.  The Chicago Daily Tribune describes her appearance thusly, “The way she whisked along the corridors in her flight from meeting to meeting, the untiring energy with which she made opening addresses and closing speeches, receiving between times numberless congratulations and hand-shakings, was nothing short of miraculous.  And wherever she went the sense of woman’s suffrage screamed.  Indeed, all other subjects sank into insignificance beside this burning one.”  [Chicago Daily Tribune, May 19, 1893] 

May 18, 1967 – Officials of Chicago Helicopter Airways, Inc. predict that the helicopter line may be hauling a million passengers annually within a few years. The chairman of the company, John S. Gleason, Jr., says that preliminary plans have begun for developing a downtown heliport in Grant Park or on adjacent Illinois Central air rights. Gleason is encouraged by reports that a projection of 300 flights a day operating out of a revamped Midway Airport could result in the shuttling of a million passengers a year between Midway, O’Hare and the Loop. He is also optimistic about a third major airport being built in the lake. Optimism is the engine that turns the rotors, right? Even if the craft never gets off the ground, the noise sure gets your attention.

May 18, 1952 – The Chicago Daily Tribune reports that another pair of old mansions will be reduced to rubble so that a 17-story rental apartment building can be built at 1538 and 1540 State Parkway.  Completion of the new building, designed by Shaw, Metz and Dolio is scheduled for 1953. The apartment building will have space for 60 families and indoor parking for 36 cars.  All units will be at least five rooms with two bedrooms and two bathrooms.  A unique feature of the new building is that it will be constructed in the shape of a cross with only one apartment occupying each arm of the cross, allowing for wider views and better cross ventilation.  Scheduled for demolition is the home at 1538 North State Parkway, built by William H. Bush in 1887 on land that he purchased from Hobart Chatfield-Taylor, a Chicago author who owned all of the land extending from that lot to Lincoln Park.  Today's 1540 North State Parkway is pictured above.  





May 18, 1886 – The Schiller Monument in Lincoln Park is unveiled on a Saturday afternoon before 7,000 people, including members of 60 separate German societies and lodges of the city.  Mayor Carter Harrison and William Rapp, editor of the Staats-Zeitung, make speeches appropriate to the occasion.  The Chicago statue is recast from a model of the original sculpture that stands in Marbach, the birthplace of Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller.  The original sculptor was Ernst Rau.  According to the Chicago Park District a large number of German immigrants held a meeting in Turner Hall, after spending several years raising money for the monument, and subsequently placed a cornerstone and foundation for the work in Lincoln Park.  William Pelargus, a sculptor from Stuttgard, was hired to recast the original Marbach monument, and a Lake View stone cutter was given the commission to create the granite base.  The Laing and Son Granite Company repaired the monument in 1959 and installed a bronze plaque on the base.  It still stands in its original location. The top photo shows the original monument in Marbach.  Below that is the memorial as it looked in the early 1900's.  It is not much changed today, as can be seen in the final photo.  

May 18, 1878 – The cornerstone is placed for the First Regiment’s armory on Jackson Street between Wabash and Michigan Avenues, celebrated in “one of the finest military parades and reviews that has taken place in this city for years.”  [Chicago Daily Tribune, May 15, 1878] The first meeting to organize a National Guard regiment in Chicago took place on August 28, 1874 with the militia funded through private donations.  George M. Pullman contributed the first $500 with 22 of the city’s leading citizens contributing $100 apiece.  The first drill hall was established at 112 Lake Street.  In February of 1875 the First Regiment assembled as demonstrations swept the downtown area.  The six companies of the regiment were credited with saving the city from almost certain rioting as the men encamped in the armory.  The members of the regiment, still without a suitable place to call home, played an instrumental role in putting down the disturbances that came in July of 1877 during the rioting that occurred during the railroad strike, stationing cannons on the Twelfth and Sixteenth Street bridges.  Finally, the First Regiment dedicated its new armory on the site of the old Trinity Church on October 29, 1878.  The armory remained open until 1900 when a new armory was begun farther south on Michigan Avenue.  The above photo shows the armory as it stood on Jackson next to the Leiland Hotel.
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Friday, May 1, 2020

May 1, 1894 -- March on Washington Begins

richlandsource.com
May 1, 1894 – Economic disaster overtook the United States just months before the glories of Chicago’s World’s Columbian Exposition wound down.  A four-year depression that began in January of 1893 with the failure of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad led to a panic that saw 500 banks shut their doors, 15,000 businesses close, and hundreds of farmers lose their land.  In Pennsylvania the unemployment rate rose to 25%.  It stood at 35% in New York and a staggering 43% in Michigan.   On March 25, 1894 an Ohio businessman by the name of Jacob S. Coxey led a group of 100 men out of Massillon, Ohio, and, on foot, headed for Washington, D. C.  It was Coxey’s intent to gather members as the contingent passed through towns and cities along the way in an effort to persuade Congress to authorize a public works bill that would provide jobs for the unemployed.  Other groups from around the country joined in, but they lost members along the way, rather than gaining them.  One such group left Chicago that year on this date with 433 men following Dr. J. H. Randall.  They left from the North Side and made it to Hyde Park this first day where they camped on the grounds of the closed World’s Fair.  The march to Washington, D. C. was not an easy trip.  Spring rains made progress miserable, and some towns along the way were even less forgiving than the Spring rains.  The police met the group on the outskirts of La Porte, Indiana, and Randall was thrown in jail.  Towns were naturally suspicious of the ragged band, and rumors that preceded it carried alarming warnings that the group was infested with smallpox.  After 30 days on the road, the group reached Mansfield, Ohio.  The city did not open its arms to the ragged band.  Instead of allowing the men to camp at the fairgrounds, the marchers were directed to the local stockyard.  In the evening Randall went to the town square to deliver a speech, something that he had done at many other towns along the way.  Thousands of people had congregated in anticipation.  The sheriff ordered him off the courthouse steps and, after he had made a second attempt to speak from the bandstand, the sheriff blocked his way.  A local defense committee was organized to defend Randall.  Some of the working men of the town formed a bodyguard to protect the leader of the ragtag army.  The town council relented, and on a Saturday night Randall was allowed to speak.  In a town of 14,473, seven thousand people stood in the town square.  The Commonweal Army, as it was called, still had 411 miles to go before it reached Washington, D. C., which the men entered on July 16.  [https://richlandsource.com/area history.com]  The Chicago contingent was just one of several such groups headed toward the nation’s capital.  Ultimately, the men did not get the results on which they had set their sights.  It was, however, the first such mass march on the nation’s capital … kind of cool that Chicago was a part of it!  The above photo shows the marchers' entrance into Mansfield, Ohio.

images.chicagohistory.org
May 1, 1970 -- Chicago rolls out the red carpet for the astronauts of Apollo 13, and a half-million people come to cheer James A. Lovell, Jr. and John L. Swigert, despite 25 m.p.h. winds that gust to 47 m.p.h. Astronaut Fred W. Haise, Jr. is unable to attend because of a kidney ailment. The celebration starts at Michigan and Ohio where the parade kicks off. At the Michigan Avenue bridge a Chicago fire boat sends up a display of water and fireworks are sent skyward. There is a half-hour ceremony at the Daley Center at which Governor Ogilvie, Senator Charles Percy, and Senator Ralph Tyler Smith speak. Following the public reception, an official luncheon is held at the Palmer House, attended by 800 city officials. From there Lovell and Swigert report to Orchestra Hall for a question-and-answer session with 2,500 high school students. As they leave for O'Hare, Lovell observes, "Chicago has always been a very friendly, warm, open city, and the welcome we received today was typical. Today really typified Chicago -- a big, friendly, windy city."
dnainfo.com
May 1, 1918 – This isn’t particularly surprising news these days, but back in the early part of the twentieth century a newspaper going out of business was a big deal.  It was on this date in 1918 that the Chicago Herald printed its last edition after a run of only four years.  It began publication in 1914 when two different newspapers, the Record-Herald and the Inter Ocean were consolidated.  William Randolph Hearst is the new owner of the paper, which will be combined with the Chicago Examiner, a paper he already owns, to create the Chicago Herald-Examiner.  The Herald actually dates back to 1881 when it started up as an independent newspaper.  In 1895 it was combined with the Chicago Times to form the Times-Herald.  Then in 1901 another merger took place and the Record-Herald was created.  Its merger with the Inter Ocean in 1914 was underwritten by some substantial city benefactors.  John G. Shedd, the president of Marshall Field and Company; Julius Rosenwald, the head of Sears, Roebuck and Company; Samuel Insull, the president of Commonwealth Edison; James Patten, a wealthy grain dealer; and LaVerne W. Noyes, the leading manufacturer of windmills in the United States all pitched in to bring solvency to a paper that had been a losing proposition.

May 1, 1893 – The World’s Columbian Exposition is opened a few minutes after noon when the President of the United States, Grover Cleveland, activates a switch that sends electricity to every powered object at the fair. Before the President brings the fair to life, the blind Chaplain of the United States, Rev. Dr. W. H. Milburn, is led to the dais by his adopted daughter. He begins a lengthy prayer thusly, “All glory be to Thee, Lord God of Hosts, that Thou has moved the hearts of all kindred tongues, people and nations to keep a feast of tabernacles in this place, in commemoration of the most momentous of all voyages, by which Columbus lifted the veil that hid the new world from the old and opened the gateway of the future for mankind!  Thy servants have builded these more than imperial palaces, many chambered and many galleried, in which to store and show man’s victories over air, earth, fire and flood, engines of use, treasures of beauty and promise of the years that are to be, in illustration of the world’s advance within these four hundred years.  Woman, too, the shackles falling from her hands and estate, throbbing with the pulse of the new time, joyously treading the paths of larger freedom, responsibility and self-help opening before her; woman, nearer to God by the intuitions of the heart and the grandeur of her self-sacrifice, brings the inspiration of her genius, the product of her hand, brain and sensibility to shed a grace and loveliness upon the place, thus making the house beautiful.”  W. A. Croffut, a Washington, D. C. journalist, follows, reading a poem, entitled “The Prophecy.”    As the orchestra plays a Wagner overture, the Director of the fair, George R. Davis, rises to speak.  He concludes his remarks with these words, “And now this central city of this great Republic on the continent discovered by Columbus, whose distinguished descendants are present as the guests of the Nation, it only remains for you, Mr. President, if in your opinion the Exposition here presented is commensurate in dignity with what the world should expect of our great country, to direct that it shall be opened to the public, and when you touch this magic key the ponderous machinery will start in its revolutions and the activities of the Exposition will begin.”  At this point President Cleveland delivers the shortest remarks of the afternoon, concluding with his wish that as the fair comes to life it will help “our hopes and aspirations awaken forces which in all time to come shall influence the welfare, the integrity, the freedom of mankind.” With that he moves to the table to his left, where he finds a golden telegraph key, sitting atop a pedestal upholstered in navy blue and golden plush, on the side of which are two dates, 1492 and 1893.  He depresses the key and “the electric pulsation which by that simple act was sent around the World’s Fair, setting in motion its mighty engine, causing the mammoth fountains to flow, and constituting the signal for the unveiling of the typical statue and the unfurling of many hundreds of flags to the breeze, was announced, immediately afterwards by the beating of drums and the blowing of steam whistles, this being quickly responded to by a salvo of distant artillery.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, May 2, 1893]  

May 1, 1893 – What a day this must have been!  The President of the United States, Grover Cleveland, pushes one button at a few minutes after noon at the site of the World’s Columbian Exposition, “setting in motion its mighty engines, causing the mammoth fountains to flow, and constituting the signal for the unveiling of the typical statue and the unfurling of many hundreds of flags to the breeze.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, May 2, 1893] Drums beat, distant cannons fires, and a band begins to play “America,” the second verse of which the Director-General of the fair, Colonel George R. Davis, invites the assembled masses to sing.  The paper reaches to the classical age of Greece for its superlatives, reporting, “That one little movement by President Cleveland actualized more than the wildest day dreams of old time thinkers in all the ages.  It called into activity and animated, as with the breath of life, a greater mass and variety of organization than was ever supposed to be affected by a fiat from Olympus or controlled by the decrees of Fate thought to be worked out by the three sisters.  Compare the most important products form the forge of Vulcan with the mammoth engines in Machinery Hall… Contrast the electric incandescence there with the fire fabled to have been brought down from heaven by Prometheus … Measure the products of human brain power and muscular energy there displayed against the reported results of the twelve labors of the far-famed Hercules, the magnificence of the array at Jackson Park with the splendor of the palace built by the genii for Aladdin, and the feasts of the swift-winged messenger of the gods with what was accomplished yesterday by the mere tapping of a telegraph key … Nor could the sculptors and painters of classic times around the shores of the Mediterranean avoid turning green with envy if allowed to revisit the pale glimpses of the moon and see the wealth of art production that is grouped on a few acres of land near the head of Lake Michigan.”  The Tribune concludes its glowing assessment with the prediction that the opening of the great fair will be a special day for the citizens of Chicago, people who “are intimately identified with its progress from the nothingness of little more than half a century ago to the position of second city in the greatest country of the New World, the discovery of which is celebrated by the holding of the Fair in our midst.”  The Machinery Hall that rivaled the wonders of ancient Greece is pictured above.
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Friday, April 3, 2020

April 3, 1982 -- Chicago Elevated Needs Repair or Condemnation: Tribune Editorial

drloihjournal.blogspot.com
April 3, 1982 – With the Chicago Transit Authority looking to close the east-west Jackson Park elevated line running along Sixty-Third Street from King Drive to Stony Island Avenue, a Chicago Tribune editorial observes, “Chicago’s entire elevated system is wearing out.  Sooner or later, it will have to be renovated or replaced at enormous cost – or demolished.”  [Chicago Tribune, April 3, 1982]  The Jackson Park line in 1982 is 89 years old, a life that has long outlasted its original purpose, which was to transport passengers to the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Jackson Park.  If the line is abandoned, it will join a host of other elevated lines that have disappeared since the 1940’s, among them the Garfield Park, Humboldt Park, Stock Yards and Kenwood elevated lines.  The system that is left dates from before 1920.  The Tribune observes, “The CTA has no master plan for replacing or renovating the entire elevated system.  It has barely enough money to meet operating expenses and maintain reasonably adequate service … City Hall and the CTA had better begin drafting some realistic ways of coping with the inevitable.”  The first elevated line in the city, called the “Alley el” because it operated along alleys and back yards from Congress Parkway and State Street to Thirty-Ninth Street, opened on June 6, 1892.  Today the elevated system is still hauling passengers – over a million a year along the elevated and subway system on 220 miles of track.  The photo above shows the alley el in its early days ... about six years after it began service, the line was converted to electricity.


 April 3, 1971 – Roger Henn, the Executive Director of the Union League Club of Chicago, pens a guest editorial for the Chicago Tribune concerning plans for a federal correctional facility at Clark and Van Buren Streets.  He writes, “Chicago has an almost unbelievable opportunity for development of a great tract of land immediately adjacent to the Loop … Here is an opportunity to build a ‘city within a city’ … Housing of all varieties could be built that would retain the white-collar workers who are now fleeing to the suburbs.  Here, also could be more expensive dwellings for Loop businessmen … Not needed is the proposal of the federal government to place a penal institution and gigantic parking facility squarely on the gateway to this promising area … What is needed is overall planning and cooperation, not spot development for the convenience of the federal government with the resulting loss to all of Chicago.”  [Chicago Tribune, April 3,1971]  The above photo of Harry Weese’s Metropolitan Correctional Center, completed in 1975, is proof that the federal government ultimately got its way.

April 3, 1911 – The Engineering Committee of the Sanitary Board passes an injunction against 16 firms in the Union Stockyards, seeking to restrain the companies from dumping refuse into Bubbly Creek, the south fork of the South Branch of the Chicago River running along the edge of the stockyards.  The members of the committee accuse the firms of “damaging the main channel of the Chicago river and endangering the health and lives of the public.” [Chicago Daily Tribune, April 4, 1911] The firms are ordered to appear before the committee on April 10 and “show cause why proceedings should not be brought against them.”  The packers did show up and “agreed to appoint a committee to investigate the condition and suggest action.”  A week later the two sides come together again with the stockyards representatives reporting they have taken no action.  The chairman of the engineering committee, Wallace G. Clark, reaches the end of his patience, stating, “It is my opinion that your firms can be indicted, and that we can have injunctions issued against you to stop this pollution and unless there is immediate action on your part we intend to act.”  Three months pass before the packers agree to authorize the expenditure of $28,000 to clean up the festering ditch.  The effort is ineffectual at best, and it actually brings about a whole new problem as the dredgings from Bubbly Creek are dumped in the lake.  In fact, part of what we treasure today as the south end of Grant Park rests on landfill partially made up with what came from Bubbly Creek.  The above photo shows Bubbly Creek around 1915.
J Bartholomew Photo
April 3, 1909 -- The University Club at Michigan and Monroe is opened as 500 members and 700 guests participate in the ceremonies. Members wear academic garb representing their colleges and march in a procession from the old club headquarters on Dearborn to the banquet hall on the ninth floor of the new quarters. There a 75-person glee club joins a 30-piece orchestra and a pipe organ, and "the big dining hall reverberated with the songs of colleges east and west. Latin hymns, drinking songs, chants and serenades were punctuated with yells and cheers." [Chicago Tribune, April 4, 1909] A banquet is served on the eighth floor. The Holabird and Roche design still occupies its place on Michigan Avenue where University Club members are still active.
chicagocollections.com
April 3, 1902 – The Chicago Daily Tribune reports on “a group of business-men who drive to their offices from their North Side residences”.  [Chicago Daily Tribune, April 3, 1902]  In an informal discussion the men generally agree that La Salle Street is the best means of connecting the Loop with the portion of the city north of the river.  One participant says, “The route is the most central.  It will require the least attention, and it passes through one of the best districts between the heart of the city and Lincoln Park.”  To make the connection a reality would require about $200,000, the men estimate, a sum that would pay for “about a mile” of asphalt paving, a bascule bridge over the river and lowering of the cable car tracks at Illinois Street.  An attorney on the Lincoln Park board says of the plan, ‘Legally, there would be little trouble with the plan.  It seems to me to be a good plan, even though it might be merely temporary.  The name sounds well, for Chicago and the Northwest owe much to La Salle.  They have given him far too little credit.”  The opinion of the men is borne out, in part, as in 1927 work begins on widening of La Salle Street north of the river.  Seven years before that, though, the Michigan Avenue bridge is completed, making Michigan Avenue the principle north-south street leading across the river.  The photo shows opening ceremonies for the new La Salle Street bridge in 1929.
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Saturday, February 22, 2020

February 22, 1922 -- World's Columbian Exposition Hall of Fine Arts Receives Life Support


February 22, 1922 – The Chicago Daily Tribune prints an editorial in praise of the 6,000 Chicago club women who have successfully petitioned the South Park Commissioners for the Illinois chapter of the American Society of Architects to restore one wing of the old Fine Arts building, a building that would eventually be fully restored and see new life as today’s Museum of Science and Industry.  The editorial states, “Unquestionably the building is one of the most beautiful architecturally in the world.  It is a credit to Chicago, an inspiration to modern builders, and a monument to the World’s Fair which marks an epoch in the city’s history.”  [Chicago Daily Tribune, February 22, 1922] At this point, no one knows what will become of one of the only survivors of the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893.  The paper proposes some possibilities:  a branch of the Art Institute; a space for loan exhibits of Chicago artists; a school of industrial art; a park field house with gymnasiums, swimming pools, and assembly halls; even a public library branch.  The investment of just $7,000, the editorial observes, is a good one and will “furnish a striking contrast with the remainder of the building and reveal most effectively the real and potential beauties of the structure.”  The above photo shows the condition of the building that would become the city's Science Museum, today's Museum of Science and Industry, in 1925.
historicbridges.org
February 22, 1919 – The new Monroe Street bridge is opened to traffic as ceremonies are held in a heavy snowstorm.  Mayor William Hale Thompson, joins Charles H. Wacker, the chairman of the Chicago Plan Commission, in opening the new span.  The first vehicles to cross the bridge are the streetcars that bring city officials to the site.  The ceremony begins when Thompson is made an honorary member of the Bridge Operators’ Local Union No. 102, after which the mayor turns a lever to place the bridge in operation.  He says, “This shows the Chicago ‘I Will’ spirit.  The completion of this bridge was delayed by court litigation.  But the bridge was needed and now we have it.  It is these things which take Chicago out of the provincial class and place it in the great city class.”  [Chicago Daily Tribune, February 23, 1919]  The bridge is an interesting engineering project for a couple of reasons.  It marks a transition between earlier bascule bridges on the river, designs that placed a premium on cost and efficiency of construction and operation, and subsequent bridges – structures that took to heart the “City Beautiful” concept that arose as a result of the Chicago Plan of 1909.  It is clearly a more graceful structure than the bridge at Grand Avenue, for example; yet, it does not match the graceful symmetry of the Franklin Street bridge, finished a year later.  Engineers were challenged in designing the Monroe Street bridge by a set of railroad tracks that ran along the west bank of the river at Monroe Street and took up the space where a counterweight pit would normally be located. [historic bridges.org] Additionally, allowances had to be made for the construction of tracks and infrastructure for the new Union Station on the west side of the river that was being designed at the same time the bridge was being built.  Engineers came up with a plan that saw two different designs for the east and west sides of the bridge.  The counterweight arm of the west leaf is “unusually short, with a cast iron counterweight instead of the concrete one typically used in counterweight pits of larger dimensions.”  Therefore, there is no counterweight pit on the western bank while the eastern end of the bridge has a conventional pit and concrete counterweight.  [Historic American Engineering Record, National Park Service]
Dr. Emil G. Hirsch
Mrs. Mary McDowell
February 22, 1914 -- Chicago comes by its role of Sanctuary City honestly as can be seen by an event that took place over a century ago.  Despite a blinding snowstorm, 2,200 out of the 4,700 citizens who have been naturalized since July 1, 1913 gather together at the Auditorium Building at the New Citizens' Allegiance Celebration. Dr. Emil G. Hirsch, who was born in Luxembourg, and is the rabbi of the Chicago Sinai Congregation, gives the address. He tells the audience, "Let us be on our guard against tampering with our Americanism by hitching it to a hyphen . . . Let us see to it that our conduct disarms this anti-alien prejudice and show that American civilization has been enriched by reason of our being here." Mrs. Mary McDowell, head of the University of Chicago settlement, the "Angel of the Stockyards," speaks especially to the women of the audience, saying, "We must learn things from you. You must give us your sentiment and ideals, for they belong to us now, and we need them. If you like this city, you can help us make it fit to live in." Dr. Hirsch and Mrs. McDowell are pictured above.

February 22, 1892 – All of the officials of the World’s Columbian Exposition, due to open in a little over a year, meet at the Van Buren Street station for a trip to Jackson Park where they will show off the progress of the grounds for the fair to officials from Washington, D. C.  Those with special passes gather at the Woman’s Building on a damp day, the first stop for the Congressional delegation.  At the east entrance of the building a platform stands with a huge map showing the grounds and the different buildings that will be a part of the fair.  At 10:30 a.m. the train carrying the visitors arrives with at least a thousand persons entering the grounds.  At 10:45 a.m. the President of the World’s Columbian Exposition board, William Taylor Baker, begins to speak, saying, “On behalf of the World’s Fair management I welcome you to this the scene of active operation.  Eight months hence I hope to welcome you again.  Today is but a promise of future things.  What has already been done is a guarantee that the twelfth day of October these buildings will be ready for occupancy … It is hard to derive inspiration from a foggy morning.  But we promise you all better weather when you come again.”  [Chicago Daily Tribune, February 23, 1892] With that the Chief of Construction, Daniel L. Burnham, using the large map mounted on the dais, explains the grounds and the buildings.  He gives “a startling array of facts and figures.  He described the attractive features of the waterways, the different displays, and the buildings in such a way that the dullest imagination could not help framing a picture of wonderful proportions.”  At the conclusion of Burnham’s speech, the delegation heads to the roof of the Woman’s Building.  It was a “picturesque assemblage … tall Western Representatives, dapper New York politicians, Southern belles, and chivalrous Colonels.” The Tribune reports that “A common remark among the Congressmen was: ‘It’s a big thing isn’t it?’”  The above photo shows construction of the great fair, looking east across the Illinois Central Railroad tracks at Sixty-First Street.
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Friday, January 24, 2020

January 24, 1891 -- World's Columbian Exposition Michigan Avenue Colossus Proposed

Chicago Tribune photo

January 24, 1891 – As plans are being made for the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893, it is still unclear where, exactly, the fair will be located as the year begins.  Still, blueprints are being prepared for the great fair’s buildings, at least five of which are to be erected on the lakefront in what is today's Grant Park.  Ultimately, only the Art Institute of Chicago would be placed in that location, but it is interesting to look at some of the structures that might have been built if things had worked out differently.  One of the most magnificent would surely have been a “water palace” which the Chicago Daily Tribune describes on this day in 1891.  A Chicago architect, W. H. Smith, designed a structure about which the Tribune raves, “Of all the buildings which may be placed on the Lake-Front it is generally considered that the proposed Water Palace will be the gem.”  [Chicago Daily Tribune, January 24, 1891]  The work is to be a circular hall with a circumference of 250 feet, “composed entirely of glass and such structural iron as is necessary, surmounted by a transparent dome of falling water, on the summit of which, at a height of 250 feet, ride the three vessels whose voyage of discovery began the civilization of the New World.  These ships are to be fac-similes in size, shape, and and rigging of the original fifteenth century types.”  Between 400 and 500 people will be able to move around on the three ships’ decks, and they will see “immediately around and beneath them a globe of moving water, sparkling in the sunlight.”  At intervals, a column of water 100 feet high will rise, “converting the dome into a geyser effect.”  Surrounding the structure will be a water-filled moat containing a naval exhibit of historic battleships of the country, the effect being “a seemingly infinite expanse of water”.  The interior of the building will hold various historical exhibits.  The building will be especially striking at night with electric lights “giving the dome the appearance of an iridescent globe … a structure of imprisoned light – a water palace, domed by an ocean.”  What a spectacle it would have been if they had pulled this one off!


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


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

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


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




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