Historic Chicago

[Cbautz]

Bravo! Best thread on this website

[lawfin]

Originally Posted by lawfin

^^^Any one have a photo from this vantage point from roughly currently??

Come on any takers

[spyguy]

Saw these amazing photos of The Mecca building on Lee Bey's blog (the photos are actually from the Life/Google archive)

http://images.google.com/images?q=me...=source%3Alife

[Patrick]

From the LIFE archive!

July 1959

[Ryan81]

http://www.uptownupdate.com/2009/01/...-from-air.html

1933 - World's Fair - Notice Soldier Field and the skyline in the background.

[Nowhereman1280]

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ndlpcoop...l/cdnhome.html

^^^ Massive collection of old photos from the Daily News. There are 55k pictures there, so enjoy!

[Nowhereman1280]

Picture of Bubbly Creek near the old Union Stock Yards, 1911, note the chicken standing on hardened sewage...

http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohisto...ges/10782.html

[aaron38]

I wonder if there's any pictures of Balbo's squadron. I didn't know of any of this before, an interesting bit of history.

On July 15, 1933, while Chicago was aflutter with the Century of Progress Exposition and the world was not yet wise to the ways of Benito Mussolini, an Italian general named Italo Balbo led a squadron of 24 seaplanes across the Atlantic to add a little Fascist flair to the city's international hoopla. The planes landed in the lake near Navy Pier, and the airmen were greeted by hundreds of thousands of cheering yahoos, who were, according to the Daily News of the day, "ready and eager" to welcome a "twentieth-century version of Leonardo da Vinci" from "the old world, where the doctrine of fascism is swiftly transforming an ancient people into a homogeneous nation more American than the United States."

Chicagoans, demonstrating early their affection for air and water thrill shows, later renamed Seventh Street for the dauntless aviator — thus the present-day Balbo Drive — and proudly accepted a gift from Mussolini to commemorate the occasion, an 18-foot column of exceedingly rare and valuable marble that now stands just north of McCormick Place. As we are informed by the inscribed pedestal on which the column rests, it is about "twenty centuries old"; it once stood on the shore of the Mediterranean, at the Roman port city of Ostia, "to watch over the fortunes and victories of the Roman triremes." The inscription does not inform us that Il Duce's ancestors apparently pilfered the thing from the Greeks, but I suppose there wasn't enough room to go into all the details.

General Balbo, for his part, did not long enjoy the unalloyed esteem of Chicagoans, or even of his commander-in-chief. After Balbo led the bombing siege of Ethiopia and became governor of Italian Libya, his plane was shot down by friendly fire in 1940 — some say on the orders of Mussolini, apparently doubtful about the general's loyalty and perhaps fearful of his popularity as well. Later, in peacetime Chicago, a group of citizens endeavored to take Balbo's street away from him, claiming his visit was a blot on the city's reputation; they wanted the street renamed to honor a red-blooded American flying ace, one John Waldron, who had distinguished himself in the battle of Midway. Mayor Ed Kelly didn't like that idea; although several prominent goombahs stepped forward to support the change, Kelly may have feared that deleting Balbo from the map would outrage the city's Italian population. In any case, he sidestepped the issue by naming a different street for Waldron, and the city's anti-Fascist sentiment, focused on the street-name question, expired without having affected the monument.

Perhaps the monument went unchallenged because nobody could remember what it was supposed to be commemorating. The original inscription was in Italian only, and it apparently wore quickly; by the mid-1960s, it was all but illegible. Over the years, the daily newspapers and the park district (keeper of the city's monuments) received a few letters decrying this sad state of affairs, and finally, in the mid 70s, the pedestal was repaired: the Italian inscription, which had originally adorned the west face of the pedestal, was recut on the south face; the west face was filled in and an English translation was added over the faded Italian. In 1976, the Italian consul in Chicago informed the park district's minions that they had misspelled two words in the Italian inscription: auspices, which came out "suspices," and triremi, which was rendered "tiremi."

Periodically someone suggests that we really ought to do something about Chicago's tributes to Fascism (both the monument and the street), but so far nothing has come of such efforts — see these stories in the Tribune, the Reader, and Chicago magazine for more. The column, misspellings and all, stands to this day, ensuring that Chicagoans will be ever mindful of Balbo's historic flight, the painful lessons of Fascism, the subtle machinations of ethnic ward politics, and the embarrassing inefficacy of the Chicago patronage system.

http://chicago.straightdope.com/sdc20090205.php

[ethereal_reality]

^^^That Uptown photograph is absolutely amazing.

You have the massive Uptown Theater (foreground).
Across the street to the south is the Riviera Theater.
And to the east of Uptown is the Aragon Ballroom (next to the EL).
My acupuncturist was on one of the upper floors of the Broadway bldg
(the white building)

One photograph.....so much history.

Thanks for posting Ryan81....it brought back memories.

[Mr Downtown]

Originally Posted by lawfin

^^^Any one have a photo from this vantage point from roughly currently??

It took me an hour to figure it out. It's looking east on Augusta from Pulaski. Best I can do is this view from maps.live.com:

[ethereal_reality]

Here's one of my favorites.


unknown

[ethereal_reality]

Here is a larger scan with more detail.


unknown

I didn't realize there used to be a sign atop the InterContinental Hotel.
Does it say Sheraton Chicago?

[Mr Downtown]

Yes, the Medinah Athletic Club became the Continental Hotel during the Depression, and was purchased by Sheraton in 1947.

Check out the fireboat Fred R. Busse. There's no mistaking a Kodachrome red.

[lawfin]

Originally Posted by Mr Downtown

It took me an hour to figure it out. It's looking east on Augusta from Pulaski. Best I can do is this view from maps.live.com:

Thanks, Mr D

[ethereal_reality]

I appreciate the info about the InterContinental Mr. Downtown.

[kool maudit]

holy shit...in that black and white one...you're us (only you've built other buildings since then).

[bnk]

I would like to go back and remember July 24th 1915 when 845 lives, including 22 entire families, were lost on that summer day.


The death toll on that one summer day from the Eastland was four times as great as the Great Chicago Fire of 1871! The death toll of the Eastland was a few hundered under the sinking of the Lusitania that propelled the US in to the great war. The death toll number was more that 50% of the dead from the Titanic.

Let us never forget.






http://images.barnesandnoble.com/ima...00/9941686.jpg




http://www.eastlanddisaster.org/fujita7bdfireman.jpg




Eastland disaster, crowd standing behind police line on LaSalle Street looking south from Water Street
Chicago Daily News, Inc., photographer.





http://chicagopc.info/Chicago%20post...%20funeral.JPG

Eastland Steamer Disaster, Funeral of the Sindelar Family, All 8 Members












http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Eastland







Credits to maritimequest

http://www.maritimequest.com/liners/...d/eastland.htm


Eastland seen between June 1914-July 1915 sailing for the St. Joseph-Chicago Steamship Company.






July 24, 1915: Eastland on her side in the Chicago River


July 24, 1915: Eastland on her side in the Chicago River. The tug Kenosha is seen bringing survivors from the wreck to the dock.




July 24, 1915: Bodies being removed from the Eastland.





July 24, 1915: A fireman has the grim task of carrying a dead baby from the wreck of the Eastland.






July 24, 1915: Bodies being removed from the Eastland.


July 24, 1915: One of the 844 dead being carried to the morgue.



July 1915: Inside the capsized Eastland.


August 14, 1915: The wreck of the Eastland being righted by the tug Favorite and a barge crane.


August 1915: The Eastland at the Halsted street dock.


USS Wilmette (Ex- Eastland) undergoing some refitting at Navy Pier, Chicago, Illinois. Note only one stack is installed.


USS Wilmette seen at Navy Pier, Chicago, Illinois in the 1930's.










































http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...y_Eastland.gif

[Mr Downtown]

The part about the Eastland that always gives me a catch in my throat is that there were 22 entire families that died. Somehow thinking about 22 Lawndale apartments and Cicero bungalows where the lights didn't come on that night makes the terrible numbers less abstract.

[bnk]

Originally Posted by Mr Downtown

The part about the Eastland that always gives me a catch in my throat is that there were 22 entire families that died. Somehow thinking about 22 Lawndale apartments and Cicero bungalows where the lights didn't come on that night makes the terrible numbers less abstract.

Excellent point DT.

Lest we never forget.

This is one of the reasons why I brought it up for our Chicagoland peps. We need to remember our history, to learn and grow from our past.

[ethereal_reality]

^^^Very touching.

Thanks bnk for posting the photographs of the Eastland disaster.
It's an exemplary chronicle of one of the saddest days in Chicago history.

I believe you could have started a new thread.
Otherwise it might be lost to most forumers on this site.

Perhaps a thread of "little known disasters in your city".
This is just a thought.