Day 205: Death on the River

     On April 15, 1912, the Titanic sank in the North Atlantic, taking 1,500 souls down to an icy grave. In the wake of that disaster, many maritime rules were revised, including regulations for lifeboats on board ships.  These new rules would have tragic implications just over three years later on the Chicago River.

     On July 24, 1915, 2,500 people boarded the SS Eastland for an excursion on the Chicago River and the lake. The Eastland had been modified to fit the new regulations passed in the wake of the Titanic tragedy. One of these rules concerned lifeboats, specifically mandating that ships carry an adequate number of them for all passengers. As the Eastland was retrofitted to meet the rule, there was no true place for the extra boats needed, so they were kind of shoehorned onto the ship and placed above-deck. This affected the center of gravity on the ship, making it much more top-heavy. So, back to the morning of the 24th. Many of the passengers had arrived on the boat(which was docked on the river) early, and had proceeded to their cabins below-decks. As the departure time neared, more and more people boarded.

     All of a sudden, something caught the attention of the passengers above deck. As they all rushed to one side of the ship, the high-center of gravity(thanks to the extra lifeboats) made the ship extra tippy. To best illustrate what happened next, lets check out this clip from Pirates of the Caribbean. Of course, when the Eastland tipped over, the ship didn't cross over to another dimensional plane. It just sat there. On its side. With almost all of the portholes on the ship open(as it was quite a hot morning). And most of those hundreds of people who had boarded early drowned. All told, 844 people died that morning on board the Eastland. (In a merciful twist of fate, one of those who did not die was a 20-year-old George Halas, who would go on to start a football team that would take the moniker of an early Big Ten powerhouse, as well as later in life be one of the men responsible for getting Walter Payton a Super Bowl ring.)

     The ship itself was eventually raised, deemed seaworthy, and lived out the rest of its days as the Wilmette, a merchant ship as well as a naval training vessel, until it was finally decommissioned in the years after World War II. There is a memorial to the disaster at the point on the River where the tragedy occurred.

Author's note: Unfortunately, this is yet another area where New York blows Chicago out of the water when it comes to stats. For a little extracurricular reading, Google 'General Slocum' to read about a similar tragedy that happened in New York City 11 years before the Eastland.

Day 183: The Lager Riots

     Once Chicago sprung from its humble beginnings as a home to Jean DuSable, it incorporated as a city in 1837, and the city started to grow like a weed.  A large part of that growth was made possible by the work of immigrants, specifically those from Germany and Ireland(in addition to those from Poland).  The German immigrants formed a tight-knit community and moved into neighborhoods on the North Side.  At this time, the Germans would work six days a week, leaving Sundays as their only day to relax and spend time with friends.  A prime spot for this proved to be the local taverns, several of which popped up in the German area.

     In 1854, Isaac Milliken became Mayor.  Milliken declared himself a supporter of temperance(prohibition) and was criticized for it, and ended up losing the next election.  His successor, Levi Boone(the great-nephew of explorer Daniel Boone) was also against alcohol, and he enacted a new ordinance that closed down the taverns on Sundays as well as raising the costs for a liquor license by 600%.  The Germans felt slighted, and so they did the reasonable thing and started rioting.

     On April 21, 1855, the tinder box burst aflame as swarms of angry Germans began streaming into the downtown area, all bent on converging upon the County Court House.  To stem the tide of protesters, Mayor Boone ordered all of the bridges to be swung out to their open positions to cut off the downtown region(at this time, the bridges were not lifted as they are today, but instead they spun around on a central piling.)  This tactic worked, but it also trapped some of the protesters on the bridges.  In the end, one person died, a police captain from Hyde Park lost an arm, and 60 people were arrested.  The next year, Boone was out of office and the city repealed the prohibition, learning the hard way to never get in between the Germans and their taverns.

Day 197: Like Father, Like Son: the Harrisons

     A man becomes Mayor of Chicago, has ties to politicians of his day, gets elected to 5 terms, becomes the longest serving Mayor in the city's history, only to die in office.  Later on his son, having come up through the political ranks of the city he grew up in, follows in his footsteps, acts as more moderate than his father, and also goes on to serve longer than his father did.  Collectively, the two men define an era of Chicago politics.  And both of them had completed their terms by the time The Statue of The Republic was erected(1918).  While the Daleys may be Chicago's most infamous and well-known political dynasty, they weren't the first.  That honor goes to Carter Harrison Sr. and his son, Carter Jr.

     Carter Harrison Sr. served on the Cook County Board, until he won election to the U.S. House in 1875.  After winning re-election in 1877, Harrison stepped down in 1879 to run for Mayor, an office which he won.  His time as Mayor may be best remembered for the one time during the Haymarket Riot that he walked through the crowd without getting a scratch, so that he could implore the police to take it easy on the protesters.  He left office in 1887, upon which he ran the Chicago Times from 1891-1893.  At that time, Harrison once again ran for Mayor, and was elected to a record fifth term.  Harrison was elected in April of 1893, just in time to kick off the World's Colombian Exposition on May 1 of that year. He desired to show the world the best that Chicago had to offer.  For the most part, Harrison proved to be correct, and the 1893 Fair was the talk of the town for 6 months, even attracting more than 710,000 people in a single day.  However, the Fair ended badly(and very badly for Harrison) when Harrison was assassinated by a disgruntled former office seeker 2 days before the end of the fair.  The city was plunged into a deep depression, and all closing festivities of the Fair were abruptly cancelled.

     Four years later, Chicago voters walked into the voting booth and were welcomed with the sight of a familiar name running for Mayor.  Carter Harrison Jr. had claimed his birthright.  Jr. was more moderate than his father, and was seen as a reformer, since he kept in tune with the needs of the middle class.  In fact, in one of his more well-known moves, he made motions to close down the Levee District, and infamous red-light district that had been occupying space in the city ever since the 1893 World's Fair.  Harrison Jr's legacy may have been one of reform, but what is most notable about his time as Mayor is the fact that by the time he stepped down in 1915, the city was essentially at its modern size and was on its way to becoming the metropolis that it is today.  Over the course of the 36 years between 1879 and 1915, There was a Harrison at the helm of city government for 21 of those years.  Carter Harrison Jr. was succeeded in office by William Hale Thompson, who would leave his own distinctive legacy on the city.

Day 181: Large Interior Form

     They were all erected by the British sculptor Henry Moore.  In the 1950s, Henry Moore constructed a series of six bronze sculptures that are collectively referred to as Large Internal Form.  The artist distributed copies of the work out to museums in Texas, Germany, Missouri, and to a location right in England.  He also distributed a copy of the work to the Art Institute of Chicago.  This copy stands 16 feet tall and is present in a the Stanley McCormick Memorial Court, which is located north of the main entrance to the museum.  This display falls into line with two of Moore's other Chicago works, which include Nuclear Energy, which is located on the site of Stagg Field.  His other public display that we have talked about is located on the Museum Campus.  Man Enters the Cosmos is located directly in front of the Adler Planetarium(and across the street from the Copernicus statue)  When he was alive, Henry Moore got great pleasure out of seeing his art works displayed in the open air, and I am sure that this arrangement would have met with his hearty approval.

Day 193: The Night that Disco Died

     Some say that Disco jumped the shark after the release of Saturday Night Fever in November of 1977.  Others would say that Disco didn't sign off for good until Disco DAI bid farewell to the genre with 24 hours of Donna Summer in the mid 80s.  But no matter who you are, you can certainly agree that the events of July 12, 1979 rendered a death blow to the genre.

     That night, the Chicago White Sox were playing a game at Comiskey Park against the Detroit Tigers.  Ever the showman,  Bill Veeck decided that this was the perfect time to cash in on the growing distaste with the disco genre.  And if you were going to stage an anti-disco rally, well there was simply nobody you could call who would be better suited to the job than Steve Dahl.  Steve Dahl was the 24-year-old Chicago DJ who had most recently worked at WDAI before they switched to an all-disco format.  This might be a good time to quickly detail the Two Rules of Radio: Number One, you WILL BE fired multiple times on your career. But don't fret, because Number Two, if you have any kind of a talent or following(preferably both), you'll be back on air in no time.

     Back to the story now. Needless to say, Dahl soon left Disco DAI, but he soon found a new home at WLUP. Meanwhile, Bill Veeck came up with a rather, um, novel idea for the promotion. Fans could come to the gates bearing nothing except 98 cents(to symbolize the station that Dahl was now with) and the disco record of their choice, and they would be granted admission to the ballpark. From that point, the plan was to play the first game of the doubleheader, then take all of the condemned disco records, put them in a huge crate in the middle of the field, call out Steve Dahl to say some words, and then blow the conflagration sky high. That was the plan, but (obviously) that plan did not pan out.

     First off, the White Sox were expecting the promotion to attract a few thousand extra fans to the game. Alas, word spread like wildfire, and eventually more than 50,000 people showed up at the gates(some unconfirmed eyewitness reports put the number at closer to 90,000). The sheer crush of people overwhelmed the gatekeepers, and so hordes of fans started streaming into the park unmolested. As the game was full already, all of the latecomers were standing around, making things quite crowded. Needless to say, many members of the crowd were under the influence of many substances, which always throws a wrench into the works. Also, all of the latecomers were holding disco records that had not been deposited.

     So, the first game finishes, the field is cleared, Steve Dahl rolls up in a Jeep, decked out in full military garb, and proceeds to rile up the already rowdy crowd to an even higher degree. Dahl then blows up the records, and all Hell breaks loose. The drunken latecomers want to be in on the destruction as well, so they take their disco records and rain them upon the field.  To further complicate things, what little security staff the Sox had on hand was down by the entrances attempting to keep even more people from coming into the already overstuffed ballpark.  So in the absence of any supervision, the fans hopped the fence and rushed the field.  By this point, chaos was winning the day as drunk, stoned, and disorderly fans were swarming Comiskey Park(including a 21-year-old actor named Michael Clarke Duncan).  At some point, the fans are beseeched to return to their seats in a vain attempt at restoring order-made by none other than the one and only Harry Caray(who was still 3 years away from moving to the Cubs).  Finally, the Police(no, not those guys) come in, close the entrance ramps to the stadium from the Dan Ryan, and clear the field.

     By this point, the combined forces of the explosion and the riot have completely destroyed the field, and the game is postponed.  The next day, the game is officially ruled a forfeit(as of 2013, it is still the most recent American League game to be forfeited).  34 years later, the game still goes down in history as one of the most infamous promotions of all time, and it all happened, right here in Chicago.

Day 180: Keep the Music playing-The story of Knuckles Way

     So as you may or may not remember from our post about House Music, one of the main progenitors of House Music was a Chicago DJ by the name of Frankie Knuckles.  But just who is Frankie Knuckles anyway, and how did he become the Godfather of House Music?  Frankie Knuckles was born in 1955 in New York City, and grew up in The Bronx.  Eventually he would start to study textile design in Manhattan, which is when he started to work as a DJ, playing tracks at a club called The Continental Baths with another DJ.

     In 1977, he got the opportunity to come play in Chicago when The Warehouse opened up its doors.  It was here where Knuckles received his most universal claim to fame.  In his time at The Warehouse, the venue became known for its unique styles of music, so much so that the music they played was referred to as House Music, as in short for The Warehouse.  Over time, that designation of House Music became inextricably related to the raw, drum machine edits that Knuckles himself was pumping out of The Warehouse's sound system every night.

     After leaving the Warehouse in 1983, Knuckles started a new club called The Power Plant.  4 years later, that club closed as well, and Knuckles went into freelance work.  For the past several decades, Knuckles has continued to work as a DJ, as well as releasing several records.  In 2005, he was inducted into the Dance Music Hall of Fame for his contributions to the genre.  But in a move of more local interest, August of 2004 saw the city of Chicago designate a stretch of Jefferson Street that intersects the former location of The Warehouse as Honorary Frankie Knuckles Way.

Day 189: An old-style peristyle.

     In 1917, Edward Bennett(Daniel Burnham's partner in writing the Plan of Chicago and the eventual designer of the Buckingham Fountain) designed a peristyle that was located on the corner of Michigan and Randolph(right across the street from the library, as well as right next to the downtown terminus for the Illinois Central Railroad).  This was designed in the style of the Ancient Roman tradition of building a fence-like enclosure of columns to surround a garden or some other additional element to their homes.  However, the Chicago peristyle was constructed using concrete, which turned out to be a major drawback.  Concrete can be quite susceptible to the elements, and therefore putting a concrete object on the lakefront will damage said object over time because of the lakefront weather.  A combination of the deterioration of the peristyle and the need to build a new parking garage underneath Grant Park led to the razing of the peristyle in 1953.

     Fast forward 50 years, and construction is underway for Millennium Park.  In addition to covering up a the scar of the train yards with parkland and a train station, several different installations were needed to occupy the park.  It was at this point that O'Donnell, Wicklund, Pigozzi and Peterson Architects, Inc. stepped in and designed an almost-exact replica of the 1917 peristyle.  Dedicated in 2002, this structure pays tribute to the donors who helped make the park possible via inscriptions at the base of the columns.  Additionally, this time the structure was made out of limestone, so this means that the Millennium Monument(along with The Bean and Crown Fountain) will be around to greet many more generations of visitors to Chicago.

Day 187: A Midsummer(and Chicago) Classic

     In 1933, the World's Fair came to Chicago.  Yes, the city hosted another one after 1893, and yes, there will be an entry about that forthcoming.  But back to the matter at hand.  With the attention that a World's Fair garnered, Arch Ward (the sports editor for the Chicago Tribune) had an idea.  What if all of the best players from baseball could come together on one night for one game, and see which league would come out on top.  And with that, the MLB All-Star Game was born as a concept.  Not just that, but the very first one was held right here in town at Comiskey Park, which proved to be a victory for the American League.  The game returned to Comiskey Park in 1950, after stopping by the home field of the Cubs in 1947.  Wrigley had it in 1962 again, Sox Park got it in '83, and Wrigley got it again in 1990(it was during a rain delay at this game that a local college student by the name of Thomas Lennon saw an episode of Rescue 911 playing on the televisions.  Years later, he would take this germ of an idea and evolve it into the popular satire Reno 911).  In 2003, the game saw its 70th Anniversary, and the game came back to Chicago to celebrate, this time making a stop in the newly-renamed U.S. Cellular Field.  As of now, that is the most recent All-Star Game to have been played in Chicago, though who knows what the future may hold.

Day 186: Comiskey's Palace

     By 1910, the Chicago White Sox had been in their current ballpark(which stood on the site of a field that had been erected for festivities surrounding the 1893 World's Fair) for 17 years, and the small size(only 15,000 seats) was starting to constrict them.  So, owner Charlie Comiskey purchased the site of an old garbage dump located on 35th and Shields to function as the team's new ballpark.  Upon its opening, the 32,000 seat stadium was for a time known as the "Baseball Palace of the World".  The park had been designed with the input of one of the Sox' most prolific and well-known pitchers, making the field very hostile to hitters(a tale borne out in the fact that no player ever hit 100 home runs or more in the entire lifetime of the park).

     The park hosted the World Series three years in a row between 1917 and 1919.  First in 1917, the Sox defeated the New York Giants four games to two.  In 1918, the Cubs came down and borrowed the park, since it's seating capacity at the time was larger than Wrigley Field's was.  The next year, the White Sox played the Cincinnati Reds in the 1919 Series.  The Sox proceeded to drop the Series 5 games to 3(it was a 9-game set that year), which ushered in the Black Sox scandal that dominated much of the off season.  The fallout of that scandal left the White Sox decimated, and neither they nor their park were much of a factor in baseball again until the 1930s.

     But once that time came, the park shot to prominence once again by hosting the very first All-Star Game, the brainchild of a writer with the Chicago Tribune.  The field wound up getting lights in 1939, and by 1950 the All-Star Game came back.  This time, the biggest highlight was Ted Williams hitting a wall and ending his season.  The field saw the World Series for the final time in 1959.  Ten years later, the stadium saw the addition of a stop on the newly-constructed Red Line.  In 1979, the stadium witnessed a public execution(as well as a riot) when Steve Dahl marched in and declared Disco to be dead.

     By the late 80s, the ownership of the White Sox wanted a bigger stadium.  Under threat of the White Sox moving to Florida, the Illinois legislature(headed up by Jim Thompson[who is no relation to Big Bill Thompson]) voted to give money to build a new park(after they stopped time in its tracks).  In 1989, construction began on a new stadium across the street, which opened in 1991.  The stadium was demolished that same year, though the site of home plate and the foul lines are emblazoned on the parking lot of U.S. Cellular Field.  One final note: in 2005, the team started out their victory parade by taking a spin around the block, paying tribute to the former site of the park, and all of its important contributions to sports history.

Day 185: The Scourge of Black Metropolis

Author's Note: The inspiration for this entry comes from an article that ran in the Chicago Tribune a few days ago.  For more on Two-Gun Pete, check it out.

     In the mid-1940s. the 5th District on Chicago's South Side was home to roughly 200,000 people and was the crime capital of the city, leading all other districts in robberies, rapes, and murders.  The area was rightly known as the "bucket of blood".  In the middle of all this lawlessness(and at times fighting a seemingly one-man war against it) stood a hard-boiled cop by the name of Sylvester Washington.

     Of course, today he might be more well-known by his nickname of Two Gun Pete, the deadliest police officer to ever walk the streets of Chicago.  According to his own claims, he gunned down 12 criminals between 1934 and 1951 and made 20,000 arrests during that same time period.  Once the city council saw all of the crime that was befalling primarily Black areas of the city, they requested that several black policemen start to step up their enforcement in those areas.  What nobody could have predicted was that they had just set an officer upon Black Metropolis(the place that we know of today as Bronzeville) who was "the meanest, cruelest person that I have ever seen in my entire life" (as his third wife said of him).  This reputation of being a cold, uncaring man preceded him.  So much so, that all he had to do to clear out a street was announce his presence, whereupon the street would be a ghost town in seconds, the prostitutes would hide out, and any wrongdoers would willingly walk unescorted to the local police station.

     Of course, any cop with a legend of Washington's level must have had some pretty distinctive sidearms, right?  Of course he did.  Washington wore two pearl-handled .357 Magnums on a belt, with the handles positioned perfectly for the quick draw.  He began carrying them after his first take down of a perp, where he almost emptied out his gun in the fracas.  As the years wore on, Washington's legend and celebrity grew.  When the Brooklyn Dodgers played the Cubs with their second baseman Jackie Robinson, Washington was there to patrol and keep the peace.  Finally, Washington's actions caught up with him in 1951, when a grand jury asked him the intuitive question of how a cop making $3,600 a year could afford a $40,000 house.  In October of the same year, Washington retired from the force.  He died in 1971, but at least one of his guns live on in the possession of the daughter of one of Washington's friends.

     Overall, the legacy of Two-Gun Pete is best captured by legendary music producer Quincy Jones:  "Every weekend we watched a legendary black cop named Two-Gun Pete who carried two pearl-handled revolvers shoot black kids in the back in broad daylight, right in front of a Walgreen's drugstore — the kids dropped like potato sacks," Jones wrote in his autobiography. "We fantasized about making Two-Gun Pete pay."

Day 182: The Iceman Cometh-Snowpocalypse 2011.

     On January 31, 2011, the city of Chicago was in full-blown crisis mode, poring over weather reports, radar, and consuming forecasts like an addict.  All of this was in response to a massive storm that was coming across the country and had already dumped large amounts of snow in localities throughout the country.  In response to this, the city started to mobilize its fleet of trucks, so as to avoid a similar disaster to what happened in 1979 when Mike Bilandic claimed that the weather was under control(a claim which ended up costing him his job).  The next day, the preparations continued in earnest, with many businesses and institutions opting to close(including the Field Museum, Adler Planetarium, and the rest of the Museum Campus[which meant that if people wanted to see the remains of Bushman or the other stuffed animals, or even grab a hot dog outside, they were plum out of luck{though they could see the Sundial, Copernicus statue, Kosciuszko statue, Man with Fish, and Kelpies just fine}])  Along with that, the decision was made by the school district to close down all schools for the first time since the 1999 blizzard came to town.

     By 4:30 PM on February 1, the storm had reached Chicago and attained blizzard status.  The wind gusts were approaching and exceeding 35 miles per hour, and weather spotters were beginning to diagnose white-out conditions on the North Side of town.  Later on that day, Lake Shore Drive was shut down, albeit slightly too late for some motorists, as many people were stuck in their cars for up to 12 hours waiting for assistance to arrive.  There were some places up on the North Side where the placement of the high-rises in relation to the Lake made the streets into quasi-wind tunnels, restricting movement to a snail's pace when walking against the wind.

     Beyond that, there were several other affects that the storm had.  Several of the colleges and universities throughout the city closed their doors on February 2, and the storm also did damage to Wrigley Field(home of the Cubs) and the switching mechanisms on some of the Red Line tracks.  The storm also forced the cancellation of mail delivery the next day, as well as the cancellation of Amtrak trains leaving the city and over 1,300 flights out of O'Hare and Midway.  When the snow finally cleared, the city had experienced its third highest snow-fall total ever, but suffered no lasting damage from the Great Blizzard of 2011.