Day 302: The Fireproof Theater: Theatre Week Day 2

     When the Iroquois Theatre burned in December of 1903, changes were very quickly made to the way that structures were built in the city and the regulations that theaters were held to so as to ensure fire safety.  The first new theater to actually be built pursuant to these regulations was the Majestic Theatre, built in 1906 by Rapp & Rapp(who would work on the Oriental Theatre 20 years later).  This venue started out its life as a vaudeville venue(much like the Oriental) which would host up to 15 acts every day 6 days a week.  The theater soon became part of the famed Orpheum Circuit, which ultimately was a forerunner to RKO.  Some of the more distinguished names to grace the stage were:

• Eddie Foy
• Al Jolson
• Lily Langtry
• Fanny Brice
• Harry Houdini

     Eventually, the Great Depression hit, and it hit hard.  So hard in fact, that the theatre was closed down in 1932, and wasn't reopened again until 1945 when the Shubert Organization stepped in to clean it up and reopen it.  In 1991, the Nederlander Organization purchased the theater, which was actually connected to a hotel as well.  In 2005, the theater underwent a large renovation, and was also given a new name.  The LaSalle Bank Theatre, after the new owner.  In 2008, LaSalle Bank was bought by Bank of America, and so the theater's name was changed again.  The theater has hosted several critically acclaimed shows over the years, and promises to be a Chicago jewel for many years to come.

Day 299: A Headache remedy to die for.

     In the Fall of 1982, a panic swept the Chicagoland area as several different people in several different suburbs took Tylenol capsules-and promptly died.  In one tragic case, a man took the tainted medicine, and soon died in the hospital.  While his relatives were meeting to grieve his death, two of them took pills from the same bottle, and eventually died as well.  In total, 7 people were victimized in this method.  Investigators soon connected the dots and realized that the Tylenol(which had been laced with cyanide) was the common link.  Soon there were warnings broadcast about the tainted pills, and the police drove through area neighborhoods warning people not to take the medicine.  In addition to the warnings on the local level, action was taken on a national stage as well.  Johnson & Johnson(the distributors of Tylenol) immediately warned hospitals of the risk, and then proceeded to issue a nationwide recall, taking roughly 31 Million bottles of Tylenol off of the market.

     When the investigations kicked into high gear, they soon ruled out contamination at the factory, so they realized that the capsules must have been poisoned when they were already on the shelves.  Soon the focus turned to finding the one responsible, which was right about the time that James William Lewis sent a letter to Johnson & Johnson demanding $1 Million to stop the poisonings.  However, Lewis was ruled out as the direct perp because he had been living in NYC at the time of the deaths.  Nonetheless, Lewis was booked on extortion charges, and was sent up the river until 1995.  Oddly enough, a document released by the Department of Justice in 2009 showed that the authorities did indeed have evidence connecting Lewis to the poisonings, but didn't charge him.  For his part, Lewis has steadfastly denied all responsibility for the murders.  The other suspect at the time was Roger Arnold, who was arrested and later cleared.  He later had a mental breakdown, killing an innocent bystander and getting booked in the joint for the next 15 years.  Whatever he knew about the crime is now lost forever, as he died in 2008.

     In the wake of the deaths, Johnson & Johnson earned high praise for their adroit handling of the case.  Additionally, this marked the beginning of the end of placing medicines into capsules, as these could be easily tampered with, and moving towards the caplet, a capsule-shaped tablet.  This also helped to spark the rise of tamper-resistant packaging on medications.

     In the past few years, some more inroads have been made on the criminal investigation.  In the wake of the DOJ's 2009 release, the FBI again stepped up scrutiny of James Lewis.  In January of 2010, both him and his wife took polygraph tests, and that is the most current information as to their status.  The next year, the investigation got even more interesting, when on May 19, 2011, the FBI asked for DNA samples from none other than The Unabomber(who actually got his start in Chicago) in order to research a possible connection to the 1982 killings.  Once again, no inroads have been made on the case.  31 years later, the true circumstances of the Tylenol Murders remain shrouded in mystery.

Day 301: Before the Rainbow-Theatre Week Day 1

Author's Note: Chicago has a thriving Theatrical scene, and with the return of the musical Wicked to Chicago this Wednesday, what better time to take a look at a few of our Theatre gems.

     In 1926, the architectural firm of Rapp and Rapp was hired to erect a new Theater in the place of the ill-fated Iroquois Theatre.  This was realized when the 3,250 seat theater opened up later that same year, operated by a subsidiary of Paramount Pictures.  Once the theater was up and running, it served as a movie house(as did the other classic theaters of the time) as well as a performance venue for all sorts of artists, ranging from vaudeville stars to critically acclaimed singers.  A few of the more well-known stars who graced the stage of the Oriental include:

• Duke Ellington
• Frank Sinatra
• The Marx Brothers
• Bing Crosby
• Al Jolson
• Bob Hope
• Danny Kaye
• The Three Stooges
• Ella Fitzgerald
• Plus many others

     One of those many others was a 12 year old girl named Frances Gumm who performed there with her sisters in October of 1934.  Upon being introduced as the Gumm Sisters, they were laughed off of the stage.  Upon the suggestion of the famed Master of Ceremonies George Jessel, the sisters changed their surname.  Frances changed her given name as well, and reemerged onto the Hollywood scene as a 17 year old named Judy Garland.  After the Golden age of vaudeville theatre, the venue began to serve as a movie house, a role which it continued to dutifully fulfill through the 1960s.  By the time the 70s hit, the whole Loop District was in a state of decline, and the Theatre was reduced to showing exploitation films.  Finally, the venue closed down in 1981.

     The theater would sit dark for the next 15 years until January of 1996, when the Canadian company Livent pledged to restore the Theatre.  However, things hit a snag when Livent started going under the next year.  The restoration project was picked up by SFX Entertainment, who completed the restoration and reopened the theater on October 18, 1998.  Thanks to the contribution of $1 Million by the Ford Motor Company, the venue was officially known as the Ford Center for the Performing Arts Oriental Theatre, although everyone knows it as the Oriental Theatre.

     The first show to grace its stage was the musical Ragtime, but there was an even more monumental show in store for the Oriental.  On April 29, 2005, the award-winning musical Wicked came to the Oriental on a national tour.  When the tour was up in June, the show just stayed in Chicago, establishing a residency at the Oriental for another 3 and a half years.  By the time the show finally closed on January 25, 2009, it had ran for 1,500 performances, becoming the most-performed show in Chicago theatre history.  However, Wicked isn't done with the Oriental Theatre.  On October 30(i.e. Wednesday), the show is coming back for an 8-week engagement, showing once more that the Oriental is still going strong at the ripe old age of 87 years old.

Day 300: Chicago's First Glimpse of the Heavens

     On October 27, 1913, the Chicago Academy of Sciences opened up Chicago's first Planetarium. Wallace Atwood(the Secretary of the Academy) had commissioned the sphere so that Chicagoans could glimpse the night sky at any time.  The sphere itself was a 15-foot diameter, 500-pound ball of galvanized steel.  Once it opened up, the sphere was a huge hit, and it remained that way for the next 20 years.  However, when the Adler Planetarium opened up in 1930, it generated some competition with the Atwood, and the fact that the Planetarium featured a state of the art Zeiss projection system.

     By 1938, the future of the sphere was coming into question, because the attendance was way down due to the Adler's competition.  A few years later though, the Army came calling.  For somewhat obvious reasons, the Army all of a sudden had a need for new pilots, and means to train them.  To further this goal, in 1941 they started using the sphere as a training aid for pilots.  Every month 900 new recruits would enter the sphere and learn important lessons about navigation and flying planes.  This arrangement continued into the 1950s, but by 1956 the sphere was in danger of being mothballed once again.  This time the Russians came through with a 184 pound satellite that made noise.  The Space Race was on.

     All of a sudden, people couldn't get enough of space stuff, and this newfound popularity propelled the Atwood right along with it.  In 1959, the Academy opened up an entirely new space exhibit, with the sphere as its centerpiece.  This newfound popularity was the Sphere's second wind, but also was its ultimate undoing.  by the 1960s, the Sphere had become so unbelievably popular that lines to experience it would be hours long at any given time.(remember, the interior could only hold 17 people at a time.)  At some point, the Academy reached its breaking point, and the Atwood Sphere was closed down in the early '60s.  For the next 15 years, the sphere was dark.

     Then in the early 80s, the Sphere was reopened for small groups of the public.  It served in that capacity through 1995, when the Sphere was once again closed down, except this time for good.  The Sphere was then donated to the Adler Planetarium, chopped into six pieces, packed away, and mothballed for two years.  In 1997, the Sphere was transported to the Planetarium, reassembled, and placed into the new Sky Pavilion, which was under construction.  On January 8, 1999, the Sky Pavilion opened, and the Atwood Sphere once again welcomed guests inside of its star-filled maw.  The Atwood Sphere has given Chicago area guests a glimpse into the heavens above for 100 years, and it looks like it will keep on doing so for many more years to come.

Day 29: The Builder-Mayor

     As I mentioned, the position of Mayor started out as a 1-year term.  When Benjamin Raymond lost his first re-election bid, he lost out to Alexander Loyd.  Mr. Loyd was born in 1805 in Orange County, New York.  In 1833, he made his way to Chicago, and started working as a carpenter.  By 1837, he'd become a very integral and important builder in Chicago.  So much so, that he was named the city's Chief Engineer the very next year.

     In 1840, he ran for mayor and was elected to said position.  On March 9, 1840, he was inaugurated as mayor.  After his term, he served the city once again as an alderman, as well as a trustee of the 2nd District Chicago Schools. He died in 1872 of what was called "Rheumatism of the heart", and is buried in Rosehill Cemetery.  Loyd also has a rather fascinating legacy.  Seeing that he was the 2nd Democrat to serve as Mayor, Mr. Loyd was the beginning of the long line of Democrat mayors in Chicago.

Day 22: The Mayor who made State Street great.

     In the wake of the first Chicago politician to run afoul of the law, the next man to serve as Mayor was a gentleman by the name of Benjamin Raymond.  Raymond spent his formative years acquiring an education in both New York State and Montreal.  In 1836, he made his way to Chicago to try his hand in the booming real estate market.

     In 1839, he ran for the office and was elected the city's third mayor. After getting voted out of office the next year(at that time mayoral terms were only for a single year), he reclaimed his seat in 1842.  While he was mayor, his two biggest contributions to the legacy of the city were the purchase of Fort Dearborn when it was put up for sale by the Government.  His other legacy is a little more important, as he was the mayor that ensured that State Street would be a wide street.  If you've ever done anything on State Street(even if you've only taken the El), you've got Ben Raymond to thank for it.

     Upon entering civilian life, Raymond went on to other pursuits.  Much like William Ogden, he developed an interest in railroads.  He also helped secure the charter for Lake Forest College when it opened in 1857.  Additionally, he started the Elgin Watch Company in 1866, which would go on to manufacture fine watches for more than 100 years.  In 1883, Benjamin Raymond died at the age of 81. Chicago's third mayor is buried in Graceland Cemetery, where he remains to this day.

Day 293: Hog Butcher for the World

     For most of American history between the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, the meatpacking capital of the country was located in Cincinnati. However, as early as 1827, that was already starting to change, as that was the year that Archibauld Clybourn started the first meatpacking operation in the city. Over the next two decades, meatpacking continued to dig in its heels in Chicago, mostly through individual saloon owners who would lease extra space behind their establishments to the railroads as cattle raising space.

     Finally, in 1848 the first stock yard was opened in the city when the Bull's Head Market commenced operations. Located on the West Side over by Madison and Ogden, this market helped to consolidate the operations of some of the smaller yards. However, this was not a vertically-integrated solution, as the meat still had to be shipped to Cincinnati in order to complete the process. But this slowly was changing. Between 1852 and 1865, 5 different railroads moved into the city and set up operations, some of them even setting up their own stockyards. Another factor in Chicago's ascendancy as the hog-butcher of the world was the Civil War. Since the Confederacy ran a successful  blockade of the Mississippi for the duration of the war, the Union had to get creative. The idea that eventually won out was to feed the Armies of the Potomac with Chicago's meat. The uptick in business to Chi-town was so dramatic that within 5 years, the number of hogs slaughtered in the city rose from 392,000 to more than 1.4 Million.

     After Appomattox, the infrastructure remained. Finally, all of the city's different yards consolidated in 1865 to form the Union Stock Yards. The property was bordered by Halsted St. and Racine Ave. on the east and west, and 39th and 47th on the north and south. The yards truly were a massive operation. At their peak, they covered 1 square mile, there was space for more than 100,000 animals to be housed simultaneously, the yards employed more than 40,000 men, and the yards processed 82 Percent of all the domestic meat consumed in the entire county. Between 1908 and 1957, there was even an elevated line that serviced the yards. The Yards were an entirely self-contained community, featuring farms, slaughterhouses, hotels, saloons, and even a limited number of residences(apparently taking a page from George Pullman's playbook).  The working conditions at the Yards left something to be desired though, as Upton Sinclair would reveal to the world in his 1906 bestseller The Jungle.

     Not only were they a seminal part of Chicago History, but The Yards also gave us several different innovations. For one, Phillip Armour opened a plant in the Yards(and at 12 acres, it was the world's biggest factory at the time) when they first came about. In order to speed up the processing of the meat, Armour came up with the idea of the assembly line, which in this case involved having many different people all work together to gut and slaughter one piece of livestock. This concept was later taken by Henry Ford and refined into a new way to make cars.

     Also, you may or may not be aware that our city has a healthy financial district. Well, this also comes to us courtesy of the yards. You see, the presence of all that cattle meat that farmers wanted some assurances that they wouldn't go under if things went south with affairs after the cattle left their possession. And hence, the demand for a futures market was born. Farmers would be guaranteed a price for their cattle, and be guarded against any market fluctuations in the meantime.  Chicago's status today as a financial powerhouse is due in no small part to this legacy.  Another legacy of the Yards is the International Amphitheatre, which went on to host many different affairs, including the Auto Show and the 1968 Democratic National Convention.  The yard also saw the second deadliest building collapse in history when a fire broke out in 1910(the deadliest of course being 9/11).

     Continued innovations in the field of transportation and refrigeration started eating away at the Yards' market share in the 1950s.  By 1971, the last meatpacking operations had closed, and 106 years of tradition officially came to an end at midnight on July 30 of that year.  Nowadays, all that remains of the Yards is the entrance gate, which was made a National Landmark in 1972.  The community known as Back of the Yards still holds a bustling immigrant community to this day.