LIBRARY FRIENDS University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign .FtECO a r- V *, ' s*& rK A MANUSCRIPT READER'S SNEAK PREVIEW It is perhaps true of any big city, but particularly true of Chicago that no two people see it in the same light. The farmer sees it as a market for his produce, the architect as a field for his ingenuity and talent, the real estate agent as an ever-growing field lor exploita- tion, the banker and financier as a place to make money, the young doctor as a place to build his practice and the politician considers its possibilities for his own particular brand of exploitation. The artist, the thief and the bum each have still different views. One could go on indefinitely naming the widely differing views of the many types and classes of people who make up this composite that is Chicago. If you were born in sunny California or the easygoing South, you may at first despise Chicago's noise, bustle and dirt — the very bigness of it all, but live in Chicago for a year, and it "gets" you. The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker — all are agreed on this point. Yet ask any one of them just why and you are not likely to get a definite answer. Maybe it is the many and varied oppor- tunities that it offers; maybe it is the people, who represent a cross-section not only the nation but of the entire world. No one seems to know why, but everyone seems to love Chicago. Mr. Port's conception of Chicago as a woman with a pagan soul is only- one man's idea but a rather interesting one. She bids you welcome with a come- hither look and irresistible friendliness. Tho' you may hate or despise her at first, live in Chicago for a year and its aura will hold your heart captive. You can't get away from it — you won't even try. Let anyone criticize Chicago and you will resent it no matter whether or not you feel it is logical criticism. It is a mid-western city with mid-western vigor and good nature with neither the slow motion of the south, the inhibitions of the east nor the glamour of the far west — but definitely lovable. — A note written by MARION HARDINC alter reading the manuscript on its way to the printer. [2] Chicago the Pagan A mind guide to Chicago's soul — its hurried leisure, sensuous pleasures, polygenous architecture, streets of adventure, sights of rarity, and its denizens questing after life by Weimar Port 1953 JUDY PUBLISHING COMPANY CHICAGO COPYRIGHT. 1953 JUDY PUBLISHING COMPANY THIS IS THE FIRST EDITION PRICE THREE DOLLARS Purchase it at any bookstore preferably or order direct from the publisher. Printed in the United States of America. All rights domestic and foreign reserved. Excerpts to a reasonable extent can be made but with full credit to author and publisher. Typesetting by Clarke-McElroy Presswork by Clarke-McElroy Illustrations by Marion Chapin and the author [1J ft 7. 7 3 f Clara MacGowan, Assistant Professor of Art, Northwestern University, Text was by James Alton Jarncs. • • • The reproductions are to be identified by name of artist and the legend— 'Chicago, A History in Block-Print.'' — Weimar Port, author of Chicago The Pagan. [10] INDEX TO ILLUSTRATIONS PUBLISHER'S NOTE — The designer of this hook insists on placing the Subject Index in the forepart of the hook. At first we were appalled at this heresy to the canons of good layout of a hook. But as we pondered upon it, we began to prefer it to the traditional spot in the very rear of the hook. Thus the reader's attention is invited immediately as he opens the hook, and could there he a more logical spot for the Index than next to the Tahle of Contents? Also the designer, who is the author, he who drew the pencil sketches shown hereinafter, insists that the Tahle of Contents (also the Index) appear on facing pages against the centuries-old gospel creed that the Tahle of Contents page must hegin on an odd-numbered page. Here too we are inclined to agree — The Publishers. MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY— a wood block— 16 CHICAGO AS A RAILROAD CENTER— author's hectic sketch— 21 CHICAGO, MAIL ORDER HUB OF THE WORLD— another authors effort 23 CHICAGO, 27 MILES OF SWIMMING POOL— author's pencil— 25 BUTCHER FOR THE WORLD— author's pencil grafs— 27 NOON HOUR IN THE LOOP— author's drawing effort— 29 CHICAGO, CITY IN A GARDEN— as sketched by Port— 31 ART COLONY AT 57TH STREET— 37 SHEDD AQUARIUM— 39 UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO TOWERS— 41 NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY IN DOWNTOWN CHICAGO— 43 MESTROVIC INDIANS, CONGRESS STREET PLAZA, BUCKINGHAM FOUNTAIN AND LAKE MICHIGAN— 45 TRIBUNE TOWER, MICHIGAN AVENUE BRIDGE, OLD FT. DEARBORN SITE, CHICAGO RIVER, SHERATON HOTEL, FURNITURE MART— 47 MICHIGAN AVENUE NORTH AT NITE, CHICAGO WATER TOWER. PALM OLIVE BUILDING, LINDBERG BEACON^I9 ART INSTITUTE, THE LIONS AND MICHIGAN BOULEVARD— 51 CIVIC OPERA BUILDING, MERCHANDISE MART IN BACKGROUND— 53 MERCHANDISE MART— 55 WATERWORKS AND TOWER— OF 1870— an Old Reprint— 57 FIRST HOUSE BUILT IN CHICAGO— an old print reproduced— 59 FORT DEARBORN, THE ORIGINAL STRUCTURE— 61 MAP OF CHICAGO AND SUBURBS— 63 SKYLINE AND LAKE FRONT OF CHICAGO FROM PLANETARIUM— 65 'TRACKSIDE CHICAGO,' A HAGERMAN ETCHING— LaSalle Street looking north to Board of Trade Building — 67 LAKE SHORE DRIVE LOOKING SOUTH FROM ELM STREET— etching by James Swarm — 69 WGN STUDIOS -7] DAILY NEWS BUILDING 75 WIGWAM, THE Lincoln Nominating Building— 77 UDLER PLANETARIUM 79 FORT DEARBORN- Replica of 8] TOTEM POLE IN LINCOLN PARK 83 BOARD OF TRADE BUILDING— 85 TITLE PAGE EMBLEM — Mestrovic Indians against Board of Trade Building Background — the pre-Chicago and the present Chicago combined TABLE OF CONTENTS CHRISTOPHER MORLEY'S 'THE TOWN OF PANTA REI— 6 FOREWORD AND POSTSCRIPT— 7, 8 INTRODUCTION BY AUTHOR— 9 A MANUSCRIPT READER'S 'SNEAK PREVIEW— 11 CHAPTER 1: WHAT OTHERS SAID ABOUT CHICAGO— 17 2: WHAT SOME SAY ABOUT CHICAGO TODAY— 20 3: THE SOUL OF A PAGAN— 24 4: GETTING AROUND IN CHICAGO— 28 5: THE BATTLE OF STREETS AND PRESIDENTS— 32 6: HIGH SPOTS FOR QUICK REFERENCE— PART ONE— 34 7: HIGH SPOTS FOR QUICK REFERENCE— PART TWO— 37 8: A LEGEND OF SEARS ROEBUCK— 42 9: AN ARTIST'S CHICAGO NOTEBOOK— 44 10: STATISTICS SHOW— 48 11: MORE STATISTICS SHOW— 54 12: THIS AND THAT ABOUT CHICAGO— 56 13: MORE FACTS— DO THEY INTEREST YOU?— 60 14: WATER IN CHICAGO— 64 15: THE WATERFRONT— 68 16: A TOAST TO THE CHICAGO POST OFFICE— 71 17: NEWSPAPERS IN CHICAGO— 74 18: CHICAGO, MAKER OF PRESIDENTS— 76 19: CHICAGO IS THE WEATHERMAN'S ERRATIC BUT BELOVED NEPHEW— 78 20: TWO GANGSTERS WEATHER UP ON CHICAGO, THE CITY WITHOUT A SPRING— 80 21: CHICAGO IS A SWIMMING POOL— 82 22: A LOAF OF BREAD— 86 23: MENTION OF SOME POINTS OF INTEREST— 88 24: LITTLEST MAN HAS THE TALLEST MONUMENT— 90 25: COLISEUM— HISTORY LOCALE— 91 26: A CITY IN A WOODS— 93 27: FOGGY CHICAGO IS INTRIGUING— 96 28: A POSSIBLE INTERVIEW WITH DAVID KENNISON OVER A CUP OF TEA— 97 29: CHICAGO AND TULIPS IN MAY— 98 30: -CHICAGO— ALL OUT!'— 99 [12] 31: SCRAPING THE SKY— 102 32: THE MOST SUMPTUOUS SHRINE IN AMERICA— 106 33: TOWNS IN A CITY— 108 34: THE SOUTH SIDE— ALAS, ALAS! — 110 35: THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO— 112 36: THE FEUDAL LOOP— 111 37: PAGAN ODDITIES— 117 38: HEINEGABUBELER'S SALOON A PAGAN SPOT OF THE PAST— 120 39: THE HOBOS MAGINOT-SIEGFRIED-MANNERHEIM BARRACKS— 121 40: WILSON AVENUE— PEANUT TOWN— 122 41: BOHEMIA IN CHICAGO— 124 42: THE PIPES OF PAN THE PAGAN— 125 43: PRESERVED FOR PROSPERITY— 127 44: TWO TAXI HOURS IN CHICAGO— 132 45: WORLD'S GREATEST STREET— A— FROM THE RIVER NORTH— 136 46: WORLD'S GREATEST STREET— B— THE MICHIGAN BOULEVARD SOUTH— 139 47: WORLD'S GREATEST STREET— C— THIRD WINDOW ON CONGRESS STREET SIDE— 144 48: WORLD'S GREATEST STREET— D— ANCIENT GREECE IMPROVED UPON— 144 49: WORLD'S GREATEST STREET— E— GREEK ARCHITECTURE AS IN- TERPRETED BY CHICAGO— 147 50: BUTCHER FOR THE WORLD— 149 51: THE GHETTO— 152 52: CHICAGO POLITICS— 153 53: GROUNDHOGS AND SANDHOGS IN CHICAGO— THE NEW SUBWAY —156 54: CRERAR— LARGEST PRIVATELY-OPERATED LIBRARY— 158 55: CORRIGAN CREEK, THE CHICAGO RIVER— WORLDS NARROWEST, DIRTIEST, BUSIEST RIVER— 159 56: HISTORIC DATES ON CHICAGO'S CALENDAR— 162 57: THE SOUTH END OF LINCOLN PARK— 164 58: CHICAGO'S FORGOTTEN FIRE— 166 59: BAHAT TEMPLE— 167 60: LOST ARCHITECTURAL BEAUTY— 168 61: THE WORLD'S LARGEST COMMERCIAL BUILDING— 170 62: DEARBORN STREET HAS TWO SKYSCRAPERS FIRSTS— 171 63: SUNDAY MORNING IN CHICAGO'S LOOP— 172 64: THE BOWERY— 174 65: WHAT IS CHICAGO?— 175 [13] SUBJECT INDEX Architecture, HI. I 17, 168 Vrea <>f i ii\. 60 \ll Instil. Mr, III. 51, I 10 Ait on Michigan Blvd., 140 Artists, 124 Artist's notebook, 44 Auditorium, 141 Bark of yards district, 111 Baha'i Temple, 167 Bank, largest, 104 Baseball Parks, 38 Bathing beaches, 82, 37 Belly market, 118 Block, longest, 62 Blossomtime, 98 Board of Trade, 86 Boat races, 70, 147 Boating, 161 Bohemia, 124 Boston Tea Party, 97 Boulevard bridge, 138 Bowery, the, 174 Bread in Chicago, 86 Bridges, 60 Buckingham Fountain, 35 Building, largest,- 170 Buildings, 102, 56 Burnham Park, 94 Butcher for world, 149 Chicago River, 159 Chimes in Loop, 119 Chinese architecture, 46 ( 'hurches, 54, 167 Climate, 78 ( loliseum, 76. ') I Colleges, II. 12. 43, 52 < longress Streel w indovt I II ( lonventions, 92 Corrigan Creek, 159 Cow path, 117 Crerar Library, 158 Culture on Michigan Boulevard, 141 Daily News Bldg., 104 Dearborn St., 171 Deaths, 54 Democratic party, 1953 Distances, 28 Douglas, Stephen, 90 Elevated system, 115 Elevation, 56, 64 Elks Memorial. 104, 106 Fire, Chicago's forgotten, 166 Fire in Lincoln Park, 95 First Chicagoan, 118 Flag of Chicago, 50 Flop house district, 121 Flowers in Chicago, 98 Fog, 26, 96 Foreign settlements, 109 Forest Preserve, 93 Furniture Mart, 47, 52 Carage, Grant Park 36, 76 Geographic Center, 64 Getting around, 28 Ghetto, the, 152 Grain Market, 86 Granl Park, 36, 98, I 15 ( Ireece improved upon. ancient, I I I. 117 Greek Temple, 35 Heinegabubeler's Saloon, 120 High spots to sec. 34 Historic dates, 162 Hobo barracks, 121 Home building, 48 Hucksters' novel, 22 Italian dinner, 54 Italy, Little, 109 Kennison, David, 97 Kilgallen, Dorothy, 20 Kipling on Chicago, 19 Lake front, 65, 68 Lake level, 64 Libraries, 38, 158 Library, public, 140 Lincoln Park, 95, 97 Lincoln Park, south end. 164 Lindberg Beacon, 36 Loop, The feudal, 1 II Loop on Sunday. 172 Loss of time on account of bridges, 60 Lowry, Rob't, on ('hicago, 22 Mail handling, 72 Mail order center, 23, 42 Masonic Temple, 104 Marquette, Father, 118 May in (hicago. ')!! [14] Meat in Chicago, 149 Medical District, 108 Merchandise Mart, 170 Methodist Skyscraper, 119 Michigan Blvd., Ill, 136 Michigan Blvd., North, 136 Monuments, 90, 127 Motley's Panta Rei, 6 Movie Theaters, 52 Municipal Field, 48 Museum, Chicago Academy of natural sciences, 156 Museum of history, Chi- cago, 164 Museums, 40 Music in Chicago, 125 Naked dancers, 46 Negro in Chicago, 112 Newspapers, 74 North side, 88 Other's opinions, 17 Outer Drive, 132 Outer Odyssey, 70 Packing plants, 149 Pagan oddities, 117 Pagan, soul of, 24 Pagan soul, woman with, 11 Pan, pipes of, 125 Park hoard, 94 Parks, 93 Peanut town, 122 Pit, the wheat, 87 Pleasure on bathing beaches, 74 Planetarium, 34 Points of interest, 34 Politics, 153 Population, 48, 56, 112 Posterity preserved, 127 Post Office, 71 Presidents, 76 Presidents and Streets, 32 Presidents nominated, 92 Quarantine Bridge, 133 Quick reference spots, 34 Racial groups, 111, 112 Radio stations, 62 Railroads, 67, 99 Restaurants, 62 River, world's dirtiest, 159 Schools, 52 Seagulls, 46 Sears-Roebuck, 23, 42 Shoreline, 132 Skyline, 65 Skyline, Michigan Av., 139 Swyscraper history, 171 Skyscrapers, 102, 105 Snobs, 117 Soldier's Field, 146 Soul of a Pagan, 24 South Side, 89, 110 Spring, no, 81 Stadium, 89 Stations, 100 Statistics, 48, 54, 56, 60 Steed on Chicago, 19 Streets and presidents, 32 Streets, how named, 32 Street mileage, 62 Street numbers, 28 Street, world's greatest, 136 Subway, 156 Sun-Times Bldg., 135 Sunday morning in Loop, 152 Swimming pool, 82 Taxi hours, in Chicago, two, 132 Thompson, Wm. Hale, 153 Today's opinions, 20 Totem Pole, 83 Tour, highlight, 132 Tour by taxi, 132 Tour, 20 minutes, 134 Towns in Chicago, 108 Traveler's mine, 7 Tulips in Chicago, 98 Tunnels, 58 Underground in Chicago, 156 Universities, 41, 42, 43, 52 Vote methods, 155 Water, 64 Water Cribs, 66 Waterfront, 68, 159 Water Tower, 56, 136 Weather gangsters, 80 West Side, 89 What is Chicago, 175 What to see, 34 Wilson Av. District, 122 Windy weather, 48, 78 Winter on Michigan Av., 69 Woods in Chicago, 93 Yachting, 147 [15] - . As an aftermath of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, the first Marshall Field furnished the funds to erect and establish the Museum of Natural History, now standing boldly yet unconcernedly at Nth Street astride Leif Erickson Drive at the south end of Grant Park. • • • It is a great part of this concentration of Greek classic architecture in Chicago — see special chapter on this. . • • The present building was opened to the public in 1921. Spend a day or a week in it and then another week in the nearby Aquarium and Planetarium. . . . This wood block is by Hannah Jeivett—from Chicago, a History in Block Print. Sec also her wood block of the Aquarium. [16] CHICAGO THE PAGAN CHAPTER 1 WHAT OTHERS SAID ABOUT OLD CHICAGO In 1833 Rev. Jeremiah Porter, Presbyterian minister, wrote: "The first dreadful spectacle that met my eye was a group of Indians sitting on the ground before a miserable French dramhouse, playing cards, and as many trifling white men standing around to witness the game." In 1834, Harriet Martineau, English literary critic, wrote: "I never saw a busier place than Chicago was at the time of our arrival. The streets were crowded with land speculators, hurrying from one sale to another. A poor Frenchman, married to a squaw, had a suit pending, while I was there, which he was likely to gain, for the right of purchasing some land by the lake for one hundred dollars, which would immediately become worth one million dollars. "There was much gaiety going on at Chicago as well as business. On the evening of our arrival a fancy fair took place. It is a remark- able thing to meet such an assemblage of educated, refined, and wealthy persons as may be found there, living in small, inconvenient houses on the edge of a wild prairie." In 1856, the Independent Democrat published: "A genuine talent for blowing is the highest Chicago merit." [17] Pago 18— CHICAGO THE PAGAN In 1857 the Chicago Tribune said, "The city is at the mercy of the criminal classes/' Repeated in 1939. In lc860, the correspondent of the London Times wrote hack to London: "Chicago is a mixture of Parisian buildings mixed some way with backwoods life." In 1865. Richard Cobden, English statesman, advised Goldwin Smith, departing for America to teach at an American college, to "see two things in America — Niagara Falls and Chicago." Scribner's Magazine in 1875 published: "Chicago! The name has a strange fascination for the American people. The name is familiar in the remotest villages of all parts of Europe. It is the best advertised city in the country. The wickedness and the piety of Chicago are in their way marvelous." Rudyard Kipling, who lived in America, married an American, and drew his largest royalties from American readers, said (about 1890) : "Having seen Chicago, I urgently desire never to see it again. It is inhabited by savages." Rev. David Macrae. Scotchman, wrote this in 1868 in his book THE AMERICANS AT HOME (Dutton), Chap. The Lightning City: "Chicago is almost as great a city for worldliness and wickedness as for trade. What she does, she does with all her might. Her good people are very good, her bad people very bad. Everything works at high pressure. The rapid growth of Chicago is one of the most amazing things in the history of modern civilization. " / was billeted in Diekirch, Luxemburg soon after the Armistice, (1918). The home was that of a jeweler and well appointed as is usual with those of tradesmen on the Continent. I spoke of my office being in a fourteen-story building (First National Bank Building). '"Oh impossible!" was the rejoinder. "Why, Paris (always pronounced Pa-ree, accent on last syllable) has only buildings of eight stories." I said that I was a resident of Chicago. "Oh," they asked, "Is it safe to live there? Arent you afraid of the Indians?" "And," they added, "is it true that you can have as many ivives as you want in Chicago?" Soon after I came to Chicago I roomed in an imposing stone- fronted house at 1316 Michigan Boulevard. It was the home once upon a time of the architect of the first World's Fair, David H. Burn- ham. His name has been given to Burnham Park and the Burnham Chicago Plan which sought to map the growth of Chicago for the next CHICAGO THE PAGAN— Page 19 hundred years. He wrote this bit of counsel to his fellow Chicagoans: "Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood, and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram, once recorded, will never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself with evergrowing intensity. Remember that our sons and grandsons are going to do things that would stagger us. Let your watchword be order, and your beacon, beauty." In- 1933 William T. Steed, London journalist, spoke in Chicago to an invited audience of workingmen, business men, ministers and others on the subject If Christ should Come to Chicago. Hernia Clark who has written for the Chicago Tribune the historically valuable and delightfully interesting series When Chicago Was YoUng, reports the two meetings fully. Mr. Steed presented no panacea, no new plan, no definite way out of the world's sufferings. He blamed most of it upon the rich — a conclusion which to us betrays poor logic and a superficial judgment. Further, Mr. Steed urged that wickedness be cast out; how was it to be done? By all people being good people. This logic reminds us of the Irishman's remark when told that the last coach is the most dangerous — "Then why don't they leave it off the train?" Page 20— CHICAGO THE PAGAN *e CHAPTER 2 WHAT SOME SAY ABOUT CHICAGO OF TODAY NOW LET US HEAR THE VOICE OF TOD AY— Edward Doherty writes in Liberty Magazine, 20 July 1940: "Chicago is in a pitiable condition today but not a hopeless one. Thousands of its business men pay tribute to racketeers and live in fear of kidnaping and murder. Ward heelers in alliance with well heeled gorillas elect corrupt judges and city officials. Many of the cops can be bought for half a dollar. The streets are bumpy and full of patches. The alleys are full of holes and refuse. Taxes are in arrears. Vice and gambling flourish, and men who sell dirty pictures to school boys and girls go unpunished in the courts." And in the following week's issue of the same publication, he begins the second installment of his series Wolves in the Windy City with these words: "Chicago is a tough town. It has always been a tough town, and it probably always will be." • • • The first two paragraphs of an editorial in the Chicago Tribune of 2 January 1941 : Chicago's motto used to be "I Will.'' The city blazoned it on its seal. Its people believed in it. Within a century their faith turned a desolate region of marshes and sand flats into the roaring, sometimes wicked and cruel, always busy and increasingly prosperous metropolis of the prairies. Chicago was the cross- roads of the American empire. The modern world never saw anything quite so spectacular as its lusty rise to power. Today Chicago is tuckered out. Instead of surging forward it feebly clutches to hold what it has. Cities never stand still. They go forward or backward, and Chicago has stopped going forward. Except at pointless civic banquets its old motto is forgotten. The city has a new, if unspoken slogan. It is "What's the Use?" • • • Dorothy Kilgallen. N. Y. Journal-American columnist, writes (1941) in Click: "Some like the mountains, others like the shore, but I'll take my vacation in the city. tt«VUo£| ojL Page 22— CHICAGO THE PAGAN "Chicago is different. Chicago is a streamlined frontier town. The facade has a tall urban skyline but the spirit is still pioneer. The atmosphere is get- rich-quick. Rotarian, free and easy. The biggest night clubs are where a hostess will tie you to your seat if you don't buy enough drinks or where you might rub shoulders with gangsters. Anything goes. There's the Wrigley Building and the country's most modern traffic system on Lake Shore Drive." Frederic Wakeman in his dirty novel The Hucksters, wrote [in 1945] dirtily about Chicago — but briefly and correctly: Vic could only stand so much of Chicago. The big, dirty, ugly, hard-drinking, hard-working, fornicating city always depressed him. The ambitious men, the complaining women, the intense concentration on business, the rubber-stamped suburbs. He had no feeling for the thing Chicago was trying to tear out of life in such big chunks. As we sat in the barber chair, Youngstown, Ohio, March '42, our barber, learning we were from Chicago, delivered the following monolog: "Chicago's a good town. We had a barber who was from there and he was a mighty fine fellow. If you can't get what you want in Chicago, it ain't to be got anywhere. That whole lake line is built up solid, ain't it? I'd like to work in Chicago — they say it's a good place for business and you can have a good time there." • • • Robert Lowry (of Connecticut) wrote this in the May 1951 The American Mercury under the article caption Blood Wedding in Chi- cago. We reprint it with full permission. The author and his wife attended this fight in the westside Stadium. The cars honked and brayed and the beefy Windy City cops were everywhere. Chicago was a good spot to stage the kind of organized violence we all were out for. Walking around this afternoon after getting off the train and checking into a Loop hotel, I'd seen that for all that had happened to the rest of the world in the last ten or fifteen years. Chicago really hadn't changed much. There was still a raw, drab depression squalor about the dingy bars and four-bit burlesque houses and vacant stores and boarded-up buildings along South State and South Wabash. It was true that the stagger-bums hit you for a quarter now instead of a dime; but the breath smelled the same and the eyes were no more in focus and the big dirty hand held on as tightly as ever. In the mammoth- columned granite architecture of the banks and commercial buildings around the Board of Trade, there was an overpowering, gold-lettered arrogance that you seldom saw in Eastern buildings; an arrogance stemming from the same small Page 24— CHICAGO THE PAGAN seed of inferiority before the older East that sent shoots into every area of Chicago's social and intellectual life. Any newspaper obit-writer who had never been east of Lake Shore Drive could tell you what a bunch of gold-plated phoneys they were back there in New York or Boston; any housewife had a civic pride that swelled like a bull's hump at mere mention of Chicago housing projects or Chicago parks. Beneath this tough crust of arrogance, the same restless urge toward violence that marks most of America's big inland cities bubbled and boiled. So it was a good place to stage a fight. It was a good place for Ray Robinson to fight Jake LaMotta for the Middleweight Boxing Championship of the World. '. . . . I scrambled for my seat and sat down on it. An organ was playing a tune that echoed back and forth into a mash of sounds in the mammoth, noisy, smoky cavern of the Stadium. 'All the people you always sse at fights were here, except that tonight there were more of them. Instead of two or three platinum and peroxide blondes in seven-and-a-half-inch heels, I counted eighteen — all with chins held high and lashes lowered to half-mast. Gorgeous Negro women all around me offset the blondes with a beauty that most white people have no idea exists, since in their isolation they deal only with Negro girls not pretty enough to do something better than vacuum rugs and scrub pots in a white woman's house. This sweep of faces in the great bowl of the Stadium made a black-and-white, checkerboard pattern. . . .' CHAPTER 3 THE SOUL OF A PAGAN One must not conclude that the historian of Chicago's little more than a hundred years was drunk on needled beer when writing his lines. Lusty life on a ferris wheel has been Chicago's story. The past still whispers hoarsely for it is a surviving great uncle, who tells burnishingly of Sieur de La Salle. Pere Marquette, one-armed Tonti and other Frenchmen, of Chicago's first settler Point au Sable, a Jamaican negro, of Fort Dearborn, the Pottawatomies. Lincoln's nomination, the Creat Fire, Mayor Harrison's assassination, the Fast- land's sinking. Mayor Cermak cushioning the bullet on its way to President Roosevelt, the Valentine Day Massacre, and the two-year Century of Progress Exposition. Page 26— CHICAGO THE PAGAN On May 2, 1941, John Kelley, oldtime Tribune reporter and in his seventies, told (in the Line 'O Type or Two) [at State & Madison Streets, often termed the world's busiest corner] of a meeting with Alexander Beaubien, first white child born in Chicago after the Ft. Dearborn Massacre. Alex, first white child, said: "My dad killed more than one bear right where we are standing, and I helped to eat them. 1 myself never killed a bear on State street, but the last one shot within the city limits was my quarry. I shot it on the east bank of the river, near the present Jackson Boulevard, in 1832." Chicago and its aristocracy can not be old if there is living today a man who chatted with a man who hunted bear where the Loop now stands — and got his bear. Creature of the prairies and lakes. Chicago's mood seeps out of the waters of Lake Michigan, and these blue waters and the windswept plains unite to transfer the vagaries of their weathers to the personality of the Chicagoan. A breeze springs up with whispers of Nebraska's cornfields; a northeasterner blows softly, wistful and fog-pregnant; or a squall pushed out of its Hudson Bay's lair rattles the roofs, as brazen as the hurdy gurdy's notes or if as the cornet's, it blows passers- by off the pavement into the street of Michigan Boulevard. The fog steals out of the lake on cat's paws and stealthily embraces the city with a kiss of fluff, while overhead, gleaming in the sun, the towers of the skyscrapers laugh — that is Chicago's pagan personality. \^ hen the stage is reached where contemplation of the past gives the present one of its chief pleasures, then the future offers little hope. But in Chicago, the past and the present are mixed into a gusty hurrah for the future. For a long while she has stuttered apologies in much the fashion a beautiful but virtuous maiden is wont to explain away a seeming blemish; but more recently Chicago is kicking high her heels in the front row of the chorus, and somewhat wistfully insisting that you admire the shape of her legs. Her arms have that touch of the brute in them, which is gratifying to the male. The hurry and informality of her daily life spring out of a body pulsating with the zest of contacts and reactions. Her coun- tenance half-brazen but modest suggests an overtone of unhappiness arising out of an excessive urge to live life furiously and happily. The visitor to Chicago may scorn her showy concern for the arts and look askance when she slyly dries her nose on the sleeve; he may Pase 28— CHICAGO THE PAGAN '> refuse to see the beauty of her architecture in skyscraper because the shadow thereof falls upon spravvled-out areas of shacks; yet if he be not too hardened in the arteries of his mind, must succumb to her clumsy naiveness and love her for her lustiness. Chicago is a pregnant barmaid among the cities and there be virgins who envy her. Enjoy the hours in London or Berlin or Tokyo if your desires tend toward the lady beautiful and reserved. But if the sound of the saxophone rushes thru your ears and down to the insoles of your feet, if lips painted rich-red tend to entice you to enjoy the cherries of sensuousness, and the dank odor of perfume exhilarates the membranes of your nasal passages so that they send a message of anticipation of pleasure to your brain — if you are challenging life to bring forth its full platter of the fruits of delight, meet Miss Chicago the pagan on the next street corner, hail a passing taxi, and trust the stars overhead to keep your secrets. CHAPTER 4 GETTING AROUND IN CHICAGO (See back of endsheet) The house and street numbering system in Chicago is fairly good tho like a bishop, it is not without sin. There are Central Avenue, Central Park Avenue, parallel, not far from each other, both main travelled streets. Then there are Lincoln Avenue running diagonally, Lincoln Street running north and south. North Avenue runs east and west; Western Avenue runs north and south; East End is on the south side of Chicago; and East South Water Street is across the River from East North Water Street. In our first month in Chicago, we spent an hour on Kinzie Street looking for Kedzie Avenue because the citizen who directed us. spoke with mush in his mouth. In 1933, the city's fathers, officially known as the city council, changed the name Crawford Avenue to Pulaski Road, because the Poles are the largest single nationality in Chicago and have the Page 30— CHICAGO THE PAGAN largest vote. In 1951, the courts ordered the city council to restore the name Crawford. In 1911, sonic system came to pass in the sportive work of numbering the Chicago streets. The base street for east and west numbers is the north and south State Street. West of State Street are western numbers and east of State Street, eastern numbers. Madison Street running east and west is the dividing line for north and south streets. North of Madison Street are the north numbers and south of Madison Street, the south numbers. North and south numbers are on streets running north and south; east and west numbers on east and west streets. Illustrate this by your own diagram if our words confuse you. Numbers are assigned on the basis of 800 to the mile or 100 to the block of 600 feet, one-eighth of a mile. Block 2400 north is exactly three miles north of Madison Street. (Not exactly; one must measure from the middle of the street, for 2359 might be the end of the three miles distance). Roosevelt Road is Twelfth Street and Twenty-second Street is Cermak Road, in honor of the late mayor, who gave us a president thru the accident of mistaken identity. South of State Street beginning with Eighth (Seventh Street was rechristened Balboa in 1933 after the arrival of the Italian fliers; Senor Balboa of trim beard died June 1940 — in flaming sky), the streets carry the names of their numbers, with the exception of Roosevelt Road, Cermak Road and Pershing Road (39th Street) — a system we like much. We prefer convenience and speed in getting around to romance, history and lost minutes in locating our destination. On the whole, it is rather easy to get around in Chicago and easier to make one's way in fame and fortune than in any other city. Chicago Avenue is one mile north; North Avenue, two miles north; Fullerton Avenue, three miles north; Belmont Avenue, four miles north; Irving Park Boulevard, five miles north; Lawrence Avenue six miles north, and so on by the mile. Halsted, Ashland, Western, Kedzie, Pulaski, Cicero and Central are respectively one, two. three, four, five, six and seven miles west of State Street:— 800, 1600, 2400, 3200, 4000, 4800, 5600. Page 32— CHICAGO THE PAGAN CHAPTER 5 THE BATTLE OF STREETS AND PRESIDENTS A bit of early national politics has been soured in the names of the streets in the downtown district of Chicago. Politics named Chicago's first thorofares, just as did Polish votes in 1933 rechristen Crawford Avenue. One block south of the river is Lake Street, which runs east and west. The prophets in the early days considered this the principal thorofare of the city and bot real estate accordingly. Their judgment was bad. The street just south of Lake is Randolph, a name popular and great in early American political life, but the Randolphs of Virginia lost their niche in American fame. Every city must have its Washington street and monument. Chicago has its Washington Street in the loop. The Adamses, father and son, are close to each other — Adams Street and Quincy Street. The unpopularity of the son in the West was indicated by naming a short unimportant street Quincy. Madison Street divides the numbers north and south. Monroe Street is directly south of Madison Street. The downtown streets in Chicago were named almost in the order of the presidency, to wit — Washington, Madison, Monroe, Adams, Quincy, Jackson, Van Buren, Congress, Harrison, Polk and Taylor. The early Chicagoans little visioned the great growth to follow of their isolated town. Three boundaries already had been named for streets — south, west and north — Washington. Jefferson and Kinzie, in order, the last in honor of the president of the first city council, 1837, year of the city's change from a village to a city. Next year, 1838, the council voted that as and if the city grows southward, the streets should be named after the presidents of the U. S. The first street south should have been named Adams but the democratic folks of the prairies had little liking for aristocratic, intel- lectual, snuffy and stuffy John Adams. His alien and sedition laws added to the scorn of Old Silk Stocking Adams. He was passed by in favor of Madison. CHICAGO THE PAGAN— Page 33 The next four streets knew their history accurately— Monroe, Adams (not for Old John but for his son, John Quincy), Jackson. Van Buren. A mistake was made. Next street was Tyler and after that Harrison, but little was the error as when the Civil War broke out. Tyler, a southerner and sympathizer with the South, had his name withdrawn and the street called Congress; thus history was made accurate thru a war. Polk, Taylor and Fillmore are in order tho railroad tracks have put moles on their faces. Later streets did not receive the presidential benediction as the city grew too fast and the presidents came not oftener than every four years. But Chicago's civic attempt at history had a later exotic twist. In 1885, the city repented of its dislike of Old Silk Stocking John Adams — he really was a testy guy. It renamed Adams Street by not renaming it at all but decreeing that the name Adams was in his honor and that the new street created along side the old post office be named Quincy in memorial to son John Quincy. Thus father and son lie in street fame next to each other in Chicago as they do in their graves in Massachusetts. Tyler never did recover lost ground. The city has a street in honor of every president except him: Taft, Eisenhower, Truman, and another man who dillydallied as president — didn't know whether he was a northerner or southerner and so neither side warmed up to him — Buchanan. "Tippecanoe and Tyler too" was a campaign slogan; before Harrison should come Tyler — it did once upon a time. But when this ex-president cast his lot with the Confederacy in the days of the Civil War, the name was changed to Congress. We visited his grave in the cemetery at Richmond, Va. It should be less neglected. Where is Thomas Jefferson? He must not have been popular in this region; a somewhat unimportant street in the industrial section on the near West side is named Jefferson. Dearborn received its name from the city's patron saint General Henry Dearborn. Clark commemorates the name of the famous ex- plorer. Wells perpetuates the Captain Wells of Fort Dearborn. LaSalle is in remembrance of Robert La Salle explorer. Franklin honors the most versatile of American geniuses, Benjamin Franklin. Wabash is a mystery. Michigan Boulevard was the Indian trail that led eventually to Detroit. Chicago has 1,363 streets and the city map bureau can tell how Page 34— CHICAGO THE PAGAN each one obtained its mime. Most of them were named after real estate dealers, ward politicians and first settlers who lived in shanties. Carpenter Street perpetuates the name of Philo Carpenter, realtor in L840, and Anne. Ada and Elizabeth Streets, his daughters. A collage was located in a grove of trees at 22nd and Slate Streets, hence Cottage Grove. The raven made the night noisy, hence the name Ravenswood Avenue. Weed and Root were not named after nature but after men bearing these names. There is a Terra Cotta street, so named after a firm located on it. Woodrow Wilson is not perpetuated by Wilson Avenue; there was a real estate man named Frederick Wilson. In 1913, the city did away with 500 names; in 1934, 300 names. In 1934. Irving Avenue, much confused with Irving Park Boulevard, became Bell Avenue just because Bell was short and easily understood — a good reason. Each year, 1,200,000 people, both residents and strangers, lose their way, go far distances, are late for appointments, and lose their tempers because many streets are not marked or are poorly marked, signs are rusty and cannot be read in the dim light, or are of such cheap material that even the party who sold them to the city feels remorseful. CHAPTER 6 HIGH SPOTS FOR QUICK REFERENCE (See also front endsheet) IN AND NEAR THE LOOP BOARD OF TRADE (Wheat Pit), La Salle St. and Jackson where city farmers never step in barnyard manure. ADLER PLANETARIUM in Grant Park, the only one of its kind in America. Dedicated 1933 — located at end of Ascha Bond Drive (named after wife of Shadrach Bond, first governor of Illinois.) The CHICAGO THE PAGAN— Page 35 gallant bachelor governor of Illinois, Henry Horner, speaker at the dedication, referred to the Drive thusly: "i\lay the millions who travel this path that leads to the stars, be reminded daily of the debt we all owe our women." SHEDD AQUARIUM in Grant Park. Fish, queer, funny, grotesque, the ocean's burlesque on evolution. If you think you're goofy-looking, see some of the fish here. BUCKINGHAM FOUNTAIN in Grant Park— lighted in colors at night, when it suggests a fairy story dramatized. Erected in 1927; has 133 spouting fountains, throws a spray 135 feet high. A product of General Electric Co. and $700,000 of Kate Buckingham's money. See illustration page 45. GREEK TEMPLE — but you no longer can see it at the southeast corner of Wabash and Monroe. As one stands today at this busy corner of crowded shops — cigars, cafeterias, clothes, noise, and dust, he scarce can believe this passage from Architecture in Old Chicago by Thomas Tallmadge (who died in a train wreck New Year's day 1940). Read his book issued in 1941 by University of Chicago Press. It should be required reading in all Chicago high schools. We quote: "//ere, from the 1840s until after the Civil War, stood a Greek Temple in a grove of trees. Its porticos with Doric columns suggested the mansions, of the southern aristocracy. J. M. Van Osdel, Chicago's first important architect, designed it as a home for Eli B. Williams, an eminent citizen. It afterward became a fashionable tea room, called the Maison Doree. During its lifetime it was Chicago's most charming house." CITY HALL, Washington, La Salle and Randolph Sts. (The Clark St. half is the Cook County Building.) Just another big pile of building materials — a homely official city home. CIVIC OPERA HOUSE, Wacker Drive, near Washington and Madison Sts. Something good out of Insull, its builder. One of America's most beautiful structures. See illustration page 53. CONTINENTAL ILLINOIS NATIONAL BANK AND TRUST COMPANY, 231 South La Salle St.. largest bank under one roof. SOLDIER FIELD, Grant Park. Open stadium, seating 125,000 persons. Dedicated 1926; cost $8,000,000. GREAT LAKES FOUNTAIN, by Lorado Taft, at south wall of Art Institute. Page 36— CHICAGO THE PAGAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY, in Grant Park. Spend a month of study in it. (Name of Marshall Field no longer part of name). See illustration page 16. FURNITURE MART, 666 Lake Shore Drive, dedicated to the home beautiful. See sketch page 47. LINDBERGH (now Palmolive) BEACON ON PALMOLIVE BUILDING. Can be seen 300 miles distant — by publicity writers. Was installed in August, 1929, has 2,000,000,000 candle power lite, was a gift from the inventor Col. Emery Sperry, and in 1942, amid the usual and necessary hysteria of war, foolishly the name was changed to Palm Olive Beacon. Now again it is named as it should be. See illustra- tion page 49. DIANA COURT, 540 North Michigan avenue. A modernistic masterpiece of design in shop display. Much more worth seeing than eighty per cent of the other places of interest listed here. NAVY PIER, foot of Grand Avenue and 3,000 feet into Lake Michigan. We like to sit on its very nose on a hot evening. Now a campus of the University of Illinois. COLISEUM, Wabash Avenue and Sixteenth Street. Reproduction of Libbey Civil War prison. Termed the front door to the White House because many presidential nominations have been made in it. (See separate chapter The Coliseum Saw History Made.) Grant Park now houses what may be the world's largest under- ground garage. It's a costly space, around ten million dollars in cost as announced, but likely in reality will be near twenty millions, after the fashion of public building costs. No gasoline is stored in this garage, which is owned by the Chi- cago Park Board. No sprinkler system to fight fire as the garage is un- healed. 'TUB There are two levels to the building, by name, as you can agree, upper level and lower level. Each level is subdivided into seven sep- arate areas with concrete walls, in order to localize the greatest of all fears in this situation— you also can guess that — fire. Heat will close doors automatically between the seven sections (how about the motorist already in one of the seven?). And there will be fire escapes in every section leading — you guessed it again — not down but up. CHICAGO THE PAGAN— Page 37 51 ih S^t /Zrt polony- "■'- — ' sstmtmSi M CHAPTER 7 HIGH SPOTS FOR QUICK REFERENCE— Cont. Hours of opening and closing and other minutiae connected with hours and minutes are not given here. They are important. Phone the office of the place to he visited, phone the Chamber of Commerce (in Chicago called the Chicago Business Men's Association), phone any of the newspapers for the up-to-the-minute information. Tell the phone girl that you are calling at the suggestion of Chicago the Pagan; we seek this word-of-mouth publicity. (Beaches, Libraries, Museums, Colleges) BATHING BEACHES (Free to the public, close on Labor Day.) Their areas vary. In 1952, the entire Lake Michigan had raised its level four feet. The result has been to diminish beach areas. The 12th Street Beach is no more. CHICAGO THE PAGAN— Page 38 OAK STREET BEACH— Oak Street and Lake Michigan (north side). A swimming hole in the midst of the business district. NORTH AVENUE BEACH— the bathing house laid out as a boat. Cost $750,000. Capacity 75.000 persons. Length, one mile to Fuller- ton. 30 lifeguards. A loudspeaker system. 5,000 checking baskets. RAINBOW BEACH— Lake Michigan at Seventy-fifth Street (south side). THIRTY-FIRST STREET BEACH (for colored)— Thirty-first Street and Lake Michigan. JACKSON PARK BEACH— Near 57th Street in Jackson Park (south side). Here we swim. In the summer of 1938, a thief stole our trousers, keys, and purse. The policeman to whom we complained, said: "Well, what do you expect me to do about it?" BASEBALL PARKS WRIGLEY FIELD— Clark and Addison Streets (north side), Chicago National League — the Cubs. COMISKEY PARK— West Thirty-fifth Street and Shields Avenue, Chicago American League — the White Sox. Night baseball. LIBRARIES (admission free) CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY— Washington Street, Michigan Boulevard and Randolph Street (Loop). Entrance on Washington or Randolph Streets. Over 1,000,000 volumes. Does not have the musty smell almost all libraries (and public buildings) reek with. Spend some time looking at the mosaics and ornament in Washington Street lobby. The library stands on what was part of old Fort Dearborn, and excepting the Art Institute, is the oldest building between the River and the ancient Auditorium (now Roosevelt College), having been erected in 1897, just eight years after the Auditorium was dedicated by Ben- jamin Harrison, America's most uninteresting president. 21% of Chicago's population have library cards — 700,000. There's the Swayne collection of 87,500 lantern slides on the first floor; 32.000 volumes of music on the fifth. The corridor from the Washington Street entrance is the most artistically ornate interior decoration in America saie that in the (Con- gressional Library in Washington. The nineteen mural inscriptions are gems of wisdom — and only one of them from an American brain. Alas, that America still apes the glories of other races rather than encourages and patronizes its own! • • • With its nearby nabor the Museum of Natural History established by Marshall Field the Original, here is the Shedd Aquarium donated by a president of the Marshall Field Stores — John G. Shedd. A wood block by Hannah Jewel t; see also her woodblock of the Museum. [39] Page 40— CHICAGO THE PAGAN This effrontery to American civilization is equalled by the tivo lions at the entrance to the Art Institute. Let's go American — chase away the lions and put there a buffalo or a turkey! NEWBERRY LIBRARY— Clark St. and Walton PI. (north side), contains important special collections in American and English history, English literature, the North American Indian, genealogy, rare books, illuminated manuscripts, and old prints — a snob library but a good snob. Walter L. Newberry furnished the dollars of a capitalist society to found and continue this library of public usefulness. The site for the library was selected about 25 years after his death. Washington Square, more widely and correctly known as Bug- house Square, just happened. It should have a monument fashioned in the shape of a soap box for here thru the years, all shades of opinion have been shouted to whoever would gather, and the shades were never drawn on the kinds of opinions expressed. The Chicago Historical Society (God bless it for its good and persistent work!) placed a tablet on the west side of the park, reading: "This area was deeded to Chicago in 1842 upon condition that it be enclosed with a handsome postboard or picket fence within five years and kept enclosed forever as a public square" MUSEUMS ACADEMY OF SCIENCES— Lincoln Park at Clark and Center Sts. A museum of natural history, worth seeing if you can spare an hour. CHICAGO HISTORICAL SOCIETY— Lincoln Park at North Ave. and North (.lark St.. just south of the Academy of Sciences. The best of its kind in America (except perhaps the Detroit Museum of History). See bed in which Lincoln died; see anchor Columbus dropt to hold his ship when he first alighted on American soil. MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY— Roosevelt Road and Lake Michigan. You should be one of the 1.250.000 people who visit it each vear. See illustration page 16. ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO— Grant Park opposite Adams St. (Loop). A dirty building outdoors, needs more fresh air indoors. Worships the musty past. Should imitate the much older Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia. See woodblock page 51. ORIENTAL INSTITUTE— 58th St. and University Ave., con- ducted by University of Chicago. Open daily and free. See Solomon's stables, the tower of Babel and likeness of Tutenkhamen. Page 42— CHICAGO THE PAGAN UNIVERSITIES AND COLLEGES DE PAUL UNIVERSITY— 1010 Webster Ave. (Catholic). LEWIS INSTITUTE— Formerly at Madison at Damen Ave. Now consolidated with ARMOUR INSTITUTE, 33rd and Wentworth and both known as ILLINOIS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY. Good instruction in technology. Founded by Philip D. Armour. His favorite bedroom was in a house we owned and lived in (3344 Michigan Boulevard) . NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY— McKinlock Campus, Chicago Ave. and Lake Shore Drive — medical, dental, law and commercial. The name McKinlock withdrawn about 1940. Mr. McKinlock lost all his money about 1940. See illustration page 43. UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO— between Blackstone and Cottage Grove Aves., 58th and 59th Sts. (south side). Doesn't let its right hand know what its left hand is doing. Visit the chapel on the Midway — open daily; the beauty of stone and decoration reaches its height here. Sec Chapin illustration page 41. MUNDELEIN COLLEGE— Sheridan Road and Devon Ave. For girls (Catholic). LOYOLA UNIVERSITY next door— for males, (Catholic). CHAPTER 8 A LEGEND OF SEARS-ROEBUCK (See author's sketch page 23) SEARS ROEBUCK & COMPANY— Kedzie Ave. and Arthington. To us the growth and present state of efficient organization of the two large mail order houses is an Aladdin story of American trade. They had their beginnings in peddler's stocks and I still observe eagerly and admire a peddler when I pass him in an alley or on a street corner. The great merchants of Oriental lands, who figure so prominently in the tales, were insects on an elephant's back by com- parison to the extent and variety of wares these two Chicago merchants sell, along with service which gives a smiling dollar of value in return for every hundred cents of money, and herein differ even more from the merchant princes of medieval Venice and all the Orient, whose fame was founded upon ability to sell yellow tin as pure gold. e S ^ « 5 3 <* =5 S -M i ii timniii ■!■■ i Page 44— CHICAGO THE PAGAN One of the favorite stories concerns Sears, Roebuck and like the myriads of such tales, likely has no origin in truth yet lives on lushly. The farmers constituted the chief group of customers for the mail order houses in earlier years; this is far from true today. The many- regional stores count a higher total of sales than does the mail order section. I recall that when these stores were first established, this about 1925, I prophesied dire failure. It was only natural that not a few farmers visiting Chicago, call at Sears. Roebuck's place of business. These customers can not be shunted aside; they have taken at full value the printed representations that the house is one of service and friendliness. When they call, they want to see the head man — Mr. Sears or Mr. Roebuck (and the real Roebuck died about 1940, at the time contentedly managing a department in one of the firm's retail stores in Michigan). But even tho Mr. S or Mr. R were there or were still the owners, time forbade. The farmer never learns the value of minutes to the city executive. So a half dozen employees of tactful cordiality acted the Mr. Sears or Mr. Roebuck, as occasion demanded, shook hands, chatted, talked crops and with a slap on the back, said goodbye to the visiting farmer, who went back to his home glowingly pleased and intent upon telling all the neighbors that he had met and talked with Mr. Sears himself. CHAPTER 9 AN ARTIST'S CHICAGO NOTEBOOK The disgustingly LAZY PIGEONS in the Loop" ■""Morals Court in City Hall, where sins are told***Wacker Drive's basement street, where HOBOES SLEEP in winter on newspaper bed sheets* **The MEDI- EVAL FORT at 16th and Michigan denominated 131st Infantry armory* **Oak Street bathing beach in the heart of the city, where EVERYTHING GETS SUNBURNED* **The hotel-less guests sleeping on summer nights in Grant Park, and not any uglier sight than the LOGAN MONUMENT there and just across the boulevard, WORLD'S LARGEST HOTEL, the Conrad Hilton. 30(H) rooms, all "outside rooms" also***Diana Court. 540 North Michigan Boulevard, MOST ARTISTIC BUILDING ENTRANCE Lobby in America* **Potthast's beer tunnel under the sidewalk at Van Buren and State* **Rosenwald's cT J l jj n IT^Vv! \r '• v'f I ;'■• ft IS -4 4 "a s ."0 Mi 1^ Page 46— CHICAGO THE PAGAN model APARTMENTS FOR NEGROES at 4700 Michigan Boulevard— and t ho colored race never speaks well of him***A JEWEL of ancient architecture, the Quigley Preparator) Seminary, 103 E Chestnut St.*** The GLEAM OF THE STREET LIGHTS on Michigan Boulevard alter a rain**'*The five-year-old newsboys in llir Loop at midnight who CURSE YOU if yon do not pay ten cents for a live-cent newspaper '*The racketeers who, under the noses of the policemen, WHEEDLE A QUARTER out of you for "watching" your car" ""'"The center tower of WILLOUGHBY TOWER, which makes your eyes run together as you look upwards at the entrance" ** The TULIPS in Lincoln Park in May***The LIGHTS OF DOWNTOWN CHICAGO in a night fog and more fascinating in a day fog"""" "^'SEAGULLS changing your thots into tranquillity as you watch them wheel overhead or sit on the water, idly gliding* **The artillery armory at Chicago Avenue off Michigan to the east, reminiscent of a ROBBER BARON'S STRONGHOLD*** Plaque southwest corner Clark St. and Wacker Drive to Chicago's FIRST PRINTER and newspaper publisher, John Calhoun* **Naked women dancing in the TAVERNS on West Madison street* **The beauti- ful EXTERIOR of the Fourth Presbyterian Church and the beautiful EXTERIOR of the Fourth Presbyterian Church and the beautiful INTERIOR of the Second Presbyterian Church, tributes to the Scotch- men as bankers and churchmen* """"AUDITORIUM HOTEL, another fortress building, and dedicated by the colorless president Benjamin Harrison, building saved from the tax collector on June 30, 1941. and to be continued* '"Splendid CHINESE ARCHITECTURE at 2216 Wentworth Ave., Chinese city hall***619 North Michigan Ave., Italian Court, FLAGSTONED. dining service on the sidewalk* **The nineteen murals of MARKETPLACES OF THE WORLD in the lobby of the S35.000.000 Merchandise Mart. Field-owned"""" "EARLY CHICAGO EXPLORERS in bronze relief over the main entrance of the Marquette Building. T40 South Dearborn Street* **42-storv high NEEDLE SKY- SCRAPER. Mather Tower. 75 East Wacker Drive*** EIGHT-SIDED dome of Temple Sholora, largest Jewish synagog. 3400 Lake Shore Drive* **The RIALTO at night— Randolph Street from State to Wells '"'"'"The SPIRIT OF MUSIC standing opposite Orchestra Hall, in honor of Theodore Thomas* **Grant Park YACHT BASIN, where the count- less craft of white bottoms suggest a graveyard on water*** American INDIANS on high horses, the Mestrovic Indians, Congress Street Plaza into Grant Park, and not by an American sculptor* **Color, color every- where — for painter's palette, cameraman's lens, writer's notebook, for any eye that can behold it— colorful Chicago. MAELSTROM of American life. • • • The Tribune Tower, of Gothic architecture. Inside its lobby are embedded stones from a hundred famous structures in various parts of the world. This is the home of the daily newspaper the Chicago Tribune. The Tribune began publishing in 1847. The design for the Tower was chosen in a worldwide contest, winners J. M. Howells and R. M. Hood. • • • Just north of it is the WGN Radio Studio, also depicted in this book In the foreground the Michigan Boulevard Bridge, with upper and lower levels. • • • To the far right, the building with the tower is the Furniture Mart on the Outer Drive, Just to the left of the Tribune Tower is the Sheraton Hotel of Oriental architecture and overtones. • • • This reproduction is of a wood block by Louise Eberling Dean from Chicago a History in Block-Print. [47] Page 48— CHICAGO THE PAGAN CHAPTER 10 STATISTICS SHOW Chicago is big but added a gain of only 8,118 inhabitants in the decade 1939-'48. The April 1, 1950 census (and we have no high re- gard for the precise accuracy of the census, in this or other figures) shows a total of 3,606,436 people residing in Chicago, that is, consider- ing it their mailing address and the place to which they return, when they go home. Chicago is not quite half as large as New York, the only larger city in America, and not quite twice as large as Philadelphia, the third largest city. But Los Angeles is blowing its hot breath down Chicago's back. There has hardly been a new dwelling house erected in years in the 1st, 24th, 26th, 29th and 31st wards. Only 16,585 homes were con- structed in the 1930 to 1940 decade. In this ten years the population increased only 20,370 alt ho there were 502,000 births and 358,000 deaths; the 123,630 escaped the census taker or what is more likely, moved into the suburbs — an exodus duplicated in almost all cities. The Mayor of Chicago receives a salary of $18,000 per year. Chicago is the Windy City but not a windy city. Eight other large cities are windier. For instance in 1941, it had only six days when the wind reached a velocity of 32 miles or more. The prevailing wind is from the southwest. Attention, Texas! You helped Old Man Fire burn down Chicago in 1871. The Municipal Pier, now known as Navy Pier, extends out from Grand Avenue on the north side for a little more than a half mile. It is a center of recreation, of dancing and other pleasures during the summer season for all the citizens of Chicago, and it is a civic fan on a sultry evening. Democracy in its lighter moments is evident everywhere on the pier on a summer's hot day and sultry evening. Some of the hoi polloi take off their shoes; some throw fruit peelings, papers, and peanut shells on the floor; some eat mustarded hot dog sandwiches until they vomit; some, as did we, have their pictures "taken"— three poses ready in two minutes at twenty-five cents; some hug, kiss and fondle each other in the open or in a corner, their eyes glowing with the *" A V^crtk yilicltigan at Jiite m • • • This Marion Chapin illustration presents the Palmolive Building, with Lintlberg Beacon atop. T he Chicago Water Tower on left. This section is near the northern end of what is termed the 'Chicago's Billion Dollar Mile.' [49] Page SO—CHICAGO THE PAGAN clili and lli>\\ oi physical sexual exhilaration, aided by the invagination; >ome sii and lliink; some look out over the waters, their t hols fancying with the ripples; sonic walk and are quiet, some walk and are noisy; some sing; some throw water in each other's laces; some need a hath; some are sad, and almost everybody is happy in a way. Since about 1918 the Pier is also the Chicago campus of the Univer- sity of Illinois — a small glass of Champaign. Chicago adopted a flag in 1917. It carries three white and two narrow blue stripes with three red stars, of which one symbolizes the fire of 1871. the second the World's Fair of 1893, the third, the World's Fair and Sally Rand of 1983. We once chatted with her about Pekingese dogs. The oldest business house in Chicago is the real estate firm of Ogden, Sheldon Company, founded in 1836. The C. D. Peacock Co., jewelers, has 1837 as its nativity year. // you wish to obtain information about the history of Chicago and the points of interest, do not ask an oldtimer. MOST CHICAGOANS never went thru the stockyards. MOST CHICAGOANS cannot name the leading theaters. MOST CHICAGOANS never saw the Mayor of the city. MOST CHICAGOANS never saw the Sox or the Cubs lose a baseball game. MOST CHICAGOANS dont know who is being carried out next door in a casket. MOST CHICAGOANS never observe how colorful are the sunsets against the mirror of the sky over Lake Michigan. MOST CHI- CAGOANS never pause to watch the wheeling movements of the seagulls over the lake front. MOST CHICAGOANS never quiet their souls with looking long at the blue-green waters of Lake Michigan. MOST CHICAGOANS never read a history or guidebook of Chicago. MOST CHICAGOANS dont know how their own streets came by their names. MOST CHICAGOANS gedunk when no one is looking. MOST CHICAGOANS wont read this book. MOST CHI- CAGOANS are just like most citizens of any large city. On the day we ivrote this chapter, we won a wager from a friend who has lived twenty-two years in Chicago. He declared that Roosevelt Road (Twelfth Street) was one and a half miles from Madison Street. • • • Little need to identify this structure — the Art Institute, on Michigan Boulevard at the end of Adams Street. Artist Georgia Lasley has put a dog into her wood block. From Chicago, a History in Block-Print. [f,l] Pace 52— CHICAGO THE PAGAN "6 The Furniture Mart, 666 Lake Shore Drive, is among the world's largest buildings. See wood block page 17. And more figures which may or may not bring crystallized pictures to your mind: There are 910,151 families and 987,271 dwelling units (whatever this means). At least one-fourth of the dwelling houses in Chicago should be torn down. 1,344 motorcycles were registered in 1952. I 1,820 carloads of freight are handled each work day. Chicago has five universities. The number of school teachers is 13,639. The largest high school is Schurz High School, 10,000 pupils, of whom 10.000 are smarter than their parents. At 14 they know much more than their fathers; at 20 they are surprised at how much the old man learned in six years. There are 467 high and elementary schools, one normal school (the others are not abnormal) and three junior colleges, 382 parochial schools. The city's 467 high and elementary schools opened on Sept. 8, '53 for 502,000 pupils. These figures do not include 195.000 pupils in the Catholic church's own schools. // is hoped that the present teachers will instill into the young citizenry information about how to run the city on a budget so that the teachers of the next generation will not face payless paydays. The Chicago Post office in 1952 delivered 923.739,190 letters many of which began '"Unless we have your check within ten days . . ." The longest street car line in Chicago and the longest in the world running on a straight course is the Western Avenue line, twenty- two and one half miles. The largest movie theater is the Uptown Theater, 4,307 seats, with several dozen admirals and generals ushering. The city has a total of 276 cinema centers or nickelodeon cathedrals. In these places, the morals of our youth are moulded and moulted. The largest park is Jackson; the oldest Lincoln; the most restful, Douglas Monument Park at the foot of 35th Street; the most littered and untidy, Lincoln Park. jGeauiy and >Marmonvf HJithin and h?iihout £)he Civic Opera. jGuilding ■ — [53] Page 54— CHICAGO THE PAGAN CHAPTER 11 MORE STATISTICS SHOW MORE In 1952 there were 878 people killed in Chicago by automobile drivers and only two persons were executed for murder. 1,059 died of diabetes; 520 killed themselves; 11,549 died of heart disease, 35 of poliomyelitis. Who played the leading role of Death in 1952 in Chicago? City health commissioner Bundesen said it was heart disease, taking 35% or 12,703 of all deaths (36,310) ; cancer ran second with 14% — 5,109 persons; nephritis claimed 8 out of every hundred persons dying, 3,012; tuberculosis had one out of 20, or 1,859 (no longer a scourge) ; pneumonia took 40% or 1,448. The City Council consists of fifty aldermen, salary of $9,000 per year. The number of statesmen is not known. The depth of the water in the harbor varies from 21 to 27 feet. Its cold, dirty appearance has prevented many suicides. The center of population and also the polyglot center which includes Hull House, the Greek coffee shops, melting pots gone cold, and Italian restaurants is at Polk and Halsted Streets; here also was located the Roma Pavilion Restaurant of my old friend Salamo, who put Italy's sky and hills into the taste of his antipasto, his spaghetti and Parmesan cheese. Chicago is a city of table d'hote Italian dinners — antipasto, soup, spaghetti or ravioli, entree such as veal scallopino, lettuce salad, dessert (a whole apple and hard cheese, or spumoni ice cream and spumoni cake) and demitasse — plus red-ink wine (chianti). For ourselves we order a double portion of spaghetti and eat it without a single stain on our mustachio. Once a patron in an Italian restaurant cut his spaghetti and was requested to leave. For a leisurely dinner eat a la Italian. You are not hurried with the courses and it is of little avail to attempt to hurry the waiter. An Italian garcon is a creature all his own. There are 1,846 churches and chapels (121 of them Catholic). Many Chicagoans see only their exteriors. Catholics and Protestants, about 1,250,000 each; Jews 300,000. Scattering returns: 500 Men- nonites, 620 Free Methodists, 2,076 Seventh Day Adventists, 375 Swedenborgians. Pane 56— CHICAGO THE PAGAN "6 Ninety-eight buildings are twenty stories or higher. The Board of Trade. 612 ft. up, is the highest building. The highest point in Chicago is the top of the flagpole of the Tribune Tower. The largest building in Chicago and the largest privately owned building in the world, measured by the amount of floor space under one roof, is the Merchandise Mart on the Chi- cago River at Wells Street. At night it is bril- liantly lighted so that it appears like a lighted ship out of the ocean's night (instead of the dirty water of the Chicago River). See Marion Chapin drawing on page 55. CHAPTER 12 THIS AND THAT ABOUT CHICAGO Chicago is as an overgrown boy who still feels the thrill of wearing his first long pants. In 1830 the population of Chicago was 100; 1840, 4,470; 1850, 29,963; 1860, 109,260; 1870, 298,977; 1880, 503,185; 1890, 1,099,850. 1900, 1,698,575; 1910, 2,185,283; 1920, 2,701,705; 1930, 3,376,438; 1940, 3,384,556; 1950, 3,606,436. Someone asked: "How high is the sky; how deep is the ocean?" All distances up in the United States are measured from the mean sea level of the harbor at New York City. Chicagoans object to using the level of New York as the standard for themselves in anything. The surface of the land in Chicago varies only 62 feet in height. There isn't a hill in Chicago. The height above Lake Michigan averages only 19 feet. The toylike, fairylike tower standing at Chicago Avenue and Michigan Boulevard, and lighted in amber after dark is the Chicago Water Tower. Long ago the pumping works for bringing water from the Lake into city faucets was located in this tower. It is now only a building of history and the only municipal building that withstood ^: iu -O o. -a >s a 2 .2 **=! -c o *-, 2 "3 O *» 3 S § =00—3 1 B 60 fc* o e 1) -c "a o '5 1<=> s ^ 2 © 2 3 £ Page 58— CHICAGO THE PAGAN the Chicago fire in 1871. It should be preserved for centuries as a beautiful piece of architecture in cameo. Oscar Wilde said of it: "A castellated monstrosity with pepper boxes stuck all over it." We have never been able to learn what the tower thot of Oscar Wilde. It was erected in 1869, as the design child of a famous architect of the old Chicago, W. W. Boyington, and only this Gothic pigmy remains of his brain brood. The Water Tower looks eastward in its thots for it ever seeks to rejoin its larger cousin, the pumping station just east of the street which separates them. Years ago, the two were of the same family, a narrow lawn separating them. But progress demanded that Michigan Boulevard run along a certain line, which line ran thru the Tower; so the Chicagoans moved it a bit westward. Two years old, it saw the great Chicago Fire and was one of the few structures to remain after the flames had died away. From its cubicle near the top of its 183 feet height, the fire chief observed the location of the fire, the direction of drift of smoke — this in the days of horse-drawn equipment and before the days of telephone and short wave. Since then it has seen the cavalcade of Chicago; it has seen its Lake Michigan of its front yard pushed steadily eastward not by the elements, but by the human element. The waters which lapped its eastern edge have been imprisoned for eastward human-made terrain. It has seen old Colonel Streeter (whom we talked to once upon a time in court when he was fighting for his squatter's rights to the lake shore area) lay down the shotgun and move out of his shack on the soft sands. Still it stands, an ideal ivory tower for an idealist on a hilltop; and still it stands, reminding Chicagoans of all their ideals past and presnt. Would it not be fitting in the nature of things that in 1969, the Tower having seen two vast Chicago World Fairs, be the symbol and focal point for Chicago's Third World's Fair, the centennial birth- day of the beautiful architectural monstrosity, the Water Tower itself? Three tunnels run under the Chicago River, all leading into the Loop — under Washington Street, under La Salle Street and under Van Buren Street. The last is not used except by rats that can not swim. Chicago has a subway and has had it since about 1899. It is 60 miles long and doesn't carry a passenger. It underlies nearly all the streets in the central and Loop business section. These tunnels are provided with a two-foot electric railroad track. The tunnel connects chiefly with the railroad stations, large buildings, and commercial houses and carries coal, ashes and freight only. Page 60— CHICAGO THE PAGAN CHAPTER 13 MORE FACTS — DO THEY INTEREST YOU? Statistics show most anything and here are some for miscellaneous mental indigestion. The Mid-City Airport fills much space at 63rd and Cicero, from which to the Loop, where most passengers set out, is a distance of ten miles requiring almost an hour of time, equal to the period of time required for a plane to fly from Chicago to Toledo. Chicago is 212,824 square miles in area, has plenty of space for growing, has acres of vacant land within its borders, and can grow for the next hundred years without being crowded. It is the most stretched-out city in the world, being about twenty-six miles long and nine miles wide. This and the fact that there are thousands of available square miles just outside the limits of the city, give it an advantage over New York, but it never will win the honor of being the world's or America's largest city. There are 56 movable bridges over the Chicago River and these went up 73,733 times in 1940, mostly to wave a greeting to sand scows and mostly in the daytime during the busy rush, totalling 4,546 hours, or 3.7 minutes for each time up and down. // we calculate 50 persons delayed each time, 3,686,650 suffered delays, impatient tempers and actual loss of money — a total of 227,300 hours. What is the average time value of an hour for these persons? At $1, the wastage is almost a quarter million dollars. This does not allow for trains missed, wage dockings for time-clock punchers, and persons already late for theatres and games. Some day a statesman will make his appearance and pass a law that the coal boats, freight barges, and puffing rivercraft can sail the river only after twilight. Bridges in Chicago — the first iron bridge in the west was that which spanned the Chicago River at Rush Street in 1856. Most of the bridges to the turn of the century were horizontal-swinging — they turned around on a pivot in the middle of the river, pulled around bv hand lever. And in 1894 there was built over the south branch of .5 E to © ^ S, S - CM g o 3 a k. o , >» ^ WJ >■» e g •is w A a © Ct, C "3 ~~ CJ -^ V s to -e 53 IS a o -c ^ C 5 s e © 6/c © as e k. 3 ^ ^ ~ == ^ s k. 3 3 b *J 3 3 o "W -c- e 6n • 3 o k. ■w t> to • 3 ^ Page 62— CHICAGO THE PAGAN the Chicago River at Halsted Street (just south of 22nd Street) a verti- cal-lift bridge, simply an elevator that went up and down and still does today — the entire bridge goes straight up in the air with the town on each bank of the river as the walls of the elevator shaft. There are 62 bridges over the two rivers inside Chicago city limits — Chicago and Calumet rivers. 87,000 autos and busses cross the upper deck of the Michigan Avenue bridge each day. There are 2,646 restaurants to suit every pocketbook and every taste. For many Chicagoans, the taste must suit the pocketbook and thev first read the right hand side of the menu, for they never are quite sure they enjoyed the meal until they turn up the check. There are 44 restaurants within a block from Dearborn and Randolph intersection. Chicago has 19 radio broadcasting stations, 19 state senators, 7,892 policemen and about 80 miles of elevated city transit track. On the air in Chicago — 19 radio stations, with call initials and kilocycles as follows: WIND— 560. WMBI— 1110. WHIP— 1520. WAAF— 950. WGES— 1390. WENR— 890. WCRW— 1240. WBBM— 780. WSBC— 1240. WMAQ— 670. WJJD— 1160. WLS— 890. WCFL— 1000. WHFC— 1450. WEDC— 1240. WMRO— 1280. WCBD— 820. WGN— 720. WJOB— 1230. Four TV stations— WGN TV 9. WBKB 7. WNBQ 5. WBBM 2. Channel 1 1, Educational Station — planned. The president of the board of examiners of stationary engineers is paid $4,600 a year; the president of the board of examiners of mason contractors is paid $4,600 a year; the president of the board of examiners of plumbers is paid $4,518 a year and his journeyman plumber is paid $4,518 a year. AND NOW FOR FACT FIGURES— Chicago has: 3,622 miles of streets of which Western Avenue is longest, 23.5 miles; Armstrong Street, 82 feet long, the shortest. Academy Place ten feet wide is the narrowest. If you travel alleys, you have 1.992 miles available; if sewers, 3,281 miles. How long is a block? Hoyne Avenue between Van Buren and Tilden is 20 feet long, Chicago's shortest; the longest block is Winston Avenue, 2,644 feet, between 95th and 99th Streets. The city's widest distance is 15.5 miles, longest 26 miles. There are 1,991 streets by name and 112,300 lights on them. Eiiiting, Tunneli and Malm [no Ft) Election Above See level Proposed Tunnel Eiteniioft (J6'l Pipe Line Diameters Propond New Maine ••>_« Sewers Completed A Proposed Pumping, Station end Reservoir OOD Sowers Proposed Q Propoted Booster Pumps Y/////A Now Uie Chicago Water -."13? L -*-sbuTH CH.CASOI j — ,? , /*" ! HEIGHTS J 1 " £e » If <"•■-/ c«nt~ | I i Li This map of Chi cago and Suburbs appeared in the Chicago Tribune o£ 16 Decenber I9TJ0 To illustrate location of water pumping stations*.' Because of its general informative value, it is reproduced her§, with special permission frcm The Tribune. [63] Page 64— CHIC ACQ THE PAGAN If you do not want any one in Chicago to look down upon you, stand at Oakley Av. and 103rd St., 85.379 ft. above Lake Michigan, or at 87 St. and Western Ave., 85.150 ft., being 672 feet above sea level, the highest spot in Chicago, and the average height above sea level for the whole city is 600 feet. The most crowded square mile in the city is that bounded by Ashland and Western (1600 to 2400 West) and Chicago and North Avenues (800 to 1600 north). Chet Swital in the Tribune Line O'Type or Two, under the Charles Collins caption The Empty Heart of Chicago, writes: "The geographic center of Chicago is located between California and Western avenues and 31st and 26th streets. It is indeed a dead center, for a mere handful of people live in the district. It is a manufacturing section that should have been developed into a shopping center because of its proximity to all Chi- cagoans, north, south, east, and west, but instead it is skirted by most of us ivith nary a glance." CHAPTER 14 WATER IN CHICAGO The height of the surface of Lake Michigan above the sea level is a matter which interests Canada, the United States, and others because there has been a constant controversy about taking too much water out of Lake Michigan, which runs into the Chicago River and disposes of Chicago's sewage. The height of 581 feet above sea level may be taken as correct — we would not know how to disprove it. This lake has been greedy in recent years. In July 1952, the official level was 582.3 feet above mean tide in New York City. The previous peak was in June 1929, in turn the highest since 1888. The low was 578.2 feet in Dec. 1949. The rise of four feet has diminished many bathing beach areeas, washed away structures, and required new and higher riprap and retaining walls. There are six lake cribs about four miles out from shore in Lake Michigan. Thru these openings in the Lake, so to speak, water pours into the pipes, is cleaned as it moves thru sand filters to the O -S! is 3 "3 y 2 hours water ski race, 70 miles, across the southeastern corner of the lake, from St. Joseph, Mich. — two men finished the non- stop ski race. From these waters also start the sailboats in the historic Mackinac race. Off Monroe Street, the water sparkles green against the flirting sun. The white boats smile back at the water and the onlooker, while a blue sky stretches a canopy over the lake to the rim of the ea=tern horizon. The colors of nature, the freshness of the sea, and the conquest of man over gravity as evidenced by the boats are blended into a scene of beauty in the midst of the skyscrapers of a great metropolis, telling the seeker after beauty that he need not roam into the countryside or to faraway lands. To the left is the skyline formed by the skyscrapers. The sun is shining, a slight breeze is blowing, the grass is still very green in Grant Park, and we are reminded of another ride we took many years ago in the Riviera, along the Mediterranean, between Nice and Monte Carlo. Our car sneaked its way around the narrow lanecurves of the Quarantine Bridge, so named by ourselves because when President Franklin Roosevelt dedicated it in 1938, he spoke not a word about bridges or Chicago but about spanking aggressor nations, quarantining them within their own borders and conscience. We turned eastward on Ohio street and as we approached Navy Pier, bore southward toward the north bank of the mouth of the Chicago River. Here on a Sunday afternoon was a polyglot of seafaring land- lubbers. A hundred men, women, boys and girls were fishing and catching fish. Speed boats docked, look on new cargoes of four to a dozen, and again were skipping over the water, half upright like a bear on roller skates. A half dozen young men were swimming adventurously from one pier to another in water deep enough to toss battleships about. CHICAGO THE PAGAN— Pane 71 Stud™ of lAjte/n Live worms are sold — a dozen for a dime. Fish shacks offered sea food dinners — fresh perch today, fresh shrimp today, special — scallops done as yon like them. And the smell of frying fish dilates one's nostrils agreeably. A rowboat is paddling its tossing way out to the government lighthouse. The armed sailor walking by is on duty at the Coast Guard barracks near the mouth of the Chicago River. And so, within a circle of a thousand feet, one can imagine himself on the Marseille rocks or in the Southampton Harbor, tho inland a thousand miles. CHAPTER 16 A TOAST TO THE CHICAGO POST OFFICE 'Largest in the world' is a familiar American claim. Chicago has it in its post office building at 438 West Van Buren Street, on the edge of the Chicago River. Twenty-one floors — 800 feet long. 350 feet Page 72— CHICAGO THE PAGAN wide, 10 miles of belt conveyors; 35,000,000 letters and 500,000 parcels can be handled daily; helicopter lands on roof (180 by 130 feet) to take and deliver mail for airport mail service and for almost 40 suburban communities. The post office in Chicago has 11.556 employees. The Dead Branch receives 1,850,000 letters and other items each year; 88% of the letters go to the Dead Letter Office graveyard and so do 35% of the parcels — but all are opened first with aim of locating sender or addressee. We believe it was that brilliant but vain president, righteously vain man — Woodrow Wilson who wrote the inscription for a new post office building and ever since, it has been used as the inspiration for the postal service. We may not quote it exactly; the inscription ran somewhat in this wise — 'Neither rain nor storm, snow nor sleet, disaster nor the darkness of the nite, keep these messengers from the swift completion of their appointed tasks.' We know this is not the word- ing — but it's the idea. So, on a day in November, 1952, when we had opportunity to join the Chicago Circulation Managers Roundtable group in a visit to the post office building at Canal and Van Buren Streets, Chicago, we hurried to accept. This building, rather new, is the largest single post building in America or the world. The lobby of white marble, likely from Ver- mont quarries, is a thrill of beauty to the eye — sheer purity of stone, yet warm and close in its effect as you look upon it. Our guide started us on the twelfth floor. We saw on this tour the handling of first class and fourth class (parcel post) mail. All packages, large and small, are brot up by elevator to the twelfth floor from the ground floor, where hundreds of trucks bring the packages from all sub stations and mailing depots. All are dumped — and that's the word — onto a wide moving belt, and at intervals, scores of packages are tilted down a chute about fifteen feet long, into one long bin. Here they jostle each other, the large fifty-pound package falling upon the wrapped box or bonbons. See this moving jumble of parcels and you'll be careful in the future to wrap your own packages tightly, solidly, firmly. Numerous packages already arc loose, smashed, open, torn, flattened here — before they even start on their journey to the receiver. Those too large for mail sacks are picked out. Those utterly unmailable because of poor preparation are pulled out. Those with- out proper address or no address at all — yes, just that! — are pulled CHICAGO THE PAGAN— Page 73 out. By the way, such markings as Fragile, Breakable, Do Not Throw, etc., etc., do not bring any special separation; they join the com- mon herd all the way. The next sorting is by states and then of course by destination within the states. This work is done as the endless belt worms its way thru three floors. Three sortings are done at a half-dozen large tables. Special de- livery, air mail and foreign are taken out and thrown on separate tables. The other two sortings are on the basis of size — short ones and long ones; this separation is merely for ease in running the envelops thru the automatic cancelling machines. Beyond these machines, the mail is given to dozens of men who go, each to his respective case or bin or pigeon hole rack, and 'throw' the mail by states. Small trucks pick up from these cases all mail for a certain area of several states. Then comes the third or final handling — within the state, the thrower throws mail by city, town, county or special train route. All of it eventually goes by train route — train #16 C&NW Railroad, for instance, might be the train for mail for twenty cities in Minnesota and thirty in North or South Dakota — there is no such train — we merely use it as an example. And the railway clerk on the moving mail car also must know his destinations and make a further sorting as the train picks up mail along the route. The chief moral is — first, address mail plainly, correctly, fully, in detail. Never send a piece of mail, any kind, any class, without your name and address as sender plainly noted. Use regular sizes. Large and irregular sizes, trick pieces, etc., are handled with difficulty, often laid aside for later routing. Keep your mail tight — no loose, open, soft spots. The long rows of bins, trucks and bags of undeliverable mail, torn mail, no addresses of sender or receiver, illegible scribbling for addresses, careless wrapping, etc., etc. — much of it clearly valuable, perhaps important messages contained within — there the mess and mass piles up like horribly mutilated corpses — and the postal em- ployees must worry, exhaust their patience, and try to compensate for somebody's negligence and thotlessness. Take a trot thru a large postoffice; you will come out of it with great respect and high admiration for the postal service, for the work of the postal employees, for the marvelous job the postal service does, still keeping faithfully and well its great tradition — that here is one part of our government, one branch of public service, which really does a job of value and usefulness to its citizens. Page 74— CHICAGO THE PAGAN CHAPTER 17 NEWSPAPERS IN CHICAGO Chicago is the largest city in America or Europe with the fewest daily newspapers (not however the fewest papers and magazines for about 800 are published here, likely more than anywhere else). There are only four. The morning Chicago Tribune or WGN (World's Greatest Newspaper — WGN radio station), presided over by the Duke of Chicago, the powerful, petulant, preaching Col. Robert McCormick — and to some extent the paper lives up to the initials WGN. The afternoon American, present Hearst child out of various mar- riages, still a lively sheet and still Hearstian — a fiery rebel of other days, now a rocking chair liberalist. The afternoon Daily News, relic of Victor Lawson. After the death of Sec. of War Knox, it came into its day thru John S. Knight, who gives promise (this is 1951) of being one of the great press powers of America. He's a mild-appearing, mild-voiced man firing verbal and mental high-powered rifle bullets. The Times, successor of the old John Eastman Journal, has wiped out the Eastman tarnish. Its birth under Thomason and directorship under Finnegan was good newspaper work. Now, with the new Sun arising over Knight but never reaching a zenith, it was high Times for the two to consolidate as tabloid, thruout the run of the clock, thus making the Chicago Sun-Times a Field publishing day, directed now by the fourth of the Marshalls as field marshal. We recall in Chicago the world's most unusual newspaper, the Daybook. We can't recall the name of the publisher, editor, circulation manager, etc. — he was one and the same man. This 6x9 sized sheet of about 32 pages, no pictures, appeared daily for almost two years, was readable and clearly a forerunner of The Time Magazine and Quick style of reporting. (We recall now — his name was Cochrane, a brave and able soul.) It sold for a penny as did most newspapers (this in 1916 we believe). We often hot five copies of an issue in order to encourage this original and worthwhile style of reporting. We believe there is opportunity today for newspapers of this sort in various cities. Most of the material was rewrite. Cochrane took a two column murder story and retold it basically in fifty words. w / :V « . & » £jhe Chicatjcf f)aily /^ehzs fouildint] s v [75] Page 76— CHICAGO THE PAGAN CHAPTER 18 CHICAGO MAKER OF PRESIDENTS Chicago has made presidents indirectly. Beginning with Lincoln's nomination in 1860, a total of seventeen nominating conventions have been held in Chicago. 1860 — in the Wigwam, at Lake and Wacker Drive, Lincoln nomi- nated. 1868 at Crosby's Opera House, on Washington St., between State and Dearborn — Grant was nominated here. He always was popular in Chicago. When the hideous monument of him was dedicated in Lincoln Park in 1891, more than 150,00 persons were present. 1880 — Exposition Building on site of present Art Institute. James A. Garfield nominated here. Four years later, with 16 rings of gas burners in the hall and 250 extra ones in the aisles and passage ways to furnish illumination, James G. Blaine was nominated — not elected. 1888 — the now old Auditorium, Congress and Michigan, home of Roosevelt College, and once resounding with grand opera — Benjamin Harrison was nominated. Building not yet finished when Harrison was nominated. 1904 — first use of Coliseum. See special chapter on this building. 1932 — the new Chicago Stadium on W T est Madison Street — Herbert Hoover renominated. F.D.R. nominated here also. 1944 — Thomas E. Dewey nominated here — in Stadium. Truman chosen as vice president here and of course F.D.R. renominated. 1952 — Amphitheater, 42nd and Halsted, at edge of Stockyards. Both Eisenhower and Stevenson nominated. • • • The Wigwam, southeast corner Lake and Market Streets, where Lincoln was nominated for the presidency in 1860. It was a large wooden building. Block by Sarabelle McBride— Chicago a History in Block Prints. [77] Page 78— CHICAGO THE PAGAN CHAPTER 19 CHICAGO IS THE WEATHERMAN'S ERRATIC RUT BELOVED NEPHEW The thermometer records normal temperatures for Chicago at these figures — June is 67.3 degrees, July 72.5 degrees, August 71.6 degrees, September 65.2 degrees. The cold months average — January 23.7, the coldest of the year; February 26.4, and December 28.8 above zero. In 1937, 16.7 inches of snow fell. And on July 3. 1940, also on August 20, we turned on the oil burner in our office. The next December witnest a temperature below zero, the coldest since the Weather Man began to keep records. Among the large cities, in 1940, ten cities with Cleveland leading had more sunless days than had cloudy Chicago. Eight cities with Buffalo leading had more rainy days than had rainy Chicago. Five cities with Binghamton leading had more days with snowfall than had snowy Chicago. Seven cities with Pittsburg leading had more days with dense fogs than had foggy Chicago. FIFTEEN CITIES WITH NEW YORK LEADING HAD MORE DAYS WITH WIND OF 32 MILES PER HOUR OR MORE THAN HAD WINDY CHICAGO. Chicago enjoys a good climate — not the repeated endearments of a placid wife, rather the passionate hates and loves of a tempestuous but loyal wife. Our springs may be the Carmen wife at her wildest in rain, slush, fog and chill - — but our autumns, even in their sunsets, are most delightful; then are days sunny, skies clear, and air embrac- ingly cool. The first snow may delay until the Christmas season and the Indian summer bid its last farewell scarce before the coming of Santa Claus. The Chicagoan is truly nature's child. The countryside hugs Chicago. The very limits of the city touch the forests at spots. No one else can mix city and countryside so readily a5 the Chicagoan. The comings and goings of the seasons thus are impressed upon his CHICAGO THE PAGAN— Page 79 tP /Qdler Planetarium — attention. Even within the boundaries of his city are still some farms and truck gardens. His contacts with growing things and Mother Nature are close at hand; as a pagan, he can commune readily with Pan. Chicago's summers are hot but interesting and what is interesting can not be too greatly unpleasant. If the day be sultry, a breeze from nature's air-conditioner to the east, Lake Michigan, serves a Tom Collins to the skin before the hot spell grows too long. Frieda K. Zimmerman writes in the Tribune Line-O'-Type-or-Two: "Poor, bewildered, Chicago April ! Born neither to ice skates nor roller, toboggan nor canoe. Is her symbol umbrella or pram, garden rake or storm window? She reaps a harvest of frustrated poets and folks who are glad she has only 30 days." With special permission, we reprint parts of an editorial Chicago's Superb Climate, in the Chicago Tribune of 29 December 1947. We don't get the terrible blizzards which afflict New York, Boston, and the plains states. We have hot days in summer but we know from experience that the heat won't last more than a few days, whereas the residents of New York and Philadelphia and every city to the south must resign themselves to weeks on end of muggy days and muggier nights. We are free of the tornadoes which afflict less favored regions to the south and west; the terrible cold of the northern states; the punishing aridity of the southwest that shrivels the skin and gives even the young women of Arizona, New Mexico and Nevada the appearance of wrinkled old age. Page 80— CHICAGO THE PAGAN We are spared the winter downpours (not to mention the earthquakes) of California and, indeed, the whole Pacific shore. We do not know, except briefly, the scourge of humid heat that saps the vitality of all who are so unfortunate as to live in the gulf states during the long and unrelenting summer. The climate of the middle west and of Chicago in particular is, in fact, so temperate, so moderate, that every little variation from the pleasant norm is exaggerated in our minds out of all relation to the extent of the injury done us. After two or three hot days which would pass unnoticed in Philadelphia in a summer composed of nothing hut such days, Chicagoans groan about a heat wave. A few days of cold drizzle and fog in December or January are condemned here abouts as a conspiracy of the heavenly host against us; that kind of weather is chronic in San Francisco and Seattle from November to June and is taken for granted, like the winter downpours in Los Angeles. Here we have enough seasonal variation to give zest to existence. We don't know what a real dust-bowl drouth feels like, as anyone can discover for himself who will read the crop statistics. Sometimes our farms yield more and some- times less but nobody can remember a year when Illinois and the neighboring states were so hot or so cold, so drenched or so dry, that we didn't grow enough food for our own needs and much more beside. It is fortunate that this is so because the whole nation, and latterly the whole world, have depended upon us for much of their food. Our climate is not the nation's best at all seasons but we have the best year-round climate. Mackinac and Maine have pleasanter summers but the winters in that whole northern region are vile. If Florida has a less exacting winter climate than ours, Floridans experi- ence devastating hurricanes in the autumn and their summer beats like a blunt instrument. We average out the best, better even than Denver for Denver lives in perpetual fear of drouth. CHAPTER 20 TWO GANGSTERS WEATHER-UP ON CHICAGO, THE CITY WITHOUT A SPRING Chicago is subject to the whims of two weather gangsters — one in Hudson Bay, who travels down the water-level of Lake Michigan to increase business for the tire chain shops and the wool sox trade. CHICAGO THE PAGAN— Page 81 IrC epllca ~ (Jld J~ort JU earb om Hudson Bay is only a finger of scorn of the Arctic Ocean pointed southward and thus in winter time, Chicago has a direct contact with the North Pole. It is this current which electrifies Chicagoans, gives them physical virility, aggressive personality. There is little danger of Chicagoans becoming decadent as the Los Angelans; the storms, snows and sleets create will power, strong language and a readiness to endure suffering, discomfort and gritting effort. The weather man for Chicago really has his main office near the Arctic Circle; his sub office is in Texas, and perhaps this latter is another cause of the nickname Windy City, really an echo of Texas conversation. This contact from the southwest is in force during the summer and early fall, as a Texas blaster scorches its way over the Oklahoma and Missouri spaces to ovenize Chicago for a few days. And there's always the happy change! Chicago's extremes last briefly, a few days — then relief comes — in summer, from Lake Michigan ; in winter, from down Texas way. Two factors mark Chicago's weather. The Hudson Bay-Texas combination, which makes forecasting not too difficult; and that we have only three seasons — summer, autumn and two phases of winter. The first phase of winter is the snowy phase; the second, the chilly rain season. Then suddenly summer blossoms forth or fires forth Page 82— CHICAGO THE PAGAN with deliteful warmth and mellows into an autumn weather, usual- ly up to Christmastime, which is as enjoyable as that which any portion of the globe enjoys. Come to Chicago in the autumn for sunshine, warmth, sleepy nites and a wist fulness in the atmosphere which suggests the return of the Pottawatomie Indians over their onetime swamp lair. The southwester from the Lone Star State and its mesquite burn- ing sands is Texas' gift to Chicago, but not too appreciated for it gave us the Chicago fire and should be called Mrs. O'Leary's wind. CHAPTER 21 CHICAGO IS A SWIMMING POOL Chicago is the world's largest swimming pool within reach of every inhabitant, however poor or rich — twenty-six miles of Lake Michigan's sandy, slow-descending beaches. No other city can claim similar extent of liquid asset — and Chicagoans capitalize the watered stock. In 1933 (and since then the figures have increased at least twenty per cent), at the public beaches, that is, the beaches directly managed by the city, 6,816,795 people went thru the turnstiles. How many of these went into the water we do not know. Also this figure does not include perhaps twice as many who did not go thru the public bathing beaches, but leaped into the water from whatever diving board was handy. The world's biggest swimming pool is the lake front of Chicago. On July 22, 1940, temperature 93 degrees at 4 p.m., Montrose beach had 115,000 customers, Oak Street 100,000, and Roosevelt Street 50,000. In 1912 the city council enacted ''All persons over twelve years of age must wear two-piece suits. Flesh-colored suits are not allowed. Any bather seen lounging in a vulgar position will be arrested." In 1914, as we were lying asleep on our back in the sun on the beach at Wilson Avenue, a policeman blistered the sole of our foot with a stroke of his billy and gruffly ordered us to turn over. He was enforcing the vulgar portion of the city ordinance. CHICAGO THE PAGAN— Page 83 l^'tncarln l-Jarlt lanOPnark — Chicagoans live in bathing suits during the summer. Those who dwell near the Lake plunge before breakfast; and after the day's slavery, they rush back eventides to spend a twilight of splashing, and then a bonfire of eerie shadows. There live not any happier group of mortals than the crowds that swarm the Chicago beaches of Lake Michigan in summer, even within shadow of the Loop, where amid flash of color in suits and color of flesh out of suits, the cheerful chatter suggests a barnyard of excited fowl and the heaps of legs present a scene like a vast platter of French- fried onions. Here humans shed their worries with their civies, they bathe in sun, air, water and freedom from pots and pans, desks and didies. Flesh takes a holiday; the lust that feeds on nakedness cloys. If you are disgruntled, irritable, or some- body else than yourself, go to a Chicago bathing beach, watch the thousands of human figures, listen to the babble, eat the mustarded hotdogs, study the scene silently; enjoyment seeps into your body, your mind, and in time, your soul or what should be your soul. Page 84— CHICAGO THE PAGAN Chicago's first swimming pool was established at Fullerton Ave. and ihe lake in L895. But sewage and refuse dumped into the lake did not encourage the swimming beach idea. The Calumet-Sag Canal was opened in 1922; it drained away much of the city's sewage; then Chicago folks began to want swimming holes on the lake shore. Now the Chicago Park District operates 12 beaches, the city two plus 24 street-end beaches. Old Lake Mish constantly wars against the beaches; but sand is trapped behind piling barriers and soon the waters have produced a sandy permanent beach. Chicago has 28 miles of lake front, nature's gift, which the poli- ticians have not yet been able to distribute to precinct workers. Six of the 28 miles are taken up by the Park's and City's beaches. Here are showers, toilets, dressing areas, play areas, first aid, lockers, picnic benches, hotdog stands, and plenty of space for the public to strew papers, litter, orange peels and other items. Chicago-by-the-Lake is most fortunate of cities. It sprawls its long body from tip of head to end of toe on the soft-lapping water edge of Lake Michigan for 26 miles — a bed of easy sand, high- lighted into a golden mattress by summer sunlight. Leave your office or your home or your shop when the day's work is done, turn your steps eastward and come to the largest swimming pool of all the cities. Read your book, paint your sketch, eat your sandwich, or just dream fancy free as you listen to the lap-lap of the blue waters and as you look out across the waters to a sky of color. The folks in Chicago bathe for cleanliness, for relaxation, for sport, for the zest of living. Chicago-by-the-Lake invites the lazy, and leisurely, the procrastinator, the loller, the dilly-dallier. Come to Chicago-by-the-Lake, walk along its beaches, sit on the rock stone wall, watch the gulls make music out of graceful gliding, count the clouds, fashion shapes out of their outlines. Come to Chicago-by- the-Lake to chase away nerves, to give your inner self opportunity to browse. Come to Chicago-by-the-Lake to work, to play, to be busy, to be idling — Chicago-by-the-Lake invites your body, your soul. Be you mechanic or professor, digger or executive, when you stretch out in bathing suit on the beaches of Chicago-by-the-Lake, you all are equal in the democracy of seashore pleasure. [85] Page 86— CHICAGO THE PAGAN CHAPTER 22 A LOAF OF BREAD La Salle Street, as one looks southward from the Chicago River, appears a canyon of straight, high walls, dark except when the late morning sunlight slits its long fingers thru the narrow space above the street. At the end of it, completely closing the street, for many years there stood a dingy structure — it was the old Board of Trade Building; today it is the new Board of Trade Building, Chicago's tallest man-made object, forty-four stories high. It is constructed of Bedford stone, mined out of the enduring bowels of the Hoosier state. On the very top perches the goddess of grain, Ceres, seeming a condor rather than a divinity. Claire Goodell in the Chicago Tribune Line O'Type or Two has written of her under the title Goddess of the Market — ■ She stands aloof upon her roof, her face set to the North, And round her head, by breezes led, gray smoke drifts back and forth. Beneath her feet men prate of wheat and wrangle over gold; She never hears their petty fears; she does not them behold. On distant skies she sets her eyes and when the stars are gone, She stands alone, her gleaming stone in homage to the dawn. The wheat pit or grain market carries on within this building. A blind man, stranger to it all, upon stepping into the trading hall, might have a strange curiosity — what is he hearing? A flock of geese announcing an intruder, men bartering for the remaining life boat as the ship sinks, or an army of monkeys on holiday in a banana grove? Samples of grain litter the floor; telegraph quarters force them- selves on one's attention; placarded platforms indicate the centers of trade for wheat, corn, oats, rye, barley and other products — but in reality, the men are trading for yachts, country homes, and sable coats for wives. Speech by word is difficult, but the eye and the hand talk speedily and clearly. The hand horizontal, fist clenched, indicates an even price per bushel such as one dollar. Each linger extended represents an added eighth of a cent. A motion toward the hotly signifies buy, a motion from the body signifies sell. CHICAGO THE PAGAN— Page 87 Wheat is selling at ninety-five cents a bushel. Brown catches the eye of Smith, with fifty thousand bushels for sale. Brown motions he will buy at ninety-five. Smith holds up his right hand with the first finger extended horizontally, indicating that he wants ninety-five and one-eighth. Brown motions acceptance by a nod of his head. Each notes the transaction on a card and the final transfer is made immediately after the close of the day's business. The principle of the wheat pit is the fundamental one of supply and demand. The trader sells when he thinks the supply is too large and buys when he thinks the supply is too small; in terms of human nature, he buys that he may sell at a higher price, or he sells to buy later at a lower price. The calendar and the world's climate are the trader's genii for good or ill. The weatherman is his deity. A dry wind in Argentina, a drought in India, a freeze along the Danube are major matters. If he is long in wheat, has bought much and still has it, a killing spring frost in the Dakotas is good news. He is gleeful when a tornado has laid low the wheat fields of Kansas and Nebraska. That later there will be ten million hungry mouths somewhere in the world furnish just now only a chuckle of delight to the long trader. And if there be food for all, and starvation is absent until the next season of sowing and reaping, the short trader is cheery over his cups — for there is plenty of wheat and he sold a lot of it months ago without having any wheat. Millions of bushels of wheat and other grains are sold in the pits but the only kernel wheat there is the samples from cars which have carried it to Chicago — these are fed to the lazy pigeons after the state inspector of grain looks at it. The men in the pit may sell these cars of wheat; they may sell some of the fifty million bushels, more or less, stored in Chicago elevators; they may sell wheat that will be harvested a year hence; they may sell wheat that never was, is, or will be at the top end of a yellow wheat stalk even more golden in the August sun. The labor of these men never raises a grain of wheat; it usually does raise the price. They gamble on the products of another mans sweat and the peasants in every country seldom give a (hot when they sit down to eat their meal o) hard bread and sour wine. It is June. One broker sells ten thousand bushels of December wheat. The wheat is not in existence. But on the last day of December he must furnish real wheat to the amount sold, not actually deliver Page 88— CHICAGO THE PAGAN it but sell title to it, stored in a warehouse. December wheat is wheat to be delivered in December and not wheat grown in December. If the harvest has been bountiful, likely the broker can deliver the wheat in December, buying it at a price lower than that at which he sold. If a drought, or a war in another country demands an excessive amount of wheat, imported there from America, he may need to pay more for the wheat than the price at which he sold it in June. Books have been written, sermons preached on these transactions, whether they be gambling or honest trade. We re- main silent but we observe that the Chicago traders usually ride in limousines while the Kansas farmers who buy the land, cultivate it, and harvest the wheat, usually ride in ancient runabouts. CHAPTES 23 MENTION OF SOME POINTS OF INTEREST NORTH SIDE ELKS MEMORIAL BUILDING, Lake View Avenue and Diversey Parkway. Beautiful even tho not European. See it inside and out. TOTEM POLE in Lincoln Park at Addison Street. This may be real or an imitation ; however, it is interesting. MONTGOMERY WARD AND COMPANY— Chicago Ave. and the River. Its catalog of goods for sale is as interesting as a novel of adventure. See separate chapter on Sears Roebuck. QUIGLEY SEMINARY, at Rush and Pearson Sts., as described by Captain John in Chicago Tribune Line-O-Type-or-two: "'View its beautiful chapel when the soft summer moon shines on its west front with its great rose window. It sours from the pavement to the. very tip of the fleche lulus, now removed ). It causes u feeling and stirring of the calm, sure, and steady faith that moved Louis IX. to build its prototype, the "Sainte Chapelle in Paris, some 700 years ago." CHICAGO THE PAGAN— -Page 89 6" WEST SIDE CHICAGO STADIUM, 1800 West Madison Street, where Roosevelt and Hoover were nominated on separate party tickets, each to save the nation from ruin. Roosevelt renominated here in 1940 for a third term. Seats 20,000. Polo games, six day bike races and hockey. In it we heard Tom Dewey, Wendell Wilkie, Harry Truman speak, Joe Lewis fight and our friend of many years, Lou Thez (1953, still world's champion) wrestled former heavyweight boxing champion Primo Camera of Italy. COOK COUNTY JAIL, Twenty-sixth Street and California Avenue. COOK COUNTY HOSPITAL, Harrison and Wood Streets, world's largest hospital. Free to public. Should be hundreds like it thruout the world. 312,453 persons were treated as patients in 1939, each an average of three times. In 1941 the Illinois legislature authorized new construction for what is hoped to be the world's largest hospital center — Roosevelt Road, Ashland Avenue, Oakley Blvd., and the new Congress Express- way. By 1961 all building should be completed — a total investment of around 400 million dollars (based on 1953 costs). GARFIELD PARK — Conservatory of growing things; but the air is too stuffy and the area too stuffed with uninteresting tropical plants. Why not native flora and fauna? HULL HOUSE. 800 South Halsted Street, still a piece of poetry in a neighborhood of poverty's prose and tragically as inconsequential as is poetry in improving low society. Has become a leftist incubator. INTERNATIONAL HARVESTER COMPANY— Twenty-sixth St. and South Western Ave. The McCormick reaper works and tractor plants are nearby. WESTERN ELECTRIC COMPANY— Twenty-second St. and South Cicero Ave. These works supply about ninety per cent of the telephone apparatus used in the United States. 40,000 employees in the elusive normal times. SOUTH SIDE STOCK YARDS, Halsted to Western, and 42nd Street to 49th Street. Its smell invigorates the liver and the sexual glands. MUSEUM OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY, Jackson Park. Costs millions. The most interesting museum in the world. Contains also a coal mine. Few Chicagoans visit it. Should be one of first five on every visitor's schedule. One newspaper in 1950 called it "the most beautiful building in the world." We do not violently disagree with this statement. PULLMAN CAR WORKS— 111th St. and Cottage Grove Ave., main entrance. Still not making berths any wider. Page 90— CHICAGO THE PAGAN CHAPTER 24 LITTLEST MAN HAS THE TALLEST MONUMENT DOUGLAS MONUMENT, foot of 35th Street overlooking the Lake, the highest monument in the world to the smallest statesman in the world. The column holds high in the air the little body in marble of Stephen A. Douglas, three times senator from Illinois, and political victor over Abraham Lincoln. He was president of the before- the-Civil War University of Chicago ; the present University of Chicago is the second. The monument is in the midst of a green city block inclosed in latticed iron fence — the most restful spot in Chicago. The small park is crowded with trees of beauty and of a half-dozen species. We walked by it on a June evening as a heavy scent of perfume stopped us — the buckeyes were in white bloom and the summer air was laden with sweet fragrance, not unlike that which as a lad on a mountain farm of Western Pennsylvania, we stopped often to enjoy as we passed a buckwheat field in bloom. Douglas broke into the news again in mid-November 1941. A state legislative committee had been appointed to inquire into whether his tomb should be moved to a more suitable location, because "the neighborhood in which the tomb is situated had declined to a point where it is no longer appropriate for a resting place for the Illinois statesman who participated in the famous Lincoln debates." But the oldtimers in the district, their fathers having lived there when it was. on the contrary, one of Chicago's most desirable locations, protested vehemently. Calling again on Columnist Charles Collins, who more than any other journalist, is preserving cameo-spots of Chicago's history by publicizing them, we learn from him that the first University of Chi- cago was located here, just west of Cottage Grove Avenue, on ten acres donated by The Little Giant in 1856 (the university gave up the ghost in 1886). The school was familiarly known as Douglas Univer- sity and a student guard of honor look part in his burial in 1861. the first year of the Civil War. On Sept. 6 1866, when the corner stone of the monument was laid, a galaxy of America's historical great assembled in this now "declined neighborhood," seldom enjoyed by any other event — the CHICAGO THE PAGAN— Page 91 President of the U.S., Andrew Johnson, cabinet members Seward and Welles, the Gettysburg commander General Meade and General, later President, Ulysses Grant, Admiral Farragut, and the orator of the day Gen. John A. Dix. We have loitered often in this district; we pass 39th and Cottage Grove daily on the way to our work. Who even in an idle moment, as he passes by, visualizes the activity once existing here? 17,000 Con- federate prisoners were housed in the 60-acre Camp Douglas just north of 39th Street (today occupied by the Ida Wells model homes for negroes). And Columnist Collins concludes: "Douglas' tomb belongs in its frame of associations; you may move granite blocks but you can't transplant history." CHAPTER 25 THE COLISEUM SAW HISTORY MADE The Coliseum intrigues us. We dread to think that fifty years hence, likely it will be nowhere. It leaped into fame immediately after it was erected in 1900. During the first ten years of its turrets and towers existence, it was the scene of the balls, dances, masquerade affairs, and general hilarity put on by Hinky Dink Kenna and Bath- house John Coughlin, the colorful scoundrels who were the aldermen of the First Ward in the days when each of the old 25 wards had two aldermen. The affairs became such successful gatherings of scarlet ladies, pickpockets, gamblers, pimps, thieves and underworld characters that the reformers succeeded in stopping the lewd, lascivious, and interest- ing affairs by court injunction. Merchandise displays, six-days bike racing, marathon dancing, horse shows, dog shows, wrestling bouts, and prize fights have filled its wide and high spaces at varied times. Although the Stadium on the west side and Soldier Field in near- by Grant Park have stolen much of the glory, it still has history per- fuming its I tarn y interior. It served as a war memorial during its early years. Indeed the Wabash Avenue focade was constructed, piece by piece, of stones from the Confederate Army's Libby Prison in Richmond, Virginia. Page 92— CHICAGO THE PAGAN Five successive Republican conventions were held within its walls. In 1908, fat and likeable William Howard Taft was nominated for the presidency; in 1912, when he again was nominated and later, his godfather, Roosevelt, was nominated on the Bull Moose ticket twice for two candidates in the same hall. In 1916, Charles Evans Hughes was nominated and elected for a time — until California sprung a surprise and kept Tommy Woody Wilson in the White House for another four years. Author's interlude — We had been promised a ticket to this 1916 convention thru Lt. Governor McKinley of Missouri (and our old friend, Sebastian McCollom, his nephew). But the pass was not available; tickets were golden ducats in those days. So we took the Republican elephant by the trunk, about two of an afternoon, and seeing an open door near the south end of the Coliseum, entered it stealthily, then moved cautiously thru winding passageways , up a short stairs. Instantly we had one of the surprises of our life. We were facing an audience of about 10,000, we were standing on the central speakers' rostrum ; we were among the elect. What to do? Nothing except to hold our ground. There was one vacant seat — in the third row, almost at the right edge of the platform. We took it, next to a portly gentleman, wearing a mustache. In front of us sat a rather small man, sandy-haired, wearing glasses. Behind the speakers' stand, stood a man of noble head, resonant voice, and pleasing manner. He was the chairman of the convention. To identify them — we had sat down next to the famous and infamous boss of the Republican party in Pa., Senator Boise Penrose. The little man ahead of us was Senator Henry Cabot Lodge (whose grandson is now a senator in Washington, and another, John, a governor in New England). The man acting as chairman, was a coming president of the United States — Warren Gamaliel Harding. We sat here for about an hour — bewildered, fascinated, unable to move, much as a bird is frozen as a snake approaches it. A vice president of the United States was being nominated — we got up and moved out and off the platform rather gingerly, as a conscience stricken criminal — just as former Vice President Fairbanks was nominated (and lost in the election later along with his senior running mate Mr. Hughes). But wonders had not yet ceased. We came in close contact with another distinguished American — this on our way out. The door to an anteroom was open; there on a hard, Hat table top lay, on his back, snoring loudly, seemingly tired out, a heavy-set bald man. He was a star reporter for the Hearst papers at this convention. We recognized him instantly. This was oldtime stuff to him. He had been thru presidential nominating conventions before. A vision of the White House and he as its occupant was nothing new to him. He bad tried for it thrice — as no other candidate had done. And in this same city, in addition to the three conventions at which he was nominated for the office of President of the United States, at the first of these CHICAGO THE PAGAN— Page 93 conventions, he delivered his famous oration The Cross of Gold. The sleeping, snoring, man was William Jennings Bryan. Finally, in 1920 (which convention the author also attended) when Frank Lowden lost the nomination because of headlines in a Big Bill Thompson fake newspaper, to Warren Gamaliel Harding. Senator Hiram Johnson of California, wrote American history, but on a black- board from which his scribblings were erased promptly by himself. Hughes' slight of Hiram on a campaign trip to California in 1915 caused Hiram to sulk; not enuf Republican votes were forthcoming from Johnson's camp to carry the state for Hughes; thus Johnson really put Tommy Woody Wilson back into office. In 1920, the Republicans went down on their knees to persuade Hiram to accept the nomination for vice-president; he sulked again; the convention even delayed proceedings for a time in order to have him reconsider. But bullheaded Bull-Mooser Hiram said no; Calvin Coolidge was nominated. Again Hiram put a man in the presidency — Coolidge; this time Hiram must have felt jackassy instead of bully for it could have been him as president of the United States following Harding's death. Therefore, when you pass The Coliseum at 1513 Wabash Avenue, on the near South Side, pause a bit mentally for its past and a moment by eyesight to enjoy the beauty of its medieval architecture. CHAPTER 26 A CITY IN A WOODS The pioneers fondly referred to Chicago as the city in a garden and so it was and is — ■ drawing wealth and rustics from the world's richest valley, bordered on the ea?t by the Alleghenies and the Appalachians, on the west by the Rockies. But today it also is a city in a forest, a city gone back to nature. The Forest Preserves stretch like a necklace of green from Hubbard Woods far to the north and around the western shoulder of the city to Chicago Heights far to the south. Cities have their parks of geometrical plats, studded with signs "Keep off the grass." Chicago has brot the forest to its borders in the Forest Preserve District of Cook County, which embraces the astounding area of 33,000 acres. The "city in the midst of a garden," Page 94— CHICAGO THE PAGAN as runs Chicago's seal motto, gives 11.92 acres per thousand popu- lation (total park, playground and recreation acreage, 52,000 acres). These are acres of wild land, without the barbering of the land- scapes - trees in natural beauty, wild flowers of unsullied bloom, paths that know no brick and gravel, endless meanderings of trails, game, birds and wild life roaming at will — all presented in a never- ending conglomeration of grass and trees. There are golf courses for the public, lakes for swimming, rivers for canoeing, bird houses, sometimes inhabited, inclosures for deer, and a thousand pineboard picnic tables with benches. Families spend the day in the woods and return with the glow of a week's vacation. There is leisure, air. sunshine, mile upon mile. No other governing body has presented to its people a similar natural university in citizenship, enjoyment of nature, and building of health. The Chicago Park Board is a government within a government. It has done well in keeping Chicago a pleasant place for living. No large city can be a top place for living; but Chicago has done well as cities go and most of them go crowded, dirty and dilapidated. The Chicago Park Board consists of five commissioners appointed by the Mayor of Chicago but he is not a boss over their activities. The park area includes 170 parks, 205 miles of boulevards, and 28 miles of Lake Michigan shoreline. It has its own separate police force, traffic control, engineering division, lighting maintenance, and tax collecting, the last known as the general park tax. Main office — Grant Park, along lake front — technically Burn- ham Park, at 14th Street— 425 E. 14th Boulevard. Burnham Park begins at Soldier Field where Grant Park ends and continues south along the Lake to Fifty-sixth Street. Mr. Burnham was chief architect of the Chicago Plan Commission, a commission which determines the plan for new streets, new areas, and widening of streets of Chicago for the next hundred years. The drive thru Burnham Park, parallel to the Lake and popularly known as the Outer Drive, is officially known as Leif Eriksen Drive. Any autoist traveling less than forty miles an hour along this drive, hears the tooting of the impatient autoist just behind — and back of him, a motorcycle cop about to arrest him for speeding. Playgrounds send up their noise of sports from a hundred blocks. Public bath houses are plentiful, especially on the West Side where the great unwashed dwell and remain unwashed. The city abounds with settlement houses, where mostly salaried social workers settle and a pitiable minority of the community, most CHICAGO THE PAGAN— Page 95 often the leisurely never-do-wells, gather for seeping in the attitude that society owes them a living and that the setup of government and community life is decidedly unfair and oppressive. Chicago lacks what every large cily save Paris lacks a provision which brings more relief, convenience, and temporary pleasure than bath houses, playgrounds, courthouses and universities. There have been dire moments when we would have traded our kingdom for a near location of one of these public benefits. Men, women and children alike yearn at times for them. We await a benefactor who will direct his riches to their erection rather than that of museums and memorial arches. Within the walls of these minor edifices, but minor only in their size, not their immediate importance, all citizens are equal, all seek the same ends, and all are similarly benefited, some silently, some audibly, but all appreciatively. Within these public structures, public in their patronage, and publicly private in their accommodations, citizens can give freely without compulsion or tax. Budgets are utterly foreign to their precincts for outgo always balances income, yet deficits are unknown and all emerge happier than when they entered. Twice cholera threatened to wipe out the young city of Chicago. In the second epidemic of 1852 Lincoln Park was a pesthouse — where cholera victims and suspects were quarantined. This same park stopped the fire of 1871. What becomes of the old cemeteries? In Europe, after a long time, the graves are dug up and re-rented, by stories — ground floor, middle floor, and top position in the same grave. In America, they are just forgotten and then ploughed over. The southern part of Lincoln Park was a vast cemetery from 1837 to 1871, in which year of the great fire all the graves were removed except two. The Couch vault remains to this day because it would have been costly to remove it, and so a private family vault is located in a public park. Another grave in Lincoln Park is to be noted — that of a man who lived about twice as long as the average old person of today. A huge red boulder marks it and on the boulder is a bronze tablet bearing this legend: "David Tennison, the last survivor of the Boston Tea Party, who died in Chicago, February twenty-fourth, 1852, age one hundred fifteen years, three months, seventeen days, and is buried near this spot." Would that he could rise up from beneath the stone boulder! An automobile whizzing by would scare him so utterly that he would leap back into his grave, frightened to a second death. Page 96— CHICAGO THE PAGAN CHAPTER 27 FOGGY CHICAGO IS INTRIGUING Chicago has fogs. They may not be the London pea soup variety, tjio at times there is a tinge which suggests bluish-green. San Fran- cisco, of all the large cities most suggestive of Chicago and even more pagan, also imitates its fogs. The fogs come mostly in the late fall and the late winter. The breeze is too slow to blow earth-trailing clouds away when the moisture bulges out of the Lake toward the land and creeps upon the city on cat's paws. It may come of a day or of a night, and if on the former, lights are burned everywhere; the turning of the earth on its axis or the sequence of day after night seems to be cast aside. Skyscrapers show myriads of lights part way up their sides like glimmering spots of gold; and if the fog be low, their towering tops stand out in the clear outline of the day like a dead man standing much alive on one leg on top of his tomb. The fog rolls upon itself and moves slowly to another section of the city, mostly floating northward. If it be a heavy black cat of a fog at night, street lights cannot be seen more than a block distant; the lighted billboard can be read only when one stands directly in front of it. Automobiles move slowly out of nowhere into nowhere. The pedestrians slip into cheerful mood as tho wrapping themselves like good natured ghosts within the reverse halo of the fog. Sounds seem slightly muffled. One casts a side glance at the doorway lest an evil- intending spirit step out of it. But within a few minutes the fog has lifted and the pseudo adventure is ended. The vagaries of the fog simulate the restlessness of the spirit of Chicago, in which there seems not to be any weariness of living. The pedestrians walk fast, winds blow strong, the sun shines bright, and now and then, on a balmy day, the stockyards spray an aroma over the city, out of the South Side, which exhilirates the inside passages of the nose and suggests fecundity. CHICAGO THE PAGAN— Page 97 CHAPTER 21! A POSSIBLE INTERVIEW WITH DAVID KENNISON OVER A CUP OF TEA Spring, first week in May — Chicago has a long topcoat season, from March thru May, during which you are deceived into leaving your overcoat at home — we walked north on Astor Street from Schiller (1400 north) to North Avenue. This street is lined with distinctive-appearing houses, still lived in by their owner, men and women of fame and dis- tinction, of success and fashion. Our quest was for the grave of the last survivor of the Boston Tea Party (Boston 1774, when 72 persons dressed as Indians stole on board a ship at nite in Boston harbor and threw some tea overboard). We walked, on airy grass cushion — the first grass of spring is half rubber, past the Gaudens' Lincoln Monument, past the Couch Vault (Lincoln Park south once was all cemetery), and finally, almost hidden by the bushes, we caught sight of the small triangular bit of ground weighted by an immense natural rock. It's just north of Wells Street and within twenty feet of the sidewalk on Clark Street. Here's the inscription in effect : Near this spot is buried David Kennison, last survivor of the Boston Tea Party. Died 24 Feb. 1852, age 115 years, 3 mos. Saw service in the War of 1812. He was born in 1737, soon after Washington's birth. Why he came to Chicago, how he came to live to the age of 115, what were his com- ments and thots in later life — we do not know. Here was a man who could have spent his childhood with Wash- ington; and his last year with Abraham Lincoln. He was 52 years old when the present U.S. was formed as a government, and lived 63 years under that government. We would like to have interviewed Kennison shortly after the Mexican War, about 1850, if he still was in possession of his mental faculties. Yet figures in history often are disappointments in the flesh; it is the propaganda of the historian's pen which adds the color to the sunset of the lives of most of the famous. Page 98— CHICAGO THE PAGAN CHAPTER 20 CHICAGO AND TULIPS IN MAY The month of May in Chicago is the period of A to Z in weather moods. We recall that year 1940 crowded a one-inch snow fall, the hottest day in May since 1883, and myriads of patches of blooming tulips into the mad May — all to the zestful living of Chicagoans. May is tulip time in Chicago, so designated officially from May 13 to June 1. The whites gather among themselves, the reds, the pinks, the yellows, the blues — each unto their own color. If they were counted correctly, the park district planted one and a half million bulbs this year of my writing. Tulips, tulips, tulips everywhere — along the roadway, in the parks, in every available corner. Tulips — tall, stiff, solemn, without fragrance, but beautiful as an aloof princess of the human counterpart. They are for the eye, for the painter; they are not for sentiment, not for romance and poetry. The conservatories of the parks (I never have liked the dry, stuffy name conservatory) hold flower displays in this month — go to Lincoln Park and Garfield Park particularly. But to see under the open sky, thousands of Illinois' state flower, the violet, walk thru Humboldt Park. Hut Chicago's flowery month of May is official rather than domes- tic. We miss the carefully cultivated flower lawns and gardens of home folks — such as one sees in the towns of Ohio and southern Pennsyl- vania. But clumsy Chicago does have a heart for the sexual aid of the plants and vegetable kingdom — the gay colors which serve as beds for the seed and attraction for the pollen-carrying bees and insects. It is a rugged heart — and the stiff, beautiful tulip is appropriate bloom. On a breezy May afternoon — May 19, 1950, Chicago held its annual Blossomtime Festival. This took place in the magnificently relaxing, eye-refreshing, famed Grant Park, just east of Michigan Boulevard (the publisher's office is on this world-renowned thorofare), which has the waters of blue or green Lake Michigan (depending upon the direction of the wind) as its eastern border. CHICAGO THE PAGAN— Page 99 No other stretch of land — a mile wide, three miles long, has as much scenic beauty of land and water nestling in the same bed of landscaping and architectural beauty. The Chicago Fair was held at its southern end (in 1948-49, the Railroad Fair was held here). The new Meigs Airport is on a narrow strip of island just off the edge of the park. The Chicago Park Board has done a good job of operating the vast park system of this second largest city in the Americas. Playgrounds, recreation centers, and other facilities are many, vast and well-planned. The Blossom Festival took place on the Congress Street Plaza. A Blossom Queen was chosen of course. On this occasion Buckingham Fountain made its debut for the year, casting its lacy sprays from a half-dozen levels. (Each nite, just a half hour before the fountain is snuffed out, many colored lights play on the spray and change the watery scene into a color dream.) Pink hawthorne and pink turning white crab-apple blossoms and blue lavender lilacs of French and Persian varieties, are the chief color spendthrifts at this blossom time festival. We like the whole idea — every community should have a half dozen annual festival events which are based upon beauty, appreciation, progress, community values and growth. CHAPTER 29 "CHICAGO — ALL OUT!" Geography is kind to Chicago; no railroad train passes thru it — all trains change in it. The accident of location is a happy one for Chicago. On the map of the Midwest one notes that Lake Michigan extends southward after the shape of a pear. Chicago is not at the south end, but a little to the west. All roads lead to Chicago. Had Chicago all its present advantages plus a location on the Atlantic seaboard, then it could become the world's greatest city. Without wishing to grit our teeth on the seeds Page 100— CHICAGO THE PAGAN of sour grapes we think that New York must credit its accidental location on an eastern seaboard for much of its growth and importance. In Chicago there are six main passenger stations. They are as follows, with location and the names of railroads which use them as their terminals in Chicago. 1. CENTRAL STATION (do not confuse with Grand Central), Park Row and Roosevelt Road — Chesapeake & Ohio; Cleveland, Cin- cinnati, Chicago & St. Louis (Big Four); Illinois Central; Michigan Central. 2. CHICAGO & NORTH WESTERN, West Madison and Canal Streets. Only depot occupied by a single railroad. 3. GRAND CENTRAL STATION (neither grand nor central), South Wells and Harrison Streets — Baltimore & Ohio; Chicago Great Western; Chicago Terminal Transfer; Minneapolis, St. Paul & Sault Ste. Marie (Soo Line; and former Wisconsin Central) ; Pere Marquette. A Deadline Insert — ■ In September 1953, we came back to Chicago from Pittsburgh via the B&O. Evidently the railroad barons already entrenched in Chicago back in the 1880's made it difficult for the B&O to get into the heart of the city. The line zigzags, winds, turns from South Chicago, along 89th Street, west and in and about and finally comes into Harrison Street from 18th Street. There is still farm land in Chicago. There is virgin soil to be plowed and cultivated in downtown Chicago. We saw a cornfield near 19th Street, within shadow of the Loop. All along the B&O right-of-way, one can see from the car window, acres and acres of vacant land, tillable land — miles of sunflowers (facing east as we came in on a sunny morning); high grass; stunted poplar trees. Indeed, the B&O could have ten miles of gardens, shrubbery, vegetables, and farm land within Chicago. If we were president of the line ( R. B. Wbite, please note), we'd make the B&O the most scenic railroad within a city. AH of which reminds us that Chicago, the prairie city, still has much prairie in it. Down Southwest way, one can come upon blocks of open land, as tho one were far away in a secluded part of the state. But folks are moving out and to the suburbs. City planning has been second-rate. CHICAGO THE PAGAN— Page 101 4. DEARBORN STATION (a grade lower than Grand Central), Dearborn and Polk Streets — Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe; Chicago & Eastern Illinois; Chicago & Western Indiana; Chicago, Indianapolis & Louisville (Monon) ; Erie; Grand Trunk (owned by the Dominion of Canada) ; Wabash. 5. LA SALLE STREET STATION, Van Buren and LaSalle Streets — Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific; Chicago & Indiana Southern; Lackawanna ; New York Central ; New York, Chicago & St. Louis (Nickel Plate). See etching page 67. 6. UNION STATION, Canal Street, between Jackson and Adams — Chicago & Alton; Pennsylvania Lines; Chicago, Burlington & Quincy (The Q or the Burlington) ; Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific (the St. Paul or the Milwaukee). 392,500 passengers arrive or depart or do both, using 1,980 passenger trains daily. Now the same passengers don't arrive each day, but that is the total number of passengers who arrive in Chicago on one day, based upon averages of sometime ago. Of this number 46,000 are passing thru. Frankly we believe these figures are greatly pish. Here are Dec, 1951 figures. A passenger or frate train arrives every 90 seconds over the 7,726 miles of track in the metropolitan area. There are a total of 22 major rail lines, 6 industrial roads, 9 switching and terminal lines. Chicago has central standard time — one hour later than the East (or earlier, just as you wish) except that on the last Sunday in April clock hands snap forward an hour to sun time, let us call it God's time, and forsake the time which old Julius Caesar several thousand years ago established in a moment of hilarity over the goblet of crushed grapes (and on September's last Sunday the hands snap back to Julius Caesar). Page 102— CHICAGO THE PAGAN CHAPTER 31 SCRAPING THE SKY The Indians stayed out of Chicago because it was a swamp. About the time of the Civil War an enterprising contractor raised the entire Loop district in the air and above the water line. Lake Michigan once ebbed and flowed (the Lake has its tides, altho they are small) over downtown Chicago. Therefore, geologically the foundation ground under most of Chicago is sand which the Lake deposited there thousands of years ago. Chicago is constantly pushing Lake Michigan back upon itself; valuable land along the shoreline is reclaimed from the waters. The sandy subsoil may account for the passage of the zoning ordinance that no building can exceed 264 feet in height except that the towers, if set back, can challenge the sky. Architecturally, Chicago perhaps leads the world. The student of architecture can come to Chicago and be delighted in eye and soul. To the top of the flagpole of the Tribune Tower, 431 N. Michigan Blvd.. is a height of 5871A feet. Of this building's 43 stories, seven are below the street level. The Tribune Tower is a poem of Gothic architecture, whose lacelike lines, yet strong as giants' arms, are limned against the sky like lashes of a lady's eye. See wood block page 47. La Salle Street One is the name of the building at Madison and LaSalle, which measures 530 feet to the top of the tower. Our first office in Chicago — we were then selling piling, fence posts and cordwood — was in the Tacoma Building, which occupied this location until recently and was the second skyscraper ever to be erected. The University of Chicago, after the Catholic Church, Chi- cago's largest landowner, owned it. The first skyscraper in the world was the Home Insurance Building in Chicago, torn down a few years ago (1932), at La Salle and Adams Street, to make way for the Field Estate Building, 535 feet to the top of the tower. Allerton Hotel, 701 N. Michigan Blvd., began as a bachelors' hotel but now is coeducational. Its outlines suggest an ancient fortress. The tallest building in Chicago is the Board of Trade Building, West Jackson Blvd. between La Salle and Sherman Streets — 44 stories, CHICAGO THE PAGAN— Page 103 612 feet, cost $12,000,000. It sits astride LaSalle Street and closes the financial canyon on the south end. See chapter 40. After Wall Street, this short section of Chicago is the financial center of America. Here those who toil not, control the money of those who earn by work. The Carbide and Carbon Building at N. Michigan Ave. and East South Water Street, (not West North Water Street) has 37 stories and 500 feet of height. Its stone work of black marble is soothing to the eye like black lace on a white-skinned woman. Gold trim is 14 karat. In order of height — 1. Board of Trade, 612 feet. 2. Chicago Temple, 569.3. Pittsfield Building, 557 (our dentist's office on the 33rd floor affords a breath-taking view of Grant Park, the yacht harbors and the lake — this is reflected in his charges; we do not complain. 4. 20 No. Wacker Drive Building, 555. 5. One North LaSalle, 530. 6. Morrison Hotel, 526. 7. Pure Oil Building. 523. 8. Lincoln Tower, 509. 9. Carbide and Carbon, 500. A contender for the nearest manmade spot to heaven is the top of the steeple of the Chicago Temple, erected by the Methodist Church, Clark and Washington Streets, 569 feet high. At night this tower is illuminated with a golden light that fills the eye and fires the imagination. One fancies it the golden trumpet of an angel who has just landed on top of the building in the midst of the night to call to judgment the gay sinners along the rialto of Randolph Street theaters. If we consider the number of dollars, the fortunes represented, apart from the valuable land, we must mention the Continental Illinois Bank and Trust Company at La Salle, Quincy and Clark Streets, $18,000,000; the Conrad Hilton Hotel on Michigan Ave. at Seventh Street, $30,000,000 (which must earn $5,200.00 each and every day just to pay the interest on the investment) ; the Wacker Drive-20 North Building at 20 N. Wacker Drive, better known as the Grand Opera Building, $20,000,000; the Merchandise Mart at Kinsey and Wells Streets, $30,000,000. more floor space under its roof than in any other privately owned building in the world. Continental Illinois is largest bank in America wholly under one roof. The Peoples Gas Building at Michigan Avenue and Adams Street, when we first came to Chicago, would attract our attention as we stood in front of it and tried to ascertain by eye and hand whether the Page 104— CHICAGO THE PAGAN smooth shining pillars consisted of one or several pieces of marble. We still wonder. The Capitol Building at State and Randolph Streets, 354 feet high to the observation platform, known in olden days as the Masonic Temple, was for years the highest building in Chicago, razed in 1939 on account of construction of the subway and its ground space occu- pied by a two-story tax-saving building. It was sold many times by city slickers to country rubes. Now they usually sell the Logan Monu- ment in Grant Park. In retaliation farmers purchase eggs in the Chicago market, take them back home and sell them to city slickers as freshly-laid. As one comes from the west towards the Loop at sunset, a million golden win- dows strike his sight when the setting sun lights up the west canyon walls of the Grand Opera Building and the Daily News Build- ing. It is as tho he were traveling toward a distant mountain of pure gold. Some such glorious vision Christian of Pilgrim's Prog- ress must have had when he came in sight of the Heavenly City. The Chicago Daily News Building at 400 W. Madison Street is a piece of rare architecture, and the first building built on air, or air rights. The owners did not purchase nor lease the ground; they leased the air space above the railroad tracks. There are foundations of the building in the ground, but legally the building is erected on air rights and the lease is for the right to occupy the space which the building now occupies over the tracks. At Diversey Parkway, where Lincoln Park proper ends, a sonnet in stone greets the eye — the national headquarters of the fraternal organization. The Elks. The impressive domed circular memorial hall in the center and the two wings with their columns suggest Gothic architecture that would have pleased the eyes of the ancient Greeks (if they really had an eye for beauty), but, of course, they never saw Gothic architecture. See Chaper 33, Page 108. SKYSCRAPERS ARE OUT OF DATE For a half century the tall, man-made structures known as sky- scrapers have been the symbol of progress and economic success. Today CHICAGO THE PAGAN— Page 10.5 it seems to us that a new skyscraper in a crowded city is a serious mistake. Of course, the atomic age has brot with it greater danger in con- centrated areas. Folks should live farther apart, factories should be farther apart, warehouses should be farther apart — so that the striking point of an atomic bomb has its effective area lessened. What appears to us at the moment as the strongest argument against skyscrapers is that crowded cities are becoming a bane, a breeder of evils. The automobile, of course, has changed our entire plan of living. Chicago for instance has a wise rule that when a new apartment build- ing is erected, there must be provided within the building itself, park- ing space for the cars of at least a third of the tenants. Today to live near a large apartment building is to have the street jam-packed with cars, to have delivery trucks parked long hours in the areaway, in general to put you in the midst of confusion and crowded conditions. Also, we think that every large city should have a half dozen main centers rather than just one central area where rents are high, traffic is terrific and store owners get the greatest benefit. We think large cities are somewhat of a nuisance. We prefer many smaller communities scattered over a large area. Now it is a day's task to do shopping within a crowded city. Department stores should build their new branches far out in the country. Let us have our shopping areas, our theaters and other gathering points scattered around thruout the country. People like to live in cities but most of our ills of government and of society originate in the city. We want fewer cities, more smaller towns, fewer apartmeent build- ings and more cottages. Page 106— CHICAGO THE PAGAN CHAPTER 32 THE MOST SUMPTUOUS SHRINE IN AMERICA \\ e plead fervently for more attention to one of Chicago's worth- while and often-passed-by edifices. It is the Elks Memorial of the Great War (World War I). This round-domed structure looks east- ward toward its new nabor Alexander Hamilton, he of the shining gold overcoat at nite. The roof of the Memorial looks across Lincoln Park to the waters of Lake Michigan. Please visit the Memorial in order to help atone for Chicago's neglect of this magnificent structure at 2800 north (Diversey), on the edge of Lincoln Park. No captured machine guns and helmets; no praising inscriptions; no statues of generals on horseback, clutter the interior or intrude upon your sensitive appreciation of the allegorical decorations. Alas that the spirit which the designer sought to diffuse has not come to pass — that of a victory of ideas and ideals, all in the aid of a world at peace and dwelling in the shadow of God! A new and better world rather than war and the strutting commanders, is the motif. The silencing of cannon rather than their roar is the overtone of sentiment. Go to this Elks Memorial and increase greatly the number of 100 visitors daily. Slip into the mood of the shrine by reading the inscrip- tion over the portal, lettered in unusual design — 'The triumphs of peace endure. The triumphs of war perish.' Thousands upon thousands pass by the busy intersection at the near corner but few give a glance at the domed building, with its guarding rectangles on either side. The rushing-by crowds do not take the time to look within, to see the murals, bronze ornaments, the sculp- ture, stained glass windows, the richness of marble work. In the rear of the rotunda is a reception room which can grace the inauguration of a mayor of Chicago or governor of Illinois or the President of the United States. How to describe the interior in an adjective — perhaps sumptuous, perhaps imaginative, perhaps spiritual, perhaps allegorical. A heap of high praise to the Fraternal Order of Elks who erected this memorial shrine as a new kind of war monument. We have visited numerous war shrines; the nearest approach in sheer beauty to the eye CHICAGO THE PAGAN— Page 107 and mind is the memorial in Balmoral Castle high on the hilltop at Edinburg, Scotland, it too a remembrance of the Great War. (We may be prejudiced for we served on foreign battlefields of this war, and were furiously propagandized that it was a war to end all wars and a final war to make the world safe for democracy. This typical disillu- sionment, this traditional betrayal by war patriots only makes more sensitive our feeling of appreciation of the Elks Memorial). We give here a statement by the architect of Chicago's and Amer- ica's most truly beautiful temple shrine, a new kind of American memorial and national architecture. He was Egerton Swartout (chosen for the task as winner in a national competition). He stated: "I might say it was classic, and more Roman than Greek; I would prefer to say it was modern, and that it was American. It is certainly modern in conception, and while it is classic, it is not archaeological. It follows along the line of that adaptation of the classic which got such a noble start in this country just after the Revolution, the style used in the capitol and other buildings in Washington. It is our national heritage." Page 108— CHICAGO THE PAGAN CHAPTER 33 TOWNS IN A CITY There is no rising sun side in Chicago; Lake Michigan with its miles of beach comprises the east end of town. If ever you are lost in Chicago, wait until the sun rises, then walk in the direction of the sun, to come eventually to Lake Michigan. The Chicago general sections are the Loop or downtown business district, North Side, West Side and South Side. There is the Near North Side, the Near West Side, and the Near South Side. Chicago has within its borders a lake, pear-shaped Lake Calumet, at the extreme end of the city and ice boats race on it in winter. The railroad district — dirty, grimy, noisy and ugly, is on the South Side from Polk Street to Roosevelt Road. It is an eyesore, a nosesore, and an earsore. But the railroads, true to tradition, fight most efforts to improve conditions. The Near West Side, or the River Wards, are termed the BAD LANDS OF CHICAGO. Along Madison Street stretch and sprawl the flop, low-priced rooming houses. On Ashland Avenue from Twelfth north to Madison, and culmi- nating at Ogden and Washington is LABOR ROW, where labor organizations have impressive buildings of their own. Just north of this is Union Park, where the Haymarket Riot monument is located, but where the riot did not take place. The policemen were killed a little further east at what was then a market where farmers sold hay. Union Park on a summer day is a picture of horizontal ease. Most everybody is stretched out on the grass, shoes off, coat as pillow, enjoying the air, light and sky. many of them happy in their unhappiness. The MEDICAL SCHOOL DISTRICT centers around the Cook County Hospital, the world's largest sick city, about 25,000 sick or dying devils, at Wood and Polk Streets. But in the midst of the groans and poverty, the best skill of the profession is never wanting. The morgue is there also. Instead of bodies laid on the floor, like logs awaiting the saw, a refrigerator drawer system is used. Check the card catalog for a corpse number, then pull out the drawer. We remember seeing on the wood floor of the old morgue, row upon row CHICAGO THE PAGAN— Page 109 of Eastland boat victims, blue as a choked sky in their drowned bodies — the end of a holiday morning only a few hours previous. To the south is LITTLE ITALY, centering about Taylor and Racine Streets. The CHEEK DISTRICT is east of this, around Halsted and Harrison Streets. The many coffee shops are intriguing. The JEWISH DISTRICT in the Ghetto begins at 14th and Halsted, and is bordered by the Atlantic on the east, the Pacific on the west. Roosevelt and Halsted, a shopping center and gathering place for the Jewish population, and just two blocks away from the Ghetto (Maxwell and Halsted to the south). Western and Madison is the heart of the West Side, where much of the UNDERWORLD LIFE OF CHICAGO had its plannings and supervision, tho as one passes along, he observes nothing that suggests gangs and rackets, roulette wheels and red lights, graft and syphilis. The Near North Side, just north of the river and beginning at Grand Avenue, running from Ashland Avenue on the west to the Lake, and up to North Avenue or Lincoln Park, is a neighborhood of diverse interests. TOWERTOWN is centered around Chicago Avenue and Michigan Blvd. The GOLD COAST begins at about Oak Street and runs to North Avenue. Most of the gold has moved further north, chiefly in the North Shore district north of the city limits. BOHEMIA is in and about Towertown, wherever attics and base- ments are available at low rentals, principally on Ontario, Erie, Huron and Superior Streets off Michigan Blvd. LITTLE SICILY is around Oak Street and Cambridge Avenue. Another of the half-dozen colored districts is near here also, around Halsted and Elm Streets. Just west of Halsted and encircled by the Chicago River, north branch, is GOOSE ISLAND, a mass of buildings, trash, streets and factories. The POLISH SECTION centers around Noble Street and Mil- waukee, but spreads far and wide. Chicago Avenue and Ashland, a busy shopping center, with Poles predominant; they are the most numerous foreign-born race in Chicago. Page 110— CHICAGO THE PAGAN CHAPTER 34 THE SOUTH SIDE — ALAS, ALAS! South of Roosevelt Road (Twelfth Street) one travels thru Motor Row, past the First Regiment Armory (131st Infantry) of dark fortress lines, past the historic Second Presbyterian Church, with its ornate but spiritual decorations, past Twenty-second Street where once the scarlet woman was the ornament of the old red lights, then thru what during the first World's Fair, was the street of aristocrats and fashionables, still today holding a bit of its grandeur, past Thirty-third Street and the publisher's office, on to Fifty-fifth Street or Garfield Boulevard, the dull end of the world's greatest street — "OP Mish Boul." CHINATOWN centers about Archer and 22nd Streets. It has a hard time living up to its reputation. Arrangement must be made in advance by guides so that the proper atmosphere of hop dens is in readiness for the curious visitors. The district about 22nd and State Streets once was a neighborhood of color, the RED LIGHT UNDERWORLD DISTRICT. The policy of permitting many houses of ill fame to operate openly was changed so that these houses are scattered here and there and operate on beats which blind policemen walk. The City Council says that vice (there are a hundred kinds of vice but vice in the news always refers to sexual joy) is the result of bad housing conditions. We had thot it was the result of the anatomical difference between male and female. The OLD GOLD COAST was located along Twentieth Street and Prairie Avenue and then continued on along Michigan Blvd. down to about Thirty-fifth Street (where we now toil and dream and hope). The BLACK BELT begins about Twenty-fourth Street and runs from Federal Street east almost to the Lake and continues south to Sixty-third Street. At Thirty-fifth Street just west of Wentworth is the White Sox Park where, in 1919, we saw the Black Sox work their dishonor — the most astounding and successful prostitution of sporting honor in the annals of the world's history. Forty-seventh and Ashland, "back of the yards," is a region rich in neighborhood tradition; it centers around Forty-seventh Street CHICAGO THE PAGAN— Page 111 &■ between Western and Ashland Avenues. A half century ago it was the capital of Irish America. Today many Irish politicians boast of their nativity amid the steers and sheep. In the "BACK OF THE YARDS 7 ' DISTRICT in other days and even today, ones prestige depended upon his fists. Might was right and Mike was right. Poles, Lithuanians, and Bohemians predominate now where once "Pat and Might" held sway. Gangs of petty and not so petty hoodlums rove this section today and not all the killing is done in the neighboring stockyards. 35th Street and Halsted — here the Irish fight the Lithuanians for control of street corners. 63rd AND COTTAGE GROVE, a busy center of theaters, dance halls, attractive shops, good eating places, and tame night life. 33rd AND MICHIGAN— in the heart of the onetime most fash- ionable district of Chicago (and our publisher's office is near the cor- ner). Most of the city's leading families of today did their washing and cooking here fifty years ago at the time of the first World's Fair. The scores of large and shaggy residences suggest some of its former glory. The towers and friezes, leaded glass in rounded windows, the clear, knotless hardwood finish, the large rooms and high ceilings tell of days when wealth was indexed by one's residence. There are marbled floors where roomers now throw their socks, mirrored walls from the floor up, where now the landladies dunk their bread, and sweeping staircases where now the stained windows are plugged with old shirts. That rattling sound should be the indignant tread of the ghost of a former owner, but is only the wind shaking the tin on the gable. Ward Monte writes (1941) in Charles Collins' Line 0' Type or Two in the Chicago Tribune: ''The houses in these tarnished gold coasts should he able to tell many tales of the enthusiasm that went into their original plans; the parties that later marked their opening; the personages who stepped across their sills; the many successes and sorrows they witnessed and, finally, the day when they started over the hill, aged, out of style, and a burden to their owners." The alleys in this district are lined with two-story brick buildings which in their young days housed the horses, carriages and grooms. Summertime and its flies must have liked these gold-heaped alleys. Today these structures are homes, garages, and small factories visibly deteriorated from rich men's stables to poor men's habitats. Page 112— CHICAGO THE PAGAN CHAPTER 35 THE NEGRO IN CHICAGO 47th and South Parkway, the 42nd and Broadway of the colored district. Here negroes are in their heyday. They chatter, laugh loudly- look at all that is happening, and strut in gay clothes. They love life. They keep enuf of Africa's superstitions to serve as a bulwark against Chicago's woes of living. Down the street a negress laughs in repeated high musical tones like a mocking bird and is to be envied for her raw lustiness. There's a black cat in the snow yard and it won't go 'way. The black cat is here to stay. "Step aside, nigger, and let a white man pass," isn't heard in Chicago, and the southern gentleman, visiting here, shuts his mouth in bewildered indignation, for the negro of Chicago is no longer a black panther lying in wait, but a strutting dog demanding his bone publicly, and barking vigorously if it isn't given him. (In 1940 28% of the adult negroes in Chicago were on relief rolls; of the whites 31/9%). Back in 1919, a negro boy was chased out of the water and off the beach — there followed a race riot, the national guard came, and after a time the streets of the southside were opened again to normal traffic. Today many negro boys swim in the lake — and there are negro policemen on the beach; and "If you don't like it, white man, go to some other beach or . . ." The black man doesn't want to be called that or negro, but colored man; and the youngbloods straighten their hair with pomade, learn Spanish, and pose as Cubans. A new day has come — and the negro problem best can be solved by not trying to solve it. They have political solidarity and make the most of it. The leadership by parsons is on the way out — it brot the negro nothing except a philosophy of bearing one's ills without complaint, and that is just the thing the colored man doesn't want any longer. The southside of Chicago is teeming with high school and college graduates who are not satisfied with being bootblacks. A newspaper or a magazine springs up almost weekly — and dies weakly. But this is indicative of the overwhelming urge to express the negro viewpoint and to demand equality that is more than law book and political. CHICAGO THE PAGAN— Page 113 And here is the nugget of the situation — the negro has votes, aldermen, legislators and a congressman (a Democrat at that, and an able one, from the publisher's own district) ; he has newspapers and magazines; he has bands and orchestras, jigg steppers and blues singers; but he is building his house without a foundation. Of the 600,000 negroes in Chicago, of all their many places of business, there is hardly one factory, machine shop, manufacturing plant, or creating industry. There are innumerable barber shops, cleaning shops, lunch rooms, taverns, coal hauling garages, and policy gambling places — but these do not make the negro richer. He must produce wealth under his own ownership and management; he must get money, own property, be economically self-sufficient, and fight the whites with their chief weapon — wealth. A friend (and he is a practical student of genetics) said as we turned the corner at 35th and South Parkway — "A hundred years from now there won't be a negro race." He meant to say that the negro would be absorbed by the whites. The student of racial features has a large class for study. He observes colored persons in age from childhood to middle age, whose quick step, erect posture, chiseled features and non-kink hair tell indirectly of the caste thrown up between the white and other races but not between the black and these other races. Not a few negroes are to be seen of wide hips, squat stature, Roman nose, and prominent cheekbones. These also have not the shuffling gait. They proclaim romance between Indian and negro, or Mexican and negro. But there is not to be overlooked the famous speech made in the halls of Congress by a former negro congressman from Chicago: "When the Jim Crow laws were passed, the southerners forgot to extend it to the bedrooms of the negro women." But the Garden City, the Windy City, the Skunk Cabbage City, the Wild Onion City, that is, Chicago, is behind some other American cities in increase of Negro population. N. Y. City has 775,529, and thus is the largest Negro city in the world. Based upon 1940 and 1950 census figures, Chicago's colored population increased 80.5% in ten years; N. Y. City's Bronx, 208.4%; San Francisco, 155.9%; Tacoma, 146.4%; Los Angeles, 116.2%; Buf- falo, 106.2% Seattle 91.3%. Even New Orleans showed an increase of 22%, Atlanta 16.1%; but three cities showed a decrease — Asheville, Charleston, S. C. and Huntington, W 7 . Va. A sub note — Chicago's figures (as those of the other cities) are for colored population, but 97% of the figures represent Negroes. Page 114— CHICAGO THE PAGAN For instance, in Chicago, of the 509,512 colored persons in 1950 — 192,331 were Negroes, and 17,181 were Indians, Japanese, Chinese and other non-whites. There are approximately 2,000 Chinese in Chi- cago. The Negro population <>(' Chicago has pushed up in skyscraper- high steps decade hy decade, thusly: 1910—41,030. 1920 — 109,458 — a 150% increase, activated by the need of work- ers, especially in packing plants, during World War I. 1930—233,903, a 110% increase. 1940 — 277.731; the economic depression slowed down the change from trees and garden, hut and open skies plus being kicked around by any white man, to foul-smelling, damp, semi-dark Chicago base- ments plus freedom to come and go, and to talk back to a white man. 1950—410,000, almost 50% increase. The 1953 figures hover around 600.000 — or one of every five Chicagoans is a Negro. Another motivating factor must be mentioned — the use of ma- chinery in the South requires fewer human hands; also the shift from cotton-growing and crop-raising to cattle farms requires fewer workers. Politically the Negroes rule the Democratic party and without finesse, kick the lily-faced politicians around. Unfortunately Negroes vote as Negroes rather than as unprejudiced Americans. It were better if they split their votes between the parties but Negro politicians are wilier than their white counterparts. The Chicago Negroes have one congressman, three judges, three aldermen, a half dozen state legisla- ture representatives. They are riding high and daringly on the political horse, which as we all know, can not have a bad color. CHAPTER 36 THE FEUDAL LOOP (See pencil sketch on page 29) The Loop is the downtown business district of Chicago, is north of the middle of the city as measured between the north and south boundaries. Grant Park lies to the east between Michigan Boulevard and Lake Michigan. The shopping district comprises the large department stores along CHICAGO THE PAGAN— Page 115 State Street between Randolph and Harrison Streets. Just west of this is the financial district, along La Salle Street. Still further west between the financial district and the River, is the district for the wholesalers of ladies' ready-to-wear clothing. Printers' Row is just south of the Loop — from Dearborn to Polk and Plymouth to La Salle. The technical Loop is formed by the rectangular shape of the elevated transportation lines as they come from the north, west, and south, circle around on Van Buren, Wabash, Lake and Wells, and leave the city over the route they entered. The elevated tracks which make the material Loop are dirty, weather-beaten iron trestles, whose columns of support interfere with every moving thing on the ground and whose top levels are threatening instant death with a third rail of charged electricity. When we first came to Chicago, we were afraid to ride in the elevated trains; we watched from the ground as they turned a corner; we waited to see them leave the rails and leap over the edge of the wooden ties down upon the street and the people passing underneath (but the elevateds have less deaths and accidents in proportion than any other system of transportation). The elevated travels the alleys; so the passenger sees all the back yards, ash piles and outhouses. One must possess a pure mind and strong will power to avoid peering into boudoirs, either on the first or second floors. And residents along the course of the elevated must sleep under cover and dress in the dark, especially if they neglect to pull the shades; hot nights add to their problems. Only the pure in mind can mind their own business when they ride in the elevated during the hours of ten to twelve at night. To Chicagoans, this noisy box, the Loop, has brot nervous disorders, ear troubles, crowded streets, high rentals, lost time, and shouted conversations. A rainy day in the Loop is as a closed room in a fish warehouse. Drip, drip — splash, splash — puddle, puddle! The crowds mutter under their umbrellas and those without umbrellas, hold their hands over their eyes in protection. Shop clerks stand in the doors and speak silently with glum countenances as the jostling passersby are just that. Leap quickly from the street to the sidewalk or the cleaner has a job; the motorist never looks back to confirm the marksmanship of his wheels with muddy water. You growl slightly and walk on belligerently, daring some well-behaved pedestrian to as much as touch you — so strong is the spirit of avengeance in the human heart. Page 116— CHICAGO THE PAGAN In the deepest of the depression years, I drove a new and shining automobile thru the Loop— at the noon hour. Then every worker, drone and typist queen in the Loop aviary come out of their respective hives and jam the sidewalks and street crossings. There is no turning left in the Loop — the autoist must go right. It is at the turnings where the traffic policeman must have the patience of Job and the nervous reactions of a hibernating bear. Gears in low speed, the wheels barely turning, the front bumper nosing its way, the autoist turns the corner into the traffic moving its way with the green, and caution becomes the high necessity of the turtle-ing driver. The front fenders must brush the pedestrians, oh so lightly. On a summer day at noon, I turned the long car, whose radiator cap bespoke its costly lineage, to the right at a Loop corner — Monroe and Clark Streets. A youngish man, not quite dressed shoddily, was grazed by the right fender. At that very moment, traffic was stopped and I waited for the thickly moving line to show an opening thru which the car could inch its way. The slightly-grazed man looked at the glistening car, his eye ran along its lines to the rear bumper. He looked defiantly at me for an instant, then puckering his mouth as I watched, he let go a generous spit, which spattered over the hood. His face lighted up a bit. I half smiled, he went on and I and the deluxe car of the hated rich turned the corner — all three pleased with ourselves. It is a fief in itself economically. Most of the land is owned by families whose grandfathers by accident purchased some land in a sparsely settled district of Chi- cago. The wiseacres bought speculative acres along Lake Street as far west as Halsted, thinking that the growth of the city would be in that direction. But the trips to Europe, the yachts in blue Lake Michigan, the homes on the North Shore, the names over the entrances of memorial halls, reveal that the wiseacres guessed wrongly, for we pay rents and land fees to the great grandsons of the ordinary persons who harnessed their horses and manured their stables along State Street and east of the River's bend. The Loop is the offering to Chicago of the laws of inheritance. They toil not but spin about in limousines; they take no thot of the day. for tomorrow their realty agents will collect the rents; they CHICAGO THE PAGAN— Page 117 prefer the lilies of the field to the wisdom of Solomon; they are the generation of them who follow forestry as an avocation, specializing in family trees. Consequently Chicago's blueblood is the paradise of parvenus. Philadelphia's presents the flower of snobbishness, nurtured the most years and managed more closely. New York's is everybody's game but obedience must be done to a very few and these few have become a tradition depending greatly upon newspaper columnists for their perpetuation. Boston society is still as beautiful but as lustless as women admired but not laid-in-wait-for. Chicago's society is still so smelly of trade that a good time is had by all who wear formal clothes. They are the third and fourth generations of the farmers, hostlers and shoemakers who between 1840 and 1870, worked for a living in downtown Chicago and by dint of saving, managed to purchase the lots on which their frame buildings were erected. They are Chicago's four hundred of today; they are our high society and they snub us whose family trees are still pussywillows or bramble bushes interspersed with skunk cabbage. So comes the revolution! CHAPTER 37 PAGAN ODDITIES At 100 West Monroe Street is a tablet heralding a strange message. Once a year a cow is led thru these narrow confines, dedicated for all times as a cow path. In 1844 one Willard Jones sold this property with the proviso, a corporeal hereditament which runs with the land (this phrase is the one out of ten thousand which most intrigued us as a law student, much in the same fashion as Coleridge's "faroff ancestral voices prophesying war" intrigues us in the realm of poetry), that the strip of land must be maintained as a cow path. The only market in the world for dry salt bellies is that of the Chicago Board of Trade at the end of the La Salle Street Canyon. This is important information to us, who were brot up in the shadow Page 118— CHICAGO THE PAGAN of Negro Mountain in the hills of southwestern Pennsylvania, mostly on "sow belly" and grits. There are all sorts of bellies in this world. As a printer I became acquainted with the belly of a type. The miner speaks of the belly of a vein of coal. The sailor has his belly of a sail. Musicians of stringed instruments handle the belly. In a steel mill, the belly is that part of a blast furnace at the top of the boshes. The first Chicagoan was a Catholic priest; down in the old lumber district south of Twenty-second Street, on the north bank of the Chicago River, one can find a memorial to Father James Marquette. There, in a small cabin during the winter of 1674-75, a hundred years before the Revolutionary War, he and his two companions Pierre and Jacque, lived, amid flocks of wild turkeys, and received gifts of corn, dried meat, pumpkins, and fur. But the Raleigh weed lured the Indians; Marquette wrote in his diary: "Several Illinois passed yesterday, on their way to carry their furs to Nawaskingwe; we gave them one of the cattle and one of the deer that Jacque had killed on the previous day. I do not think that I have seen any savages more eager for French tobacco than they. They came and threw beaver skins at our feet, to get some pieces of it." The Ducharme lot in Calvary cemetery, between Chicago and Evanston, lot 2-16-U, has a grave on whose tombstone is chiseled the name Pierre Brosseau, who died in Chicago 20 November 1875. Pierre claimed to be the son of Louis XVI, and therefore the lost dauphin. The duchess d'Angouleme of Austria, sent remittances to him up to 1851, the year of her death, believing he ivas her brother. The story runs that he was smuggled out of France to Canada where he lived in Montreal under the protection of Jesuits, and in 1790, was placed under the protection of a Brosseau family, whose name he assumed. At twenty, he went to New York, married in 1814, became the father of thirteen children, and in 1851 moved his family to Chicago, where he lived until his death, at the age of about 90 years, a peaceful death if one recalls that of his mother (?) Marie Antoinette. Chicago is appreciative. It finds heroism in other than the battlefield and school books. When a boiler pipe burst on March 7, 1923, CHICAGO THE PAGAN— Page 119 at the Moos School, 1711 North California Avenue, an explosion and consequent killing perhaps of many school children, was averted by the school engineer Hugh Manley. He rushed into a torrent of scalding water and closed a valve, but he suffered from his act for a year afterward, only to die of the injuries. And today at Polk and South Francisco Ave. stands Manley High School, named in his honor. How do chimes sound forth? A carillon is a set of bells played by machinery; the bell ringer pulls not any ropes but manipulates a keyboard. In the tower of the church-in-a-loop, the golden-lighted- by-night First Methodist Church at 77 West Washington Street, was installed in 1935, the highest-placed carillon in the world. Oldfashioned bells could not be used as the overtone of a note would hang over and interfere with the sound of the next note. Instead of bell clappers there are tubes from five to twelve feet long, with electric hammers, rawhide-tipped, plus a cloth-covered damper to stop vibration. A sounding board throws the sound outward and downward; otherwise the sweet peals of the chimes would be for the delectation of the birds flying high in air and be unheard by mortals on the street four hundred feet below. And to balance the music so that a chime on one side of the tower does not lose its force to hearers on the other side of the church, the carillon of twenty different tones is in duplicate — one on each side. The chimes are operated from the ground floor; a player-piano roll can be used for complicated music; and the Westminster peal sounds forth automatically every fifteen minutes — a quarterly-hour touch of sound beauty in a maelstrom of noise. Page 120— CHICAGO THE PAGAN CHAPTER 33 HEINEGABUBELER'S SALOON A PAGAN SPOT OF THE PAST Alas that one of Chicago's most pagan spots is no more! In our early years in Chicago, before the first World War, we occasionally visited Heinegabubeler's saloon on the west side of State Street, just before one reaches Harrison Street. Its existence from 1893 ended in 1920. It was not a tavern for the sensitive of feeling or stomach. But stranger hardly suspected any guile particularly if a knowing friend brot him to the narrow-roomed bar. The glass of beer held to the lips seemed queerly acting in its emptying until the drinker felt his chest dampened by the escaped amber fluid thru a hole in the bottom of the glass. Assured that the pranks were ended for the night, he reached for his change of silver, lying on the bar, only to be shocked as he touched it. And wine was served in tin decanters for the very same trick. Assured that everyone had had his fun, the assistant bartender, a short fellow of open face and honest voice, led the newcomer by the arm to a bench in the corner, where they sat together, leafing thru a picture book until the bench gave way suddenly. If the proprietor Heine himself, received the nod that the stranger was really a hale fellow, well met with, and could take it, he was maneuvered into • a spot on the floor, which gave way and the now thoroly-ruffled victim found himself downstairs, his eyes about on a level with the floor. He was lifted up tenderly and given a drink on the house, without any prank attached, tho he didn't enjoy it because of previously violated innocence. And finally, to assure him that it was all good clean fun, he was led thru a narrow door to the large rear room with its burlesk museum exhibits, only to be smashed on the head, straight thru his new derby, with a padded board let down by a rope, running concealed to the side of the bar. CHICAGO THE PAGAN— Page 121 In some instances, as that of my own friend from Detroit, a blond Orangeman hailing from Belfast, a fight was imminent, to be averted by the sly closing of a sliding door, imprisoning the angered victim in the museum. He now noticed the dim lights, skeletons jangling from the ceiling, and vapors issuing out of holes in the floor. He soon relented, was forgiven, he forgave, and the proprietor, now solemn with cordiality, unlocked a cabinet, looked over his array of choice liquors stored there for his own personal use, selected a bottle of beautiful label revealing that it was one of France's rarest ancient wines, and presented it as a token of remembrance to the stranger, something which he seldom did but this was an occasion different from all others! The now-calmed victim accepted it with embarrassment, insisted on paying for it, and finally placed it in his pocket and went away happy, in appreciation of the proprietor's genuine sporting nature. Weeks later, at a special party, he opened the bottle with warm remarks concerning how it was acquired, and began to serve it as a treat for his guests — it was vinegar mixed with red ink! CHAPTER 39 THE HOBOS MAGINOT-SIEGFRIED MANNERHEIM BARRACKS Out in the wheat harvest fields of Kansas, in the lumber camps of Minnesota, the oil field of Texas, the mines in the Rockies, during the summer and early fall seasons, the talk is of getting the "stake" for the winter to be spent in "Shy." When cool winds begin to blow, the freight trains bring their passengers as well as freight into Chicago. Transients'' Row has its headquarters in and about Halsted and Madison, along Halsted, and out along Madison almost to Ashland. Here the vagabonds, the wanderers and the American gypsies gather Page 122— CHICAGO THE PAGAN for meals, bunks, meetings of Hobo College, small talk, and general settling of the problems of the nation and the world, more particularly the damning of the bankers and the bloated plutocrats (but most very rich men are thin and dyspeptic). The meal costs ten cents, the bed ten cents, and along the curb line, the wanderer may pick up the butt of a cigarette, careful lest a competitor step on his fingers. Some may have spent their stake or never have had one. An hour of begging — it is called panhandling — gives him his half dollar for the day and the life of a king. He changes routes lest repeat customers recognize him. Spring comes; in the warming sunshine he sits on the curb along Canal Street. After a few days, the signs on the windows, the placards of the employment agencies lure him • — "Wanted — grading men on railroad in Nevada"; "Stump men in Minnesota lumber camp — $1.75 and board"; "Flunky in road camp, Iowa — $30"; "Ship tonight — dam construction Colorado — $2 day, clean bunkhouse, good food." By the end of May, free transportation has carried most of the Chicago gypsies out of the West Side and its flophouses to a dozen states; and most of them, free transportation had, alight before desti- nation, or after a few days, perhaps after the first pay, are away on another trek — always discontented yet finding pleasure in life, ever cursing conditions, and yet happy in their way. What other way do thev want? CHAPTER 40 PEANUT TOWN In and around Wilson-Broadway and Lawrence-Sheridan Road still may be found families who relate that when they moved into that district — the Wilson Avenue district, their houses were the only ones in the block, trees hid their view of the newly-erected terminal CHICAGO THE PAGAN— Page 123 of the L at Wilson and Broadway — then the end of the line (this about 1900). The opening of public bathing beaches along the lake beach from Montrose north (4400 north), about the year 1913, drew thousands of pleasure seekers to that district during the bathing months (there are really only two such months — July and August; tho the hardy plunge into the blue waters of Lake Michigan in June and in September; there is a Polar Bear Club, whose members bathe once weekly in the waters of Lake Michigan during the winter, if press photographers are available). The one-time Wilson Avenue Beach, a private venture, drew the fashionable, the stage folks, the blase and the pleasure-weary — the kind of people not the best but the kind we like to know and gaze upon at near range. Soon after the World War, this district reached its heyday. Theaters, new beaches, night clubs, fashion stores, and hundreds of retail shops with attractive windows, crowded the streets of the district. All kinds and sorts of folks took up room-and-board in the district. The lights were not dimmed until the sunrise paled them. The clerk ate peanuts for lunch during the week that he might spend his pay envelope in one night of gayety in the glare of the Wilson Avenue bright lights — and then another week of peanuts and milk. Today the figurative owl hoots at night where once the nightingale gave forth its gushing dulcet notes — and there are pleasures to be had, of all sorts, for a price. Page 124— CHICAGO THE PAGAN CHAPTER 41 BOHEMIA IN CHICAGO Bohemia is that land in every country that never quite measures up to expectations. And it never will, for dreams do not come true with the thrill of their unconscious birth — and Bohemia is a desire's dream. Most artists now dress like ordinary mortals; the sightseer misses the flowing locks, velvet jacket, beret, the soiled collars and cuffs (we should like to wear a beret but have not the courage) . These marks of the artist are carried chiefly by those who loudly want to be artists or who haven't the genius to be artists but who loaf around the fringe of art; and by the vast horde who just about to produce masterpieces, gather over teacups to complain bitterly against the world for not giving them recognition for the masterpieces they are about to produce. And as for Artist's Balls and Masque Dances, once upon a time a genuine artist was found attending one of these events and was thrown out of the hall. Bohemia, land of artists and would-be's, is located from the river north to about Division Street and from LaSalle Street east to the Lake. It comprises the Near North Side and the district once famous for its residences, which now have been converted into studios, garrets and chambers. Illustrators, designers, painters and others pregnant with an urge to art, an overwhelming desire to express themselves, resulting usually in cigarets and smutty stories (once an artist gained fame by telling a wholesome story at an artists' gathering), crowd this section of Chicago — more particularly Superior, Ontario, Huron and Rush Streets. Quaint eating places are found in abundance; we like to eat in them. Not even excepting the east and west streets across Broadway from 42nd to 52nd Streets, in New York, the gourmet and gourmand, here in a half dozen blocks, come upon more eating places, unusual, CHICAGO THE PAGAN— Page 125 colorful, intriguing and satisfying in their fulfillments than elsewhere, even in Paris' Latin Quarter. Rooming houses Haunt velvet drapes. Basements fetch a premium. Sketches of beautiful naked women, most of them drawn from life, adorn the walls of the rooms. Objets d'art fill the shop windows. Indeed, the district is inviting to the walker whether esthete from the pulpit or yokel from the provinces. The colony changes constantly. A few have jobs as artists; a number are eating the crumbs which advertising agencies and publish- ers throw their way; most of the ladies marry well-to-do business men who wish to learn art privately; some of the men become show clerks or taxi drivers. BUT ALL OF THEM ARE TO BE ENVIED; THEY SEEK THE JOY OF LIVING AND USUALLY FIND IT. THEY SQUEEZE THE LEMON OF LIFE AND SUCK THE JUICE IN A HIGHBALL OF PLEASURE. IT TAKES A FOOL TO BE HAPPY AND MOST OF THE DILETTANTES ARE HAPPY. CHAPTER 42 THE PIPES OF PAN THE PAGAN Chicago, the Pagan strives for leadership in the greatest of the pagan arts — music out of a reed. On a mid- August evening — as we recall, it was in August 1939 — fifteen thousand people were turned away from the world's largest amphitheater — Soldier Field. Chicago, on the Lake front, because already 90,000 occupied every seat inside, not including the 8,000 performers who sat on the stage. Ever since the music of the spheres began, the world has never had a larger gathering for the worship of music. The pagan Chicagoans feed well the senses of the soul. 1,500 accordionists played medleys from Victor Herbert — Kiss Me Again Page 126— CHICAGO THE PAGAN among them. Massed hands of a total of 1,700 pieces played this and that, including Sousa's Washington Post March — and 1,000 high school bandists played Invincible U.S.A. The square dance was stepped across the vast grassy held hy more than two hundred groups of eight each. The 98,000 persons present joined in singing Let Me Call You Sweetheart and as an encore Sweet Adeline. A Metropolitan Opera tenor John Carter filled the skies with golden sound — Then You'll Remember Me, Hills of Home, Donkey Serenade. The University of Illinois Rural Chorus sang Rain and the River. A negro chorus of several hundred sang Swing Low, Sweet Chariot. A young lady Marjorie Farrange, chosen as England's best singer, was whizzed hy Clipper across the Atlantic four days previous (Tues- day) and sang here Saturday night — Cherry Ripe, and Waltz Song. She sat alone on the back seat of a new maroon automobile and was driven the length of the Stadium, while the searchlights concentrated on her — a triumph as impressive as any conqueror ever received. And later the 80-year old Carrie Jacobs Bond was honored in similar fashion — a tribute to genius, to the arts, to the soul, rather than the sword or politics. Lights out — everywhere — the field in darkness — and as pre- arranged, every one in the audience, at a signal from the announcer, lighted a match — almost a hundred thousand golden flicherings, which, as the announcer said, were as many stars come down to earth to kiss it in appreciation of the sweet sounds being produced in Soldier Field. All joined in singing Carrie Jacobs Bond's The End of a Perfect Day, the eight thousand singers on the stage sang Handel's Hallelujah Chorus, an American flag appeared in burning fireworks, the crowd arose and sang The Star Spangled Banner — and an hour later, we were still trying to get out into the Drive — so vast the crowd, so good- naturedly was its leaving after a seance with the soul of the ear. (Note — 10 December 1951. At the theater, Edward G. Robinson in Darkness at Noon, we chatted with Philip and Mrs. Maxwell. Our Theater Guild seats are adjoining. Mr. Maxwell is still the maestro of the Music Festival. Both he and Mrs. M. are music folks in their own right.) CHICAGO THE PAGAN— Pase 127 CHAPTER I 3 PRESERVED FOR POSTERITY Chicago has many monuments, some erected in regret, others in appreciation. No one has yet read his epitaph from below up; hence the atonement the living make by spending their money for these glorified tombstones is salve to their consciences. Later generations are busy with their own atonements and com- plain that the cost of repair and maintainance of old monuments adds to the taxes. It should be demanded that a fund for perpetual care accompany each proposal for the erection of a monument. Rammikar the Mayan philosopher said: "'The populace demands its heroes and forgets its own meanness when it looks upon the pedestals on which it has placed the idols There is no other thing so rapid as the rise of a popular hero unless it be the speed with which he is forgotten." The earth of Lincoln Park in Chicago supports more monuments than any other park or plat on the face of the earth. JOHN ALTGELD was a labor governor of Illinois — that is, he was inclined to consider every rich man to have a dishonest past, but he was a good governor. His monument is pleasing to the leftists tho in truth, living today he would be labeled a conservative and of course with the usual scorn. One certain monument in Lincoln Park pleases us — that of HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN. It may be that we came upon an excellent translation of his fairy tales when first we read them for we consider them among the grand masterpieces. Were we planning the educational system of a country, we should require that every person after the age of eight be required lo do what we have done yearly — to read at least these five Andersen's fairly tales — Great Claus and Little Claus, the Story of a Mother, the Beetle, Good Humor, and the Little Match Girl. Only recently we read Signe Toksvig's life of Andersen and with our prejudiced mind, considered it also a masterpiece in its field of literature. Page 128— CHICAGO THE PAGAN EUGENE FIELD, not quite great tho the concerted move to push him into the upper bracket may make him so, has his remembrance and well so for he lived long in Chicago and loved it. And if we must have more monuments in this city, we suggest that most of them be of other literary artists of the Chicago locale. The statue is by Edward McCarton, and depicts Dream Lady — a symbolic piece of work. BEETHOVEN'S monument indicates the interest of Chicago Germans and German-Americans in music. A suggestion — let's erect next to it a statute of John Alden Carpenter, Chicago composer. Printers do homage before BENJAMIN FRANKLIN'S monument; we still consider him one of America's three greatest men. The Italians have given Chicago the monument of GARIBALDI. The statue of GOETHE (pronounce it Gertie, if you wish — we do) at the north end of the park was about to be smashed to pieces by some people during the first World War. This symbolism in stone of the creative mind belongs not to Germany but to the world for it is a thing of beauty in itself and beauty has one flag only, the mind of the beholder, whether Chinaman or Chilean, Frenchman or Finlander. General and President GRANT is mounted on his horse and commands a view of the park. It is a large monument and to us characteristic of all things connected with the man — an effort to compensate for the genius he lacked. His tomb on Riverside Drive in New York is marble prose from an adjutant's morning call. The statute of SIEUR DE LA SALLE should receive the homage of all Chicagoans because this French nobleman, along with Marquette and Joliet, comprised the French trio who, it may be said, discovered Chicago and its swampy location. Perhaps the most famous statue of ABRAHAM LINCOLN is that in the park which carries his name. It presents a patient, tired, sympathetic Lincoln, on whom one can look in his own worries and be comforted. The park also has monuments of the German writer SCHILLER. England's SHAKESPEARE, and the INDIAN MONUMENTS— The Signal of Peace and The Alarm. The youngest (1952) monument was dedicated July 6, 1952. appropriately at the time the Republicans were nominating a candi- date for the presidency. The same Kate Sturges Buckingham, who gave Grant Park the many-mouthed fountain, set up a million-dollar CHICAGO THE PAGAN— Page 129 trust fund in her will in 1937 to erect a statue to a foreign-born states- man, Alexander Hamilton. It is directly across from Chicago's sumptu- ous shrine, the Elks War Memorial at Diversey and the Parkway (2800 north). Kate died in 1937, age 79; the fountain was erected in 1927 in memory of her brother Clarence. John Angel is the sculptor to be blamed or praised for this un- usual monument. Alex, born in the West Indies, stands 13 feet high in bronze but he wears pure gold leaf, not where Eve wore hers but over him from top of head to bottom of feet. At night, a spotlight plays upon him and he shines in golden splendor, reminding us of the gold he handled as our first Secretary of the Treasury, back in 1789. He stands in front of a pylon of polished black granite, 78 feet high, 16 feet wide, four feet four inches thick. The base of the statue is a plaza level of limestone and black and red granite. The whole layout could be a monument to a poet, to a war hero, to a local politician. It's distinctive, it's different — and that's some- thing, for if ever there has been monotony, it is in monuments. Alexander Hamilton is one of our selected favorite founders of the American Republic. We bracket him with Franklin and Jefferson for top honors. The Angel monument does not lessen our regard for Alexander and his many-sided career; on the whole, we are glad the unusual structure is there. We would have preferred that Kate had expended the money in printing ten million pamphlets to be printed and distributed, telling us why Alexander Hamilton could benefit us by living today. As one approaches Clark St. from the east on North Ave., he sees, sitting in the shrubbery of Lincoln Park, near the pavement, the bronze-brown figure of GREENE BLACK. Who was he? A very famous dentist. In Garfield Park on the West Side, the Scotch are pleased with the monument to ROBERT BURNS, their rascal poet, the Villon of Scotia. This park has a monument to JOHN F. FINERTY, erected in 1914. We do not know who Mr. Finerty was. There really should be a civil service commission for monuments themselves. As Robert Burns himself might say — "Some have who shouldn't have and some who don't have, should have." Humboldt Park on the West Side is named after Humboldt, the naturalist, as there are a large number of Scandinavians living in this district and not because the politicians loved the Swedes, Danes and Norsemen. Page 130— CHICAGO THE PAGAN There is the monument to LEIF ERIKSEN. HUMBOLDT himself has a monument. KOSCIUSZKO. Polish patriot, is preserved in marble. In proportion, the tallest monument in the world has been erected to the shortest man in the world— that of STEPHEN" A. DOUGLAS in Chicago's smallest park at the foot of Thirty-fifth Street, overlooking the Lake. The Little Giant, not five feet tall, has an enormously high monument. The Illinoisans derided his pigminess in life and Death now mocks his pretensions. Grant Park, as one travels along its length parallel to the skyline, has the monument of General JOHN A. LOGAN. Like Grant, he sits astride his spirited horse. In our age of automobiles, we slight the part the horse played in the annals of the past. The conquering hero appeared more conquering when he rode a spirited steed. A mounted policeman can scare away even a union picket. The Logan statue is by Saint-Gaudens. Our Chicago sculptor, the late LORADO TAFT, is represented by the Fountain of Time at the Midway and by the Spirit of Great Lakes near the Art Institute, both excellent works. Chicago should have more Lorado Tafts. He once shook hands with us, a stranger, and his sculptor's hand seemed to thrill us as it closed on ours. As you drive by the small island at Wacker Drive and Wabash Avenue, observe Tafts trio of three Revolutionary War personalities — ■ Washington. Robert Morris and Haym Salomon. Unveiled 15 Dec. 1941, soon after Taft's death. Its base contains copies of Chicago newspapers telling of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor eight days previous. Every city must have its statue of GEORGE WASHINGTON. In Chicago it stands at Grand Boulevard, now South Parkway, at Fifty- lirst Street and the entrance to the park which bears his name. It is just another Father of His Country monument. There are ninety-six other statues but we shall not mention them, excepting the one to JOSEPH F. HAAS at Fullerton and Washtenaw Avenues. Joe Haas was a local politician who died about fifteen vears ago. He was known as a good fellow among the boys and held public office for thirty years. We went once to Joe (back in 1920) and asked him for a political job. His first words of wisdom were a question — "How many votes do you control in your precinct in the 25th Ward?'' The Chicago Park Board which has the work of caring for most of the monuments, considers this responsibilitv one of its constant CHICAGO THE PAGAN— Page 131 headaches. Almost all of the monuments must be house-cleaned at least every ten years. A small crew of men are at work constantly. Not the pigeons but the human bipeds are chief criminals in defacing statutes. Pieces are chipped off, deep gouges made, obscene illustrations added, and all sorts of scribblings done, often with metal point, so that they can be removed only with difficulty. This is a chronic human vice the world over. Statues everywhere have had a tough time historically. Conquering generals often rarry away some of them for their own villas or for museums in their countries. And time eventually defaces and obliterates most of them, perhaps fortunately for a patient posterity. In the future, statues need not be reproductions of their subjects but symbolic presentations of the ideas for which the dead struggled. We should like to see a monument erected to the cause of better monuments. Also the whole subject of sculpture needs a rebellion. Most of it represents beauty no man can see except him who glorifies it out of a fertile mind, just as interpretative music is entirely in the mind of the listener. Chiseled stone cannot express life as an inspiration to the living today. Hero worship, bookish scholars and the natural inclination of the human mind to hold on to its half-proved traditions have filled our school books with vain-glorious praise of the ancient Greeks. Ananias. Baron Munchausen and the historians of classical antiquity are brothers under the truth. The bravest American divisions in the First World War Avere those who had the ablest publicity agents (and this is not acrid grapes on the part of one who served in the 33rd Division). Poets in the past were the chief creators of fame; they were the unpaid pressagents, not of the great but of the now famous, thanks to their poems. Chicago the Pagan is starting a revolution in monuments in line with the author's recommendation — that memorials be symbolic rather than difficult reproductions in stone or metal of the dead one's face or torso. The peristyle in Grant Park just south of Randolph Street at Michigan has been declared a memorial to Theodore Thomas and orchestral music. Thomas teas the founder and for many years the director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Page 132— CHICAGO Tilt: PAGAN CHAPTER 44 TWO TAXI HOURS IN CHICAGO ) ou hare two hours between trains or planes — you re in Chicago. What to see? What to do? Buy a book and read it. If you are at an airfield, pity you. Stay there and buy two books and read them. An hour to go. an hour to come — why hurry, worry and get blurry? You're somewhere down town, usually considered the Loop area. Taxi fares are high in Chicago — 30c at the flag, your first quarter mile (and distances are short when you watch the taxi meter). 10c for each additional half-mile. Thus. 50c for the first mile and a quarter plus tip (10c up). Two miles 70c. Ride a taxi up Inner Drive. Michigan Avenue; go thru Lincoln Park at 1600 north, stop at the Zoo midway if you wish. Swing on Diversey. 2800 north — see the Elks War Memorial there, across from it the ornate modern headquarters of Amalgamated Butchers and Meat Choppers of America. Swing south on Outer Drive, along the lake. Look for ten thousand sea gulls on the piling tops. Back south and again at 1600 north. Pass the greatest investment in apartment building real estate anywhere, the Gold Coast, where the snobs live and every body else damns them and envies them. Swing east along the wide horseshoe at the Drake Hotel and Oak Street beach. Turn the corner south as the lake view leaps into sight. Out in the lake is the now-building filtering plant so that in the future, Northside Chicago need not drink muddy water as it has done for seventy-five years. And all along this lake front from where you turned at 2800 North, (Diversey) is swimming beach. On your right, the twin glass houses. Chicago's most ultra in apartment building. The interior arrangement is complete but one can see thru it all readily. CHICAGO THE PAGAN— Page 133 You are passing also downtown Northwestern University, and a l»it west, two vast hospitals — Passavant and Wesley Memorial with the monster Veterans' Hospital just on the other side of the gigantic Furni- ture Mart Building, housing also the only successful and very successful lahor hroadcasting station, WCFL. Ohio Street — to left, the Municipal Pier running a half mile east- ward into Lake Michigan; now the home also of the Chicago section of the University of Illinois. Up the inclined and over the Quarantine Bridge (dedicated hy Pies. Roosevelt in 1937; he made here the first announcement of coming World War II . You are crossing the Chicago River, which now flows backward — Lake to Gulf. It is the world's narrowest, busiest, dirtiest, navigable, in-a-city stream. Swing right at a turn which slows up thirty thousand cars a day. Your westward view for a hundred yards throws upon your eye's retina the downtown skyline of Chicago, a picture-postcard view, tho not in technicolor if on one of the numerous days when soft fog out of the lake throws its wedding veil over the buildings. Now for a magnificent mile thru Grant Park, with yacht clubs and sailboats galore on your left. Perhaps the multi-mouthed Buckingham Fountain will be throwing its lacery in air. If this is late spring, your eyes feast on a vast garden of blossoms — it's technicolor days in Chicago along the lake front in May. You have passed the new 41 story insurance building; the sight- depressing railroad tracks; the ugly exterior of the Art Institute with its interior of beauty. Note the low-roofed Goodman Theater — for children as well as adults. You also have passed the two-story under- ground public garage. See page 135. All along your right, along Michigan Boulevard, skyscraper after skyscraper, all of them well known names and addresses, mark the horizon with an unbroken border, among them the world's largest hotel, the Conrad Hilton of 3,000 guest rooms. Your taxi is passing the Band Shell, where open air band concerts are held during the summer. Aquaplanes have a landing base on your left, and far out in the water you can see lighthouses, breakwaters and ivater cribs. Now you come to the treasure of Greek architecture within small compass, the Acropolis and Forum of Chicago — classic beauty in hard materials — the Natural History Museum (take a half day to go thru it). Page 134— CHICAGO THE PAGAN To your left, the Shedd Aquarium (don't miss an hour looking at its funny fish as they in turn look at you and laugh). Far out, the round dome is of the Adler Planetarium, where the stars shine hy day. Take in all these memorable scenes. Now — to your left. Century of Progress was held— the island airport in the heart of the city (for small planes and helicopters). More boats. On the right, the world-renowned Soldier Field, where the annual All Star football game, the Music Festival, the auto races, etc., etc., are held. (We heard Mr. Roosevelt speak here from an invalid's chair in his auto in 1944; saw Dempsey win over Tunney in 1927; heard Lind- bergh booed off the platform here in 1940; and at an open air grand opera, saw Gladys Swarthout trip and fall on the stage and be carried off — it was in Carmen). On down along this magnificent outer drive, here called Lief Ericksen Drive after the 1,000 AD Norse explorer. At Twenty-second Street, on the right, the world's largest printing plant under one roof. More hospitals, etc. Ride along the lake front on to 5100 South, to another area of interest — another sub-city of large apartment buildings. Attractive park landscaping. On your right at 57th Street, a museum you must take three hours to go thru, including its coal mine — perhaps in a way Chicago's most interesting spot, the Rosenwald Museum of Natural Sciences, and hailed by not a few as America's most beautiful structure. Now you are in the heart of the most renowned of all world fairs — for here in 1893, in the then far outskirts of Chicago, was held the Columbian World Exposition. Turn around and come back, going west a few blocks if you wish to see the many buildings of the University of Chicago. You'll see enuf the second time to continue the thrill. Airplanes overhead going westward are on their way to the Cicero Avenue Airport. A faint column of smoke far on the eastern lake horizon is a freight boat on its way to Milwaukee. If you have only twenty minutes for stopping en route, see the fishes at the Aquarium. • • • Back to your starting point again, see these other Chicago hilites for your next three hours or three days: All within a jew minutes of any stopping place down town. Merchandise Mart, world's largest under one-roof, privately owned building; home of NBC. Owned by Senator Kennedy's papa. The Wheat Pit on LaSalle Street — Board of Trade. They talk with their fingers. CHICAGO THE PAGAN— Page 135 Any one of the large department stores on State Street. Visit the newspaper plants — there are set schedules for visitors. Have a dinner on Bush Street, the street of a hundred restaurants and ten hundred neon signs. Go out to any one of the packing plants — conducted loins. At its entrance, the Amphitheater where Eisenhower and Stevenson were nominated for president. Brookfield Zoo — far out on the west; animals are outdoors in fair weather. Two baseball parks — Cubs and Sox. Steel mills in South Chicago. Gary, Indiana Habor, Whiting. Sears-Roebuck out west and Montgomery Ward on near north side. Take a walk. Start at the Hilton on Eighth Street. Walk north on Old Mich Boul as far as that gem of set-back skyscraper architecture, Palm Olive Building, 900 north. On the way, you'll pass near the river, the Tribune building, the Wrigley twins. If you take your wife alone, take along also a filled poeketbook; the shop windows are irresistible — to the fair sex. If it's nite time, see the Lindbergh Beacon atop the lighted Palm Olive Building — revolves every forty seconds till midnite; can be seen two hundred miles away by aviators. And stop in the Loop, look up at the lighted golden cross atop the Skyscraper Church, the Methodist Church on Washington Street. Say a silent prayer; lift up your soul with it. Enjoy yourself in Chicago — the Chicagoans work hard and play hard. They basically are hedonists. • • • Grant Park now houses what may be the world's largest under- ground garage. It's a costly space, around ten million dollars in cost as announced, but likely in reality will be near twenty millions, after the fashion of public building costs. No gasoline is stored in this garage, which is owned by the Chi- cago Park Board. No sprinkler system to fight fire as the garage is un- treated. There are two levels to the building, by name, as you can agree, upper level and lower level. Each level is subdivided into seven sep- aprate areas with concrete walls, in order to localize the greatest of all fears in this situation — you also can guess that — fire. Heat will close doors automatically between the seven sections (how about the motorist already in one of the seven?). And there will be fire escapes in every section leading — you guessed it again — not down but up. Page 136— CHICAGO THE PAGAN CHAPTER 15 THE WORLDS GREATEST STREET A — From the River North The use of the term great is dangerous. The greatness of the world's greatest street may consist of fame and legend, of large and tall buildings, of crowded traffic, of noted buildings and institutions, of the wealth represented in the street itself and in the firms and persons who inhabit it. On the north, Michigan Boulevard, the "Mish Boul" of word of mouth, begins at CHICAGO AVENUE; that street also is the southern border of the once famous Gold Coast, now Lake Shore Drive. OAK STREET BEACH, with its twenty thousand bathers at a time, is within calling distance of the north end of Michigan Boulevard. A toy castle stands just across Chicago Avenue — the ANCIENT WATER TOWER of the city of Chicago. This midget with its turrets is a delight to the eye. This is the only surviving work of architect W. W. Boyington, who designed many of the churches, theaters and hotels, including the first University of Chicago, in the days before and immediately after the Civil War. All of his mental creations have gone from the flesh of stone and mortar except this toothpick of a castle, the sole survivor out of the fire of 1871. Thomas Tallmadge in his posthumously-printed book — found in his desk by his executors — says of the Michigan Avenue water tower (and we relay the quotation from Charles Collins' A Line OType Or Two of the Chicago Tribune; and Collins is a kindred soul with ours in seeing history as well as walls when we look upon a building) : "It was once the fashion to jeer at this relic. The esthetes called it 'gold-fish bowl architecture.' Oscar Wilde described it as a 'cas- tellated monstrosity with pepper-boxes stuck all over it.' But we are proud of it now.*' The PALMOLIVE BUILDING is a jewel of lay-back skyscraper architecture, located just off the north end of Michigan Boulevard. As we go southward from Chicago Avenue on the boulevard, on CHICAGO THE PAGAN— Page 137 either side the eye beholds modern city architecture which in design, color and material is beauty as pleasing as the thighs of a huxom woman. A gold medal was awarded in 1 *>27 to the FARWELL BUILDING at the northern corner of Erie and Michigan as the most distinctive building on the near north side. The ALLERTON HOTEL, once reserved for bachelors, thrusts its towers into the high air like a baronial castle of the Middle Ages. Just across the street, on the west side of the boulevard, is a BUILDING OF BLACK MARBLE which suggests a Roman bath of a voluptuous Caesar. We proceed SOUTHWARD TOWARD THE RIVER, in the midst of style shops, art shops and shops for the sophisticate, to which group, in our own opinion, we all belong. As we go up the hill, if there be a hill in Chicago, just north of the river, two architectural masterpieces pierce the sky on the east side. The first is the MEDINAH BUILDING, Turkish in design and ornament, purposely suggestive of Masonic symbols (building now known as Sheraton Hotel ) . Just nearby, to the north of the Wrigley Building is the WORLD'S NARROWEST SKYSCRAPER, whose floor area comprises one office for each floor, about twenty feet wide. The second masterpiece is the CHICAGO TRIBUNE BUILDING, a poem of Gothic grace and strength, tracing a design of lacework against the sky, seeming amid the din of traffic, to throw a quiet and pure beauty over the city and the eastward Lake. The thorofare called TRIBUNE SQUARE separates the Tribune Tower from the TWIN WRIGLEY BUILDINGS, lighted after dark over the entire side so that they appear as washed white jade amid the night, a cooling glimpse for the eye and appropriate gateway to the gay night life almost within its shadows, in a hundred places of the near north side. One of the world's MOST-TRAVELED BRIDGES spans the Chicago River. From it we look eastward to the lake and incoming Page 138— CHICAGO THE PAGAN ships out of llie north and east, and in truth. Norwegian, Dutch and other boats from across the Atlantic. Westward we look upon the busy downtown Loop <>f Chicago. As one looks westward, it would seem that the spirit oi the more than eight hundred persons who drowned in the Eastland like caged rats, the world's strangest water catastrophe, are still hovering over the river. The waters of this river, the narrowest, smallest, dirtiest, busiest, and at times smelliest river of commerce in the world, appear even beautiful at night as the darkness bathes the water itself and the lights of the city cast their colored gleams upon its oily surface. On an evening, the motorist crosses the Quarantine Bridge, where President Roosevelt delivered his now-famous quarantine speech against aggressor nations, and twisting on the curves to keep within the white tapes, proceeds to a point where stretches southward the only hill within the Loop. The boulevard is flanked by two rows of gleaming globe lights which almost draw the car between them and toward a vision of architecture at the end of the boulevard, which delighted the Periclean Greeks thru its original — The Field Museum of Natural History. The prospect thru the windshield of one's auto is exhilarating to the point of a fairy tale, par- ticularly on evenings when the Buckingham Fountain throws high up into the air its play- ful waters of many colors. It is good to be alive as one views the scene while a hundred crowding, horntooting motorists speed by. blind in eye of soul. The NORTH AND SOUTH ENTRANCES OF THE MICHIGAN BOULEVARD BRIDGE, to the west, carry friezes depicting Chicago's early life. Here are mingled Indians, traders, adventurous ne'er-do- wells, explorers, all of whom re-enact on the carved stone the early days of Chicago, whose occurrences centered chiefly at this point, then the mouth of the River, when the Chicago River ran in an opposite direction; at present the mouth is a half mile eastward, moved there when the reversing was done. Occasionally today when a strong steady wind blows from the southwest, the current is reversed. CHICAGO THE PAGAN— Page 139 CHAPTER 46 THE WORLD'S GREATEST STREET B — The Michigan Boulevard Skyline The SOUTHWEST CORNER OF THE BRIDGE marks the scene of the city's most famed historical spot, Fort Dearborn — rebuilt for the 1933 World's Fair and remaining permanently on the lake shore at the foot of 26th Street. See illustration, pages 61 and 81. The massacre of 1812 did not take place here but at Eighteenth Street, just a few hundred feet east of the Boulevard. Strangely the site of the fort is now occupied by the London Guaranty Building, owned by an English insurance firm. The next few blocks are walled on both sides with beautiful modern buildings, showing the most artistic of skyscraper architecture, and the street shops are bright with articles for sale. The sidewalks are traveled in throngs every hour of the day and evening by the fashionable, the busy, the important, and the would-be-so, of which the happiest are the last. At the noon hour the percentage of females is increased — young women stylishly gowned, their coiffures reflecting the illustrations in the society magazines, their air and general carriage betokening a royal court — they are the stenographers and office girls out for a stroll of a few minutes after munching a peanut-butter sandwich as their dieting luncheon. The artist, the architect, the poet, and the historian now should walk eastward into Grant Park some distance, and turning about, look to the Michigan Boulevard skyline. Towers and pillars, turrets and penthouses, cupolas and domes, spires and cloud-high balustrades mark their places against the western sky. Here architecture has written its most striking poem of beauty in the buildings of trade and merchandise. Here is the longest continuous skyline of skyscrapers in the world. A dreamer can look upon it and fancy countless tales. Page 140— CHICAGO THE PAGAN The set-back tower of the UNION CARBIDE BUILDING thrusts itself upward like the index finger out of a fist, and the building has green tile on the exterior side. Its trim is of 14-karat gold. Just a block southward and after yielding to the temptation of looking in at the KROCH BOOKSTORE windows, we come to another large hook center, the CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY, described by Pierrot in The Chicago Tribune's Line 0' Type or Two. as follows: Garland Court on the east side Of its one and only block Lends its quaint, faintly distinguished name To a treasure house. On the west side, trucks unload To Wabash avenue stores, And there is a single track, upon which, At intervals, a street car competes clamorously With traffic, and quarrels with pedestrians, to get out. But Garland Court has no concern with vans, Or noise, or cars, or stores. Garland Court guards gracefully The great, tall, ornamental iron fence, And heavy iron gates That are the back doors To a Castle of Books! The low-lying ART INSTITUTE shows us its east side; this edifice on its outside is the dullest building in Chicago and on its inside displays the most beautiful things in the world. Over all of it, the cooing, lazy pigeons have painted their mark of filth, hardly a crime by nature but a deed misplaced for the esthetic eye. The Art Institute houses a larger collection of French art than does any other outside of Paris. An editorial in a Chicago paper ( 1941) stated: "Superficially Chicago and Paris have few resemblances but there is a close kinship in artistic taste." See page 51. Across from the Art Institute is ORCHESTRA HALL, the home of the Sunday Evening Club, a popular church. We once went there to hear Henry VanDyke preach and couldn't get within a block of the entrance. Also here Theodore Roosevelt was nominated by the Bull- moosers in 1912 for the presidency of the U. S. The FINE ARTS BUILDING and others nearby house studios and artists' ateliers. All seek to seize the spark of genius; out of the CHICAGO THE PAGAN— Page 141 army come a few artists, geniuses, and notables. But Art is long and fame is longer; the zest is in the quest and it is better to sigh for a dream of the past than never to have had the dream. Even a homely woman is a better bedmate than a beautiful damsel who comes not near the house. A day's drama in any one of the hundred vast structures as acted by the thousands who work and pretend and scheme, presents a world in miniature with its tragedies, laughter, and cunning. In one cell-like office, a struggling lawyer bends over his desk; next to it may be the office of a financier of vast fortune. On the sixth floor a hoss is making love to his stenographer and on the sixteenth floor, a wife may be shoot- ing her husband in jealousy over an office wife. A vast army of laborers may he toiling on the construction of a bridge in the Rockies, hut their masters, who hire and fire them, sit in comfortable chairs in one of the rooms on the tenth floor. On the floor below them, a committee is devising ways and means of securing the nomination of a man for the next governorship. On the eleventh floor, a stock promoter is drinking a poison potion as the state's attorney's policemen enter the elevator on the first floor. And in the penthouse, no chorus girl kicks up her heels; the owners of the building are gathered there, sweating mentally over the decision to renew the mortgage or give the skyscraper to the bondholders, who in turn will lose it to the trustee appointed by the courts and his lawyers, whom the politicians instructed the judge to designate. CHAPTER 47 THIRD WINDOW ON CONGRESS STREET SIDE C — The World's Greatest Street The open air show of the artists and llieir work is held on the east side of Michigan Boulevard just south of the Art Institute. The artists, using the term as one of vocation and not of accomplishment, display their wares open to the sky and the gaze of all. What you pay for a masterpiece is determined by how hungry Paae 142— CHICAGO THE PAGAN •e the artist is or how bullying his landlady. Some ol" the work is good, some is arty, some is terribly unartistic but all of it homemade. A sales price may reach a substantial figure; a canvas may be traded for dental work, a second-hand studio couch, or the ring on \our finger. The spectators are many and the crowd is goodnatured. The social set attend unofficially, the hoi polloi express comments, and the hobo gentry who usually save their newspapers for bed sheets on the grass of Grant Park, circulate among the exhibits and occasionally are mis- taken for bohemians. It is a colorful spectacle, a worthy one, and long may it survive! As the eye sweeps southward, it notes the beehive on the top of the STRAUSS BUILDING. And just to the south is the AUDITORIUM HOTEL, whose architecture combines a fortress and a palace, and once was hailed as America's most distinguished edifice. We had been in Chicago for two days and one chill night of an October. The second night was at hand, drizzling, raw, and foggy. The flesh on our body did not seem to be any protection for the bones against the damp chill. It was our good fortune to acquire, thru begging, two dimes from two of about fifteen prospects. Where to spend them — one for supper, one for a bed? The scene of our pan- handling was Michigan Boulevard, the world's greatest street, on which years later by fortunes good chance we were to be the owner of a somewhat pretentious building. As we shuffled along, wary of policemen, a crowd had gathered on Congress street, just off the Boulevard. They gazed and gaped, admiration, curiosity and worship were mingled, all for a gentleman eating his dinner just inside the third window of the dining room of the Auditorium Hotel. The lights were soft and slightly colored: strains of the music seeped thru the window to the crowd. Negro waiters in formal dress carried snow-white napkins and silver tureens. The gentleman was John Bunny, at the time the first and most popular comedian of the nickelodeon. He died soon afterward. In October 1933. twenty-one years later, I walked for the first time, into the dining room of the Auditorium Hotel, a beautiful blonde lady on my arm. The aged colored headwaiter led us to a table; he had been there for twenty-seven years. The night was misty, chilly, raw — but the lights were soft and also colored, the piano music romantic, and the napkins snowy white. The waiter seated us at a CHICAGO THE PAGAN— Page 143 table next to a window — the third from the corner. Outside, standing on the curb I saw the man to whom I had given a dime a few minutes previously. We were sitting at John Bunny's table. A POSTLUDE Tax collectors threatened to end the 52-years existence of The Auditorium on June 30, 1941. But a storm of protest so strong, arose that private citizens, in appreciation of the architectural beauty of this structure and in memory of the many events which had taken place within its walls, banded together, raised fundus, and took over the property under ownership of a corporation not for profit. And well so. We recall walking from our rooming house near 13th and Michigan on a Sunday morning to hear the poetical preacher Gunsaullus brighten the vast hall with his beautiful pictures painted in words. Charles Collins wrote in his Tribune column June 4 — ''The demand for the saving of the Auditorium, in our mail amounts to a public uprising." The hall where grand opera was performed for almost a half century has been the acoustics wonder of the world. The very spaciousness and layout of the hall cast a spell of grandeur over one even before he takes his seat. But its architect Louis Sullivan "whose fame is international, died impoverished in a southside hotel room that formerly had been used as a clothes closet." Quin Ryan of radio fame (he used to announce for us years ago when "we were on the air") writes a poem The Auditorium Echoes, from which we quote: Masterly echoes in grand array, Lorelei notes of the yesterwhile, Of Patti, De Reszkes and Calve — yea — Sembrich, Caruso, and Melba's smile, Nordica, Ruffo, Maurel and Eames, Mingle and chorus in sad dismay, Like the sobbing song of ethereal streams, "Please go away and let us play!'' Chords of piano masters stay, Violin melodies still beguile; Jan Paderewski, Hofmann — heigh! — Kreisler, and Elmun, and Heijetz's style; This the procession that gayly gleams; These the echoes of them who pray. Hazily wandering, so it seems — "Please go away ami let as play!" (Alas and alack! This postscript is to inform that it's the year 1953, when the Auditorium Hotel and Hall house the Roosevelt College.) Page 144— CHIC ICO THE /' IC f\ CHAPTER 48 THE WORLD'S GREATEST STREET D — Ancient Greece Improved Upon Just across the street to the south of the Auditorium Hotel is Congress Hotel, scene of political gatherings and planning*. We edged thru the crowds of its lobby in different years — when Hughes was nominated for president. Harding for president. Coolidge for president. Hoover for president, and Roosevelt for president I first and third times » . Within its rooms, however, many other gentlemen were nominated for the presidency hut did not secure the actual nomination. Amid cigar smoke, whispered claims and counterclaims, promises of support and threats of treachery, the presidents of the United States have been elected altho the constitution of the country provides for a vote of the people not upon the candidates but upon the little known electors — a funny system in a democracy. Looking eastward from the windows of any of the buildings on the nest side of Michigan Boulevard, the eye beholds the most picturesque metropolitan scene in the world — Grant Park with its trees and launs. traveled thorofares. penniless persons of leisure lounging on the grass and sleeping on spreadout sheets of ncuspaper. monuments scattered everywhere, the dirty streaks of the railroad running the entire length, and beyond all to the eastward a colorful, pleasing and soothing sight, the waters, now blue, now green, of Lake Michigan. The many delights of land and water stretch before one as he gazes eastward so that easily he can imagine himself in a king's pleasure domain. Fiftj years a^<> the waters of Lake Michigan lapped the curb of Michigan Boulevard. The vast panorama of all sorts of beauty which the eye now beholds as it looks lakeward from the eastern windows of the skyline buildings has been manmade. Hauled earth has been dumped and the dredging out of the lake's innards pasted CHICAGO THE PAGAN— Page 145 against the shore line in order to add to the surface of the land and to push Grant Park farther into the waters. To the southeast we behold an architectural display that, in a foreign land. Americans would hail as greatest in the world. We always have thot that the glories of ancient Greece and Rome were exaggerated so greatly that little in the school history can he believed. The group of edifices where Grant Park ends and Burnham Park begins, about Sixteenth Street on the Lake, rival the glory of all the ancients in architecture, including the Parthenon in its prime. The group of structures on the lake's edge, at the south end of Grant Park, present a sym- phony of stone which surpasses the original models of Greece, its Parthenon, and the golden days of Pericles. Within and without, these four edifices impress with the beauty of their outlines and the strength which solid, well con- structed works of man's hand can impress upon the observer. The FIELD MUSEUM is a masterpiece, the grand simplicity of whose vast size, pleases the eye of pupil and iris and the eye of the soul. Its existence has been made possible thru gifts of the Field family of store fame. Now it is named the Chicago Natural History Museum. 11 acres of white marble. Its treasures present to the eye the story of the earth and some of man's little part in it. Daniel Burnham i in whose home at 1316 South Michigan Boulevard, we 'roomed' in the mid-teens of the centurj >. designed the building. The architecture suggests the Erectheum on the Acropolis Hill over- looking Athens. The Erectheum has been termed one of the world's most beautiful structures. We think the Museum has improved upon it. The ADLER PLANETARIUM reproduces the skies in miniature: to sit under its dome and travel hither and yon in distances measured by around-the-earth miles as a very minor fraction makes one feel immensely small. See sketches pages 16, .'>•>. 7*'. The SHFJDD VQUARIUM [.resents fish and aquatic life SO strange, abnormal and illogical that one wonders whether a creator supervised this form of life. A fish as thin as a sheet of cardboard swims seemingly happy; another is all head: ^till another hasn't any eyes. Nature has a joke factory in the ocean's depths. Page 146— CHICAGO THE PAGAN SHEDD AQUARIUM Here all the fabled monsters of the deep hi regimented tanks are hid away; Within their prisons lazily they sway, Or spend the endless idle days in sleep. But might a flash of inward vision keep Alight the memory of some far bay, A coral bed or cave where mermaids play, And comb their sea-wet hair, and laugh, and weep? But what could fish of mem'ry's workings knoiv? Take this odd specimen with the bulbous face . . . His I. Q. rating surely must be low; See how he stares at me across the space! Do you suppose that such a thing could be . . . That I'm as queer to him as he to me? — Claire Goodell in Chicago Tribune Line 0' Type. With its back almost against the south wall of the Field Museum, stands SOLDIER FIELD, an open amphitheater in whose oval lap, can sit a hundred thousand spectators. There also, on a somewhat chilly night, occupying a $35 seat far from the center, with about 145,000 other spectators, I watched John Dempsey and John J. Tunney fight for the world's heavyweight boxing championship; and when Tunney, on the west side of the ring in that immortal seventh round, slowly slid down against the ropes, caught himself with a struggle on the lower round, and sat on the floor looking up with a puzzling expression at the crouching Dempsey (alas, Dempsey should have rushed to a neutral corner instead of crouching in anticipation of the return of a crown), I went up on my feet with the vast mob, and all of us shouted in a prolonged cry hysterically, for what seemed minutes but was only a few seconds (how many seconds has become one of the unsettled questions of fightdom for the next hundred years). Likely I shall go to my grave with no other instant of time so finely engraved upon my memory as is this super etching. Aross the waters from the Field Museum is a manufactured island. In 1930 on numerous occasions, I and my companion C.M.B., wearing Adam's bathing suit, swam in the waters. At last the police lay in wait for us and we swam there no more. The nurses of St. Luke's hospital a half-mile away had complained. A few months later I chanced to be in the hospital and looking toward our old swimming hole, my keen eyesight could not distinguish any details. The nurses had enjoyed their fun thru field glasses! Today this bathing of satyrs would be a moment's sport for the crowd and an arrest for the police — as the spot was in the center of CHICAGO THE PAGAN— Page 147 World's Fair activities and later, by the side of an incessantly traveled boulevard. As the years come, new buildings, new scenes, new wonders will appear along the lake's edge, just as sixty years ago the Illinois Central Railroad advertised that it brot its passengers into Chicago over the waters of Lake Michigan. It did, but today it is an inland thorofare. Motorboats race up and down the waters within shadow of the Loop. Hydroplanes land and take flight at the foot of the Aquarium. Sailboats flutter like white cabbage butterflies along the lake's border. Long boats move with their bellies full of ore or wheat in the far east distance near where horizon and water marry. Along this water's edge, within the next half century, will be gathered the world's greatest playground, architectural achieve- ments, landscape effects, and busy city projects— an opportunity Chicagoans should seize upon instantly, laying plans now for glories we ourselves shall not live to see. CHAPTER 49 THE WORLD'S GREATEST STREET E — Greek Architecture as Interpreted by Chicago AUTHOR'S NOTE — This chapter was written at our special request by the artist tvhose illustrations are to this book as colors are to the waters of Buckingham fountain at night. Miss Chapin writes with the lure of lucidity about a subject which too often is hazy in its details in the average mind. In truth, ive "learned about columns" when we read this chapter. Out on the lake front, as tho aloof from the pagan soul of Chicago, quietly and proudly stands a group of buildings patterned after Greek architecture. Page 148— CHICAGO THE PAGAN The Greeks liked to place their heautiful public buildings on the tops of hills to show them off. Chicago could not do that, but she did the next best thing in allotting them space apart from the skyscrapers and conglomeration of other types of architecture — out in the open where they can be seen and appreciated from a distance. There are two buildings in the 'Soldier Field group" which in purpose as well as situation fit in as nearly as Chicago could make them with the Greek idea — the Field Museum and Soldier Field. The Field Museum is in both idea and form a monument to history. The fact that it is not pure in design (being a mixture of two of the three distinct Greek styles) does not mar its beauty. To these two styles the architect very wisely added a large but very low flat porch and greatly broadened the proportion of the steps in order to unify the building with its setting. The three distinct units in this building are a definitely Greek feature. The Greek liked to use units of three in construction, probably because his sensitiveness to symmetry told him that it was easier to center the interest with an odd number than with an even number. Another point worthy of notice is the double row of columns in front of the door. The effect is a deep shadow, and its raison d'etre the similar shadow present in Greek temples due to the absence of doors. It is said that the Greeks never put in anything without a purpose, and this is the reason given for their architecture having the consideration that it has today. Whether or not this could be said of the Field Museum is almost a matter of personal opinion, but certainly it would be hard to single out any one element or member and say, "This does not belong in this building." Directly south of the Field Museum, Soldier Field also rather pleasingly combines purpose with architectural style, for what could be more appropriate than Greek architecture for a place of contest for strength and exhibition of outdoor life? One feature of this structure which is incongruous with the Greek idea is the open colonnades, as the Greek felt that a building lacked unity if much background could be seen thru the construction. In the case of Soldier Field, however, the colonnades are high enough so that they seem to work out quite well. The curved and slightly tapering columns of the Shedd Aquarium hint at Greek logic, for it is possible that the form of these columns (the earliest of Greek column styles) was inspired by the beauty of ;he tapering trees in nature. The central portion of the building as seen from the western approach holds strongly and ruggedly to the early Greek style (known as Doric), but the rest of the building is, to say the least, an odd form to combine with the simplicity of tin- approach. In another part of the citj stands a relic ol Chicago's first World's Fair — the old Fine Arts building, now known as the Rosenwald Museum of Science and Industry. Much of the same discussion applies to it as to the Field Museum. The proportions however are slightly different, each fitting its own location, the horizontal being more emphasized in the Field Museum. CHICAGO THE PAGAN— Page 149 CHAPTER 50 BUTCHER FOR THE WORLD About the year 1848 John B. Sherman built the Old Bull's Head Stock Yards at Madison and Ogden, outside the then city limits. The noses of neighbors decided for him that he would move the yards so far south into the country that their olfactory nerves could not be offended. Down between Fortieth and Forty-seventh Streets and Halsted and Ashland Streets where mosquitoes marshaled their armies and bullfrogs their choirs, Mr. Sherman, in 1865, founded the Union Stock Yards and Transfer Company. Today it is in the heart of the southwest, with ten miles of city still farther south. // one is to name the hit-and-run features of Chicago, and exclusively dis- tinctive to it, he can call out — "Miles of lake front, thousands of railroad tracks, breezy hospitality, and the world's largest butcher shop." Three of those spring from the common background of the prairies and Chi- cago's location as the central meeting place of the boundless west and the boundaries of the East. Chicago has remained essentially western and has retained the no-questions-asked hospitality so innate with the west. And the railroads, the real tamers of the cowboys and the shanty towns, started the coastward trek from Chicago. The wealth of the west for years was not gold nor grain but meat on the hoof altho today it is grain on the hoof. And the railroads brot the four-legged gold to Chicago as the killing and re-shipping point to the East and the rest of the ivorld. Today the square mile John Sherman laid out for slaughter houses is still the most Chicagoesque region, the most suggestive of the early days, and still truly western. A thousand checkerboards of wooden pens meets the eye; the smells are exhilarating to a true outdoorsrnan; men still ride horses up and down the narrow streets in expert cowboy fashion, directing traffic and super- vising the moving of stock; and the shops and hotels in the area are of the first order and yet as welcoming as a crossroads store in Wyoming. The stock yards district has two distinct sections — the stock yards proper or the pens for animals. This is owned by the Union Stock Yards and Transfer Company. Here each day the packers buy their stock in open market. The other section is Packingtown, the houses of actual slaughter. Page 150— CHICAGO THE PAGAN THE PACKING FLAMS ARE SEX-HATERS. THEY SLAUGH- TER AND TACK AND SELL CASTRATED ANIMALS ALMOST ENTIRELY, AM) WITH PREFERENCE TO THE MALE SEX. FEW BULLS AND COWS ARE SLAUGHTERED; THE STEER FURNISHES 90% OF ALL BEEF'. THE WETHER, NOT THE RAM AND EWE GIVE US OUR MUTTON. THE CAFON IS THE TASTIER AMONG RABBITS AND CHICKENS. THE BARROW IS THE BEST PORK. The cattle are driven into a long pen but wide enough for two only. No shot of gun is heard anywhere in the stockyards. A heavy sledge stuns the beef; it sinks to its knees; a trapdoor rises and the beef falls to the floor of the slaughter house. The hind legs are chained to an overhead railway that carries the beef along, head down. A knife finds the throat, and while the blood gushes forth, the beef gasps out the last breath of life — a sight not for the sensitive and the vegetarians. The beef is flayed. The head, tail, legs and entrails disappear within a few minutes. Strongarmed men with sure aim cleave the carcass into the different parts as it passes on the moving hook. Twenty minutes after the thud of the sledge, the beef has passed thru forty- two hands and is hanging in the cooler. The life story of Phil the "con steer" deserves telling. His glory was won in the nineties. Little did one think as he observed the large, soulful eyes and the winning disposition, that he was looking upon a bovine Judas. His was the task to lead his unsuspecting fellows to the sledge. They followed him and when the fatal spot was reached, Phil saw something down a side trail that attracted his attention. No sooner had he started to inspect it than his fellows sank on their knees, stunned and gasping. But one day — for Phil was growing old and fat — the trick was turned, and in the twinkling of an eye the sledge found its mark and Phil rolled to the floor of the slaughter house, as heavy a load as it had carried in many days. His last words were (that is, if he could have spoken): "Alas! just as I suspected; there is no honor among thieves." A certain party at the Yards, Mr. F (for fat) Porker wishes all mankind were of the stock of Israel. Fifty hogs are driven into a small pen, and while they are listening to the crack of the whip, a chain is slipped around one of the hindlegs. The other end is fastened to a high revolving wheel. The frightened hog squeals until the rush of blood down into his head silences him. He is whirled to an overhead railway. A knife sinks into his CHICAGO THE PAGAN— Page 151 breast. A brief but high-pitched squeal, a squirt of blood, groans of misery that shake his body from the inside to the outside — and he is floated in a tank of steaming water, not yet still. Automatic scrapers shave him; the cars and legs are removed by hand; one blow severs the head. He is washed; government inspectors examine the glands and viscera for pus and tuberculosis. Thereupon he is gathered unto his mates in the cooler. After thirty-six hours in cold purgatory, he begins a second journey and ends it in space, for he disappears into shoulders, sides, hams, loins, sausage, and lard. His feet are pickled; so are his ears and tail. '"Kosher killing" means literally "clean killing," and is practiced by the orthodox Jews. On 2 August 1940 a news dispatch from Berlin stated that Germany forbade kosher killing in lands under its domain, on the ground of cruelty. Rabbis kill the animal (steer or sheep) by sticking with the knife. The Mosaic law is followed to the letter. The knife must be of steel, sixteen inches long, not a nick in it. There must be a full forward thrust and a half stroke backward. The meat hangs for five days, washed by the rabbi each day, and blessed when it leaves the cooler. The packing houses pack all. Hollow horns are steamed and sold. Tongues are pickled or sliced. Brains are sold to the butcher. Neat's foot oil comes from the bones of the head. The shankbones are planed into knife handles. The ankle and knee bones are used in sugar-refining. Out of the hoofs come gelatine and glue. The liver saves lives from death of anemia. The intestines give forth music from stringed instruments or hold closed the surgeon's incisions. Other intestines become casings for sausage. Tails are converted into soup. The meat portions of the head and the feet become head cheese. Fertilizer comes out of the blood and refuse. The thymus gland and pancreas furnish the author's favorite dish — sweetbreads. The scum from the water that cleans the floors is collected for axle grease. The delicate marrow in the shankbones ends its career on my lady's dresser as pomade. And still the end is not! Other by-products are soap, sandpaper, isinglass, buttons, tallow, ammonia, pepsin, glycerin, stock foods, bristles and butterine. The hog's squeal is now utilized, being put into cans by the heated air process for quick and ready use of politicians campaigning for office, and of officeholders explaining why they are indispensable and should be reelected. Pane 152— CHIC AGO THE PAGAN CHAPTER 51 THE GHETTO Chicago is one of the world's largest Jewish cities (350,000) ; New York (1,800,000) is the largest Jewish city. The ghetto, where most large cities of the old world quarter the poorer Jews, is located in Chicago on Maxwell Street west from Halsted for about a half mile. Hut this ghetto is not as the first one established by Pope Paul IV in Rome. There are no stone walls of separation, nor walls of prejudice to force the Jews to live in a marked area. Here they delight to gather of their own accord, whether they be poor or not poor, and to exercise their wits and enjoy the mental triumph of persuading a prospect to buy something which he really does not want or to convince him with burlesk sincerity that he has driven a good bargain in that he is paying no more than what the article is worth, or at least not greatly more. The best day for seeing its open-air market is Sunday. On Saturday, the district is fairly quiet and deserted, being the Sabbath Day of the Jewish people; about six o'clock, technically sundown, Saturday evening, the street takes on its noise of business. Pushcarts, stands, and market stalls crowd every inch of space so that an automobile scarce can pass down the street. A fretting driver receives only laughs and jeers. Sounds, sights, and smells suggest an ancient street of an ancient city. Business is the god of the ghetto; the slogan of the temple is "I sell cheap." A dilapidated baby cart may be the warehouse and salesroom of a peddler. For a penny there can be purchased a glass of soda water, a piece of candy, a sack of dried pumpkin seeds, an enormous pickle, or sweet potatoes cooked while you wait. All meat is kosher-killed. If you like home cooking, you can purchase some patty cakes, a sweet potato, a roasted ear of corn — prepared before your eye, and without the inspection of the city sanitary department. The ghetto is an interesting sight and its adjacent blocks a pitiable one. Poverty stalks the neighborhood. Disease dwells in the base- ments. Cleanliness has fled for its life. These slums exact the toll of low standards of living, — and over all is the politician and petty crook who controls a few votes and sells privileges. CHICAGO THE PAGAN— Page 153 The streets are the playgrounds for the children, who swarm forth from the nooks and corners. The ghetto is rich in the most precious of all treasures, human life, young human life. They play in filth and dirt — and are not unhappy. Postscript: Maxwell Street area has been invaded l>y Negro resi- dents; night bazaars are no longer. Only the daytime buzz is to be seen and heard. CHAPTER 52 CHICAGO POLITICS Chicago takes its politics seriously. The newcrowned king of- America, the voting citizen, demands recognition of his sovereignty. Out on the West Side wards, his throne may be purchased for a pint of two-year old whiskey. According to the official records, since 1920 the aldermen, the city council, have been elected on a non-partisan basis. But party labels still stick. Two strong contending political parties in America are the hope of our self-government, altho a hopeless one. Chicago is now Republican, now Democratic. The state is Republican with few exceptions. In the State of New York the Re- publicans come downstate with a majority to the city lines and capture the state offices; in Illinois the Republicans come upstate with a majority that knocks the breath out of Chicago's Democratic majority, and captures the state for the Republicans (but not so with the advent of the New Deal). At present Chicago is Democratic, with credit chiefly to the late Mayor Anton Cermak, whose strange death in 1933 will preserve his memory. The rollcall of mayors began in 1837 with William D. Ogden democrat, the first one. In 1855 there was a Knownothing mayor — Levi D. Boone. The term of mayor was one year until 1863, then two years, and beginning in 1907, four years. The William Hale Thompson or the Big Bill regime began in 1915, extended to 1923 and then resumed for four years beginning in 1927. He placed Chicago in the headlines of every newspaper thruout Page 154— CHICAGO THE PAGAN llie world, lie made politics more political than ever. Whether you voted for him or not, as you listened to him speaking with his booming voice, y<>u were impressed hy the man. He will remain long in political history as the example, of the wise, shrewd, dominating city politician, always aide to get into the headlines and be a martyr in the eyes of his followers. If you wish to be elected to public office in Chicago, do not run as an American. Every slate of offices is made up according to the map of Europe. Each nationality must be represented. For city clerk, for instance, a German is nominated to lure the German vote. For city treasurer, a Jewish candidate for the Jewish vote; for county commissioner, a Pole for the Polish vote; for a municipal judge, a negro for the negro vote; for Sanitary District trustee, an Italian for the Italian vote; for court clerk, a Swede for the Scandinavian vote; and so on. By the time the nationalities are exhausted, there are no more offices and consequently no one is nominated to lure the American vote. Chicago thru its south side negro districts has given to the country its only colored congressman. It also has placed several colored legislators in the state legislature and one colored lawyer on the Municipal Court bench. And today (1952) it is overwhelmingly Democratic. Oh shades of their emancipator Lincoln! We once owned a bookstore on the unwashed West Side. The polling place was located in the bookstore. After the close of the polls, the two precinct captains gathered in the room in the rear and going over the list of candidates, divided the offices as they pleased. For instance, the Republican precinct cap- tain said to the Democratic precinct captain: "Say, there's John Jones for state's attorney; give me 712 votes for him and you take 114 for your man and then I'll give you 699 for Bill Smith who is running for court clerk." Presslime Postlude — Alan E. Ashcraft, who introduced a measure in the 1941 Illinois state legislature forbidding vote buying and which became a law, said: "I have heard precinct captains boast of how many cases of half-pint bottles of cheap whiskey they had on hand on elec- tion day. They give the dupe a drink before he goes into the polling place, promising him that he will receive the remainder when he has delivered the vote." When a certain party is considerably behind in the returns, strangely the returns from certain wards where this party is strong, are delayed. When they come in later, there are just enough majority of votes from these districts to give the party the city or the state victory. CHICAGO THE PAGAN— Page 155 It should be remembered that for every voter who repeats his vote or lor every vote that is miscounted, one upright, honorable citizen is disfranchised. As Mr. Dooley once said — "Let anybody vote who wants to vote, but lets us count the votes." CHICAGO LIKES ITS POLITICS AND HAS ITS HURRAHS AND SHOUTINGS, AND ENJOYS THEM IMMENSELY. THE BEST MAN NEVER WINS BECAUSE THE BEST MAN NEVER RUNS. THE ONLY PERFECT GOVERNMENT IS IN HEAVEN AND THAT IS AN EXTREME DICTATORSHIP. On June 25, 1939, a Sunday of delightful weather, we were swim- ming at the 59th St. beach — 30,000 Swedes gathered at Morton Grove, just north of Chicago, representing 48 Svithiod lodges, and celebrating Midsummer Day, an annual Swedish festival. Two hundred German-American organizations assembled in the number of 50,000 on the same afternoon, at Riverview Park. Turn- verein groups tumbled and singing societies sang. Mayor Kelly was the principal speaker. On the same day Consul General Waclaw Gawronski addressed 25,000 Polish-Americans at Humboldt Park. Mayor Kelly also spoke at this outing. On the same day, on the west side, a man was arrested and lodged in the police jail over night without trial, on a charge of disorderly conduct — he resented what he termed slurring remarks about America made by an Italian. Page 156— CHICAGO THE PAGAN CHAPTER 53 GROUNDHOGS AND SANDHOGS IN CHICAGO — THE NEW SUBWAY After ten to twenty thousand years of living on the face of the earth, the biped mammal man has learned that the safest place is thai which most other animals have used as home and refuge from time immemorial — a hole in the ground. Up-to-the-minute warfare demands that airfields, quarters for fighting men, and important buildings be located in the side of a hill or underground. Chicago now has its subway — a uniform, encased burrow for travel underground. The earth lias millions of acres of open and unoccupied land but in Chicago and other large cities, holes must be dug into the ground because the surface is too crowded. The subway is additional ; all the other systems — street cars, buses, elevated tracks will be retained and used. The present project has the shape of a rifle butt with the Loop as the firing chamber — hammer and pin, and just a part of the upper line of the barrel running south as far as 16th Street. The first route or top of the butt begins at North Avenue and Halsted, and by way of Division Street, runs on State Street to 16th Street. The west arm or the underline of the butt begins at Ashland (1600 west) and Division (1200 north), and by the way of Milwaukee Avenue, enters Lake Street at Canal (400 west), turns south on Dearborn, and ends at Van Buren. The total mileage is 8.75 miles — but the lower line of the butt — Ashland-Division to Van Buren, 3.85 miles of this distance, is not yet aborning, is to cost $27,400,000 (so they say and don't mean it for a public work in Chicago never has been constructed within the designated budget). The top of the butt, the first section, costs $30,- 000,000, is owned by the city but nobody knows who will operate it, for the city is trying to force the surface-elevated companies to tackle the job. At least 450 new all-steel cars for subway-elevated traffic must be purchased — they have not yet been ordered. Therefore, sit and wait — before you take your first ride in Chicago's subway. CHICAGO THE P AG. 4. \— Page 157 When both sections have been completed, there will be 29 stations. The terminals of the lines connect with the elevated tracks on the same coaches. Each station has a mezzanine room 18 feet below* the surface; buy your ticket here, then go down another stairway to a room 40 ft. below the surface; here you board your coach amid rib-pokes and hat-rim jabs. The subway holes are tubes — 24 ft. 9 in. in diameter, outside measurements. The tubes are parallel, for two tracks of course, but there is only one passageway: the tubes open into each other and the entire passageway has the outline — to return to our butts — of the barrels of a double-barreled shotgun — a level runway between the two cylinders at the top. Here is where a simple line drawing tells all instantly and better than a thousand words. The outer rim of the tube is a lining of heavy steel, then 26 inches of concrete with metal rods as ribs to reinforce its strength. There's a two-foot wide catwalk on either side — one for each track. The top of the tube (on the inside) is 25 feet below the street level. Most of the excavating was done thru the blue clay of Chicago's underbed, and only a short stretch by open ditch excavation. VI hy doesn't the ground fall down and in on the workmen, burying them'.'' It doesn't. Why don't the workmen suffocate? Pumps shoot air into the area where the sandhogs (workmen) are shoveling, swearing and smoking — enuf to give about 15 pounds more than normal. How is the tight earth loosened and removed? A metal shield fits up against the earth, about the size of the total tube: this is pushed forward by hydraulic pressure (8,000 pounds per square inch — you can't even imagine the force) ; it pushes almost a yard into the earth and the pressure squeezes the clay earth back through openings toward the men and the dug portion of the tube. It is loaded on donkey cars (not pulled by donkeys), taken to one of the openings on the surface and carted to the lake to make new acres of new parks for the city. We shall conclude this chapter in the next or a succeeding edition "pending developments." Later notes: The second subway was opened on 24 February. 1951. and called the Milwaukee-Dearborn subway. Twelve years to dig and build — actual cost S29.600.0IM). Add the State Street subway to this and the total cost was around $75,000,000. These cost figures usually are boresome but we must adhere nci asionall) to traditional mode- oi writing a guide book. The State Street subway began operation in 1943. Total mileage — 8.08 miles. Should be 80 miles. Chicago should be more mole-ish. Page 158— CHICAGO THE PAGAN CHAPTER 54 CRERAR — LARGEST PRIVATELY OPERATED LIBRARY Some tribute must be paid the largest privately operated library in the world — it has not any connections with governmental agencies. A Chicago dealer in railroad supplies died in 1889, John Crerar by name, and in his will bequeathed a sum estimated at the time to be about $2,500,000 for the "erection, creation, maintenance, and endow- ment of a free public library — for all time." Crerar realized well that a people who read many books of their own choosing are a strong people who can maintain their freedom. And so in 1896, devoting its scope to the natural, physical and social sciences, it opened its doors with a stock of 29,141 books; to- day the inventory is about 650,000 books, on sixteen miles of shelving, on twelve floors, and 3.4 minutes' time is required from the instant the reader hands his slip in at the desk until the book is in his hand, brot to him by dialing a machine like an ordinary telephone, which machine thereupon automatically picks up any book on any floor and delivers it at a specified place on any floor. Let Otto W. Hansen speak for the library (from May 1941 issue Armour Engineer and Alumnus) : ''Located at one of the busiest corners of the world, at Michigan Avenue and Randolph street, stands an institution little known, or entirely unknown, by the man in the street. From the outside, the fifteen-story stone-front building looks little different from any of its neighbors standing stiffly about in their cold dignity. "Inside, however, is housed the priceless collection of one of the world's finest and most complete scientific and technical libraries. Far above the blatant noises of the street are three large quiet reading rooms filled with assiduous students rubbing elbows with engineers, chemists, doctors — men of repute who arc leaders in their respective fields. "Probably few people passing by 86 East Randolph ever notice the inscrip- tion 'The John Crerar Library deeply engraved in large letters in the stone over the wide entrance, or see the bronze tablet at the side informing them of the nature of the institution. "Inside the entrance one finds a beautifully executed foyer with marble floor, stone walls with simple and restrained ornamental caning, und over all a beamed (filing beautifully colored in dull blue tvith conventional designs in gold. "At the left are three vaulted arches screened by wrought-iron grilles, fine in design and workmanship, like the entrance gates to a chapel. Behind these are the elevators, plain and utilitarian but dignified in design." CHICAGO THE PAGAN— Page 159 CHAPTER 55 CORRIGAN CREEK — THE CHICAGO RIVER (World's Narrowest, Dirtiest, Busiest River) Chicago, the wild onion land of the Indians, oozed swamp in every direction — this about the year 1750. What was then some sort of running stream, changed its mouth occasionally at the edge of Lake Michigan in true amoebic style. Shortly after the Civil War. much of the swampland was filled in, most of downtown Chicago was raised, and the jello-ic river imprisoned in its present channel, but with the strange change of reversed flow. Here is the one river in all the world which decided, with the help of human engineers, that it was doing things entirely wrong; so it ceased emptying into the Lake; exchanged extremes, moved its mouth about fifty miles to the southwest where it joins the Kankakee River to form the Illinois River, and send its waters into the Gulf of Mexico by way of the Mississippi River. But, as in animal breeding, there happens an occasional reversion to the old type of long ago; so on a day when the wind blows per- sistently westward, the current hankers for its original mother and. overcoming the fraction of an inch of drop per mile, flows back into Lake Michigan. The Chicago River varies in width from 60 to 200 feet; in depth from 15 to 30 feet. Large ocean-going vessels via the St. Lawrence and the Great Lakes sail its channel. South of Joliet the displacement of water is only nine feet; in other words, boats which submerge more than nine feet scrape river bottom and cannot navi- gate. Consequently the inland waterways, moving an astoundingly large tonnage from southern states, from South America, and from Texas, up the Mississippi, must use wide and long flat boats, scows without power of their own, but pushed, pulled or tugged alongside by power or tugboats. Page 160— CHICAGO THE PAGAN On the particular day we tell about — 29 October 1941 — we passed near 21st and the Western Avenue bridge, five flatboats whose large bins held vast amounts of yellowish green powder, the valuable sulphur likely brot from Texas; a steam shovel was scooping up the '"flower of sulphur" and loading it into the hold of the City of Wilmington, a Delaware boat which likely was to transport the material to some Atlantic port for forwarding to a munitions plant — an example of the low cost of moving goods on water. With our oldtime collaborator in many adventures. Myers Bardine, we embarked at the foot of Fuller street, just off Archer (about 2200 west and 2900 south) into B*s trailer boat — took off the wheels, pulled up the hinged half of the boat, fastened the bulkheads, and had one boat to which we attached the outboard motor — and we put-put-ed for the day, up and down the Chicago River and its dozens of fingers, slips, and branches, seeing the city from a new and different angle — from the river. It happened that we began our journey at the very point where the smelliest part of the Chicago river begins its foul existence. Bubbly Creek; at first we thot raindrops were falling on the surface of the water; not so — the decaying filth at the bottom was releasing chemical bubbles which pushed up to the surface. We sailed by the oldtime lumber district, along 22nd Street, which furnished materials for houses of all America in the days when Michigan and Wisconsin were being denuded of their trees. Steering left, near the Cuneo Printing Plant, perhaps the world's largest, we traveled north, under many bridges, approached the Loop from a new angle, passed numerous boats — scows, tugs, ore boats, speed boats, and at the Daily News dock, a boat from Montreal discharging a cargo of paper for the presses. An examination of the west wall of the Chicago Opera building was a delight; the stones of varying sizes run high in air — almost ten stories up, without window or opening, in suggestion of an ancient moat wall. The beauty of the entire structure, its far-inlaid tower, its straight, simple, forceful lines were enhanced by our direction of approach. Where the north branch of the river begins, we turned right and directly east, passing the spot where the Eastland boat disaster took its toll of mine than MOO li\es within fifteen minutes. Put-put-ing directly toward the Lake, with not a few passersby on the bridges stopping to wave at us. we were thrilled by perhaps the most unusual angle of viewing the Loop skvscrapers. The eye CHICAGO THE PAGAN— Page 161 was enthralled with the stark beauty of a number of buildings, a beauty Avhich the walker on Loop streets can not enjoy any more than can the walker in the woods see the majesty of a great tree hemmed in by other trees. The Merchandise Mart on the left was its usual picture of magnificence; but it was on the right that our eyes became ecstatic. First to greet us were the Chicago Times building and the street, the Builders Building. Moving directly east, next is the Pure Oil Building of rare archi- tectural beauty in its tower; beyond it, on Michigan Boulevard, the colored-tower of the Carbide Building. As our small open row boat veered to the left and along the river's edge, there stood out, in all the beauty of washed marble, jutting its obelisk top high into the sky, a veritable giant's needle, the Mather Tower, as distinct, and almost as lonely, as a single pine tree on a mountain top. The London Guaranty Building, scene of the first Fort Dearborn, is next to the Mather. Turning now to the left, as we crossed under the Michigan Boulevard bridge, the twin Wrigley buildings glisten with their white faces; and across from them, our eyes are delighted with the utter-Gothic Tribune Tower (after the Roman cathedral) and its northern neighbor, the Oriental-mosque structure, now the Sheraton Hotel. Proceeding eastward at full speed of motor (about eight miles) we passed under the Outer Drive Bridge, at whose dedication President Roosevelt delivered his famous quarantine speech. Then toward the locks at the river's end and the Lake, but turning north into the slip where the U. S. Coast Guard has its barracks. We tied up for time out to have a bite and a warm-up as the air was chill and damp; then back over the same course, with numer- ous sea gulls as our most common spectators tho I fancy they paid little heed to us. Usually they were perched on the top line of a structure, head pulled into neck, meditating upon what — we did not know. But strangely they always arranged themselves at equal intervals one from the other as tho the distance between them had been measured precisely by rule. Where do the many pigeons spend their time? A river ride reveals the secret; they crowd onto window ledges, under eaves, on cornices. They do not display themselves like their more patrician cousin the gull — boldly against the sky. Back to our starting port at dark and gladly so for we had no CHICAGO THE PAGAN— Page 162 lights and we were windblown — but happy over the possession in our minds of new and different eyepoints of Chicago scenes. This Chicago River, narrow, gleaming with refuse, and sulkily moving to the Gulf of Mexico, is no mean river in one of the chief reasons for rivers, that of transportation. Indeed it has made Chicago the fourth largest port of America, Chicago an inland city at the southwest edge of a lake. If you can visualize — which neither you nor we can do — a heap of goods and materials weighing 26y 2 million tons, you behold the volume of shipping in 1947, a record year for the Chicago port. This little river is 54 miles long, loops thru central Chicago and flows southward to connect with the Calumet Harbor 16 miles away. Thru the river and its connecting arteries — the sanitary canal, the old ship canal, the Sag Channel and the Calumet River, it becomes the Desplaines flowing into the Illinois River, then the Mississippi — and eventually part of the Atlantic Ocean — west meeting east by precise graduated gravity. CHAPTER 56 HISTORIC DATES ON CHICAGO'S CALENDAR 539 A.D. — Moundmen discuss desirability of subway under what is now State Street. 1000 A.D. — Headlines on Chicago gangsters absent from European newspapers. 1200 A.D. — Big Bill Thompson's ancestor jailed in England for attempt of his descendent in 1928 to "bust King George on the snoot." 1492 — Columbus unable to extend itinerary to include Chicago. 1673 — Joliet and Marquette portage thru Chicago. 1803 — Fort Dearborn established (Michigan Boulevard and the River). 1812 — Fort Dearborn Massacre (at Eighteenth and Prairie Avenue). 1833 — Chicago incorporated as a town and the election held in this year so that the Century of Progress could celebrate the event in 1933. CHICAGO THE PAGAN— Page 163 1835 — The last Indians, except cigar store redmen, moved out of the city. 1837 — The town of 1833 was incorporated as a city — then followed the disastrous city-lot boom. 1848 — The first railroad was opened. 1864 — The first Pullman car built. 1865 — The stockyards opened — and the memory lingers on olfactorily. 1893 — The World's Columbian Exposition, the first Chicago World's Fair — Jackson Park. 1918 — The first air mail arrived. 1929 — Valentine's Day massacre. 1933— The Second World's Fair. 1939 — Subway started as discussed in 539 A.D. 1941 — World's largest airport dedicated — alas, time flies; a dozen airports since then have been dedicated as the world's largest. 1944 — There was one day in this year on which nobody damned the Chicago Tribune. 1953 — Famed guide book, Chicago the Pagan, published. 1969 — Subway finally finished, subject to court injunction. Former Mayor Kennelly, still hale and hearty, arose from his wheelchair as the reporters interviewed him and remarked: "Wouldn't surprise me they'd finish it now most any day if we can get the pigeons out of the Loop." 2033 — Parliament of the Moon votes appropriation to send rocket expedition to Third World's Fair in Chicago, entire Fair being held on synthetic blanket anchored in air over the dry bed of what was once Lake Michigan. 2133 — For the first time in its history, the city of Chicago keeps expenditures within budget. 2233 — No skyscrapers in Chicago; all buildings and residences under- ground. 2333 — 'Citizens marvel at crudeness of past centuries as they read from a book entitled Chicago the Pagan, found preserved in a sand dune near a place believed to have been Gearee. 4033 — No trace of city known variously as Shekango, Chickagoo, and Shee-hog. Strange underground passages come upon here and there, labeled indistinctly as something like Soobaay. Piles of stone, iron, and debris here and there indicate presence of mound dwellers two thousand years ago. No earth inhabitants to be found in or near the area. Expedition returns to Mars taking with it some rattlesnake skins and wolf pelts obtained in the region. CHICAGO THE PAGAN— Page 164 CHAPTER 57 THE SOUTH END OF LINCOLN PARK Do yourself a favor — whether native or visitor in this big town of Chicago. Get up on a Sunday morning, have your French toast and coffee or hot cakes and coffee, then walk or ride to North Avenue and Clark Street, on the old Northside. As you look toward the narrow strip of green between the Lake and the streetcar lines, you'll observe a large, somewhat sprawling structure, about three stories high. We saw in front of it, on the Sunday morning in December 1950 when we walked up Astor Street to it, a hard mass lying on one side of the main entrance — it could be a meteor's air-frozen relic but it is a twisted mass of hardware as melted into a starfish of hardness in the Chicago fire. It was found in the basement ruins of a hardware store at State and Randolph. Opposite it on this morning, were about fifteen chain links of hammered iron, each about 2 feet long, 8 inches wide; the links about ll/o inches thick. These are links from the fantastic chain the American colonists stretched across the Hudson River in New York City to keep the attacking English warships out of the area during the Revolutionary War. We paid 30c to get into the building — open at 12:30, it closes at 5:30. (Weekdays, 9:30 to 4:30, hours arranged as are those of most of the people's public institutions, to keep most of the people from attendance.) The three floors are a wealth of historical data, items, trivial objects but big in historical attachment, pictures, house furnishings, original documents, the suit of clothes George Washington wore when he was inaugurated the second time (no, not in Washington — he never saw the Capitol Building or the city of Washington), the carriage Abe Lincoln rode in to his inaugural, the tortoise shell comb Capt. Heald's wife wore in her hair when the Indians attacked Ft. Dearborn (it was found later in the war gear of an Indian), etc., etc. CHICAGO THE PAGAN— Page 165 We doubt that any historical museum so well serves its country as does this. The items cover local, state and national history. After you've finished here — it doesn't require much walking — go just north in the park to the Chicago Academy of Natural Science, another of the dozen points of interest in the world's most entrancing public park. The St. Gaudens statue of the sitting Lincoln is just back of the History Museum. The small stone fort nearby is a burial vault of the Couch family. All this area once was a cemetery; all graves were moved except this family vault. It now is a lonely thing and those within must want for company. Just east is the North Ave. bathing beach. We were astonished to end Astor street at 1600 north (North Avenue) with a smack-run-into another sitting monument, just a stone's throw from the sitting Lincoln. It's a memorial to the patron saint of the dentists of America and likely of the world — Dr. Greene Vardiman Black. The inscription leads us to believe that all of us who have or had teeth, are indebted to this man, whose name likely is familiar to less than one-half of one per cent of the people. We started out to say that if you have only five places and no more to visit in Chicago, include the south end of Lincoln Park. Farther north you find another haven of sightseeing — a zoo, an open bird haven, the former home of the famous and largest of apes, Bushman (who died of hardening of the arteries), a conservatory or green house (why called conservatory is beyond our logical ken), a dozen more monuments, some swimming beaches, trees galore, a boat harbor, and in summertime, just south of the greenhouse, a conven- tional flower garden as colorful, large, well-arranged as any which Europe's century-old gardens can offer. See Lincoln Park, as common as its namesake, as colorful as its namesake, as worthwhile as its namesake. CHICAGO THE PAGAN— Page 166 CHAPTER 58 CHICAGO'S FORGOTTEN FIRE Fame is fickle; and a footnote on history's page often is a matter of happenstance. Two men rode thru the nite to warn the New England colonists that the British were coming, but we remember Paul Revere only. So, the 1871 fire in Chicago made world-history. Three years later the Chicago fire of 1874 repeated much of 1871, tho mostly on the near southside. On July 14, 1874, a frame building near Clark and Van Buren Street (449 South Clark Street) was on fire, and about ten hours later, by midnite, it had done more damage than the 1871 fire in a similar period. This FORGOTTEN FIRE destroyed almost every structure from Van Buren Street south to 12th Street (Roosevelt Road) and from Clark Street east to Wabash Avenue — 60 acres, 812 buildings. This 812 included 709 stores, and buildings, 89 barns, 8 churches, 4 hotels, 1 schoolhouse, 1 postoffice. Thirty-one four-story brick buildings were in the lot. \^ell, here are the balance — 126 one-story. 471 two-story, 21 three-story, 1 four- story — all frame or wood. Fourteen one-story, 99 two-story, 41 three- story, 31 four-story, 5 five-story — all brick, 3 two-story stone. This fire, destroying almost a thousand buildings in the heart of a city within ten hours, should have been world news; but we doubt that one out of one hundred citizens of Chicago today even knows of the 1874 fire. The city was so intent upon rebuilding from the 1871 disaster and perhaps so fire-conscious, that the second disaster registered little. Two unequalled fires in extent within four years gives Chicago the title of Fire City also. CHICAGO THE PAGAN— Page 167 CHAPTER 59 BAHA'I TEMPLE If you are interested in any one of these subjects — architecture, religion, beauty, you must see one of Chicago's prime prizes for the eye and mind. Journey north on the Outer Drive. As you leave Evanston and come into Wilmette near the Lake, your sight is drawn with fascination to a building which can rival the Taj Mahal in India for splendid and mystic beauty. This is the BAHA'I TEMPLE (note spelling). The pleasing dome is said to be the sixth largest in the world in diameter. Apart from the bases of the belief of the Bahaists, this center ot sightseeing drama has its entire surface covered with symbolism in lace- like pattern. But these mystic lines are not carved in marble; the millions of dollars needed for marble were not necessary as a new process of casting concrete was used, a process learned of while the building was in construction. Terra cotta was not permanent enuf; concrete solved a perplexity for the builder of the structure. But to give the eerie lumination, sand was not in the mixing; crushed white quartz was used. The eye now delites to rove back and forth over a cream-colored, smooth-surfaced area. White marble is not dense, wears away, and weather is its enemy. The Baha'i Temple has sought permanence befitting its universal creed thru the manner outlined. For unusual outline, for circular silhouet against the sky, for intricate ornamentation, and perhaps for an unusual religious creed — take time to see the Baha'i Temple by Wilmette Harbor, a thing of beauty, of eye rest, of mental pleasure, all in contrast to the puffing traffic which skims by its side every hour of the day and far thru the nite. CHICAGO THE PAGAN— Page 168 Our thanks to the Chicago Tribune columnist (and his employers) Charles Collins for permission to reprint Chicagoanian items. Clara Edmunds-Hemingway in The Line O'Type or Two writes of that un- usual, beautiful structure on Sheridan Road just north of Chicago as one drives into Wilmette. the Baha'i Temple, as impressive as a solitary haystack on a well-kept lawn, as follows, under the caption Temple by the Lake: Bahdi Temple, domed from gray to white, Is tipped with folded wings, all angel-wise, Symbolic of the peace of prayer that lies In sanctuaries, be it day or night. How intricately lovely to our sight, Few things more exquisite beneath the skies — A symphony to rest one's weary eyes Or fill a heavy heart with quick delight. Nonagonal, its delicate design, With infinite detail of wonder, shows Devotion from a people at a shrine. Whatever one's belief, religion grows When great harmonic beauty looms divine; Then blessing from God's heaven overflows. CHAPTER 60 LOST ARCHITECTURAL BEAUTY A sad result of close building in cities is to shadowize good architecture, and all the little departures made in walls, windows, doors, gables and roofs. As an aside — we hope that we have discerned correctly a tendency to get away from the almost insane objective to build into crowded areas, to erect homes and business structures tight against each other or with party walls. Cities should spread out; concentration brings high rents, poorly lighted and ventilated quarters, crowded traffic, delays, and above all, a new danger — that from bombings. Cities should be suburbs completely, should be small towns enlarged, should be areas of green plats, wide boulevards, not too high buildings, and above all, spaces for leisurely shopping, promenad- ing, loafing and sightseeing. CHICAGO THE PAGAN— Page 169 But back to our subject, which is hidden beauty of architecture. Hundreds of residences in Chicago — or any other crowded city, if placed on a green knoll in the countryside, would draw ahs and ohs from passersby — chateaus, castles, palaces, dreams of architecture! But most of them in the city are seldom noticed for their beauty; pushed as they are near to some other structure, their sides and rear utterly lost to view of the spectator, they languish in slow oblivion. We are meandering greatly but at last we have arrived at 1000 north, North Avenue, misleadingly named as are a hundred other streets in Chicago. The founding fathers have sinned greatly against us in their naming of streets. Western Avenue runs north and south. We have East South Water Street, West South Water Street, etc., etc. North Avenue is a main traffic street from the lake west to a score of livable, suburban towns. It was a favorite settling point around the 1890's for German-originated citizens. The Bavarian flare for cupolas, roof ornaments, and numerous gewgaws can be seen in the facades of the buildings. The shapes are varied — garden vegetables such as beets and broccoli, animal suggestions in lions, unicorns, goats, horses, etc., etc. In fact, there are many localities in Chicago where this late nineteenth century flare for ribbons and flowers in the hair is evident. Some of the efforts are excellent. Near our office building, in the 33rd and Michigan area, one comes upon building entrances adorned with designs, which if on some much touted European building, would be hailed as fruits of genius. We recall two lion heads, one on each side of the entrance to a building now a dirty, foul-smelling tenement, which appear to us to be excellent pieces of sculpture. The extreme trend today to right angles, straight lines, flat sides, and matchbox silhouets is useful, of lower cost, but surely not of greater beauty. The straight line never can hope to be as appealing as the circle. CHICAGO THE PAGAN— Page 170 CHAPTER 01 THE WORLD'S LARGEST COMMERCIAL BUILDING (World's Largest Privately Owned Building) The Merchandise Mart on the Chicago River at Wells St. is the world's largest single building for commercial purposes, having 4,000,- 000 sq. ft. under one roof. See Chapin etching page 55. It was finished in 1930, owned by the Chicago retail store Marshall Field & Co. This firm sold it in 1945 to the Boston business man Joseph P. Kennedy, former ambassador to Great Britain. The building is 18 stories high but the central tower rises to a height of 25 floors above the street. Cost of the building was approxi- mately $32,000,000. It required almost three years to erect the building. If you walk thru the building, there are 7^> miles of halls or corridors. The air-conditioning and ventilation system changes the air in the building six times an hour. There are 30 miles of air ducts. The 26 high-speed elevators travel 450 miles per day or around the world five times in one year. An average of 65,000 people use the elevator each business day. Ships can dock at the 700 ft. river dock of the building. Three hundred and sixty people comprise the maintenance force. There are 30 retail stores on the first and second floors; there are also a bank, post office, drug store, a restaurant and, of course, the 13 NBC studios on the 19th floor. The office space is for general use but, most of it is occupied by wholesalers, jobbers, dealers in wares and merchandise. If you are not too stuffed with figures by this time, the officials of the building states that a "freight train 17 miles long and containing 2,500 cars filled with merchandise would be necessary to carry the goods on permanent display." Here is another item which may interest you. "The Merchandise Mart has its own police force of 22 police- men, 5 traffic officers and a chief. These men are constantly on the watch to see that the tenants are not bothered by peddlers and solicitors, besides their regular duties of crime prevention. "From 6pm to 6am daily, Sundays and holidays, each tenant's door is tried every 1 hour and 20 minutes. The A.D.T. system is used in the building." CHICAGO THE PAGAN— Page 171 CHAPTER 62 DEARBORN STREET HAS TWO SKYSCRAPER FIRSTS Dearborn street, named after General Henry Dearborn and he in turn giving Chicago the nickname of Father Dearborn (we don't like it), has lost some of its glamor. That is true often with streets, nabor- hoods and areas here and everywhere; it may be caused by poor light- ing of streets, lack of new building, and shifts in trading in retail stores. Dearborn Street now (1952) is the subway street for the Loop. But Dearborn in the Loop has two architectural firsts. THE MONON BUILDING at the corner of Jackson and Dear- born, at one time was the world's tallest building, a distinction indeed, which in the days of the Caesars, would have made it first of the seven wonders of the world. Its height of 13 stories was the tops in tops, this in 1890. A year later, the building just across the street, now not too impressive, held the similar honor for a while, 16 stories in 1891, the MANHATTAN BUILDING, at that moment the latest achievement in metal frame technik. Chicago was a building city in the 80's and 90's. It pioneered in skyscraper architecture. Then it became so satisfied with itself because of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition that it slowly shifted into a group of people talking loudly about how great they were. This era has not yet ended as we write in 1952. In this regard the nickname Windy City is not too unfair. The mention of skyscrapers reminds us that when we were billeted in the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg, grand in scenery, sensuous living, and fertility of both soil and maidens, our host laughed long at us when we told him that our office, when we were in civilian life, was in a 19-story building (First National Bank Building) . "Why," he exclaimed, in full refutation, "Pah-rees" has only eight-story buildings. Im- possible!" CHICAGO THE PAGAN— Page 172 CHAPTER 03 SUNDAY MORNING IN CHICAGO'S LOOP The Loop has outgrown itself and has spread beyond its high metal fence of elevated track so that one terms all of downtown Chicago the Loop. Really it is not down but in every town and city, folks say down- town when they say they are going to the central business section. The area from Twelfth Street north to Division, a stretch of two and one-half miles, and from Halsted Street east to the lake, is the Loop. November is Chicago's gift out of the calendar. True, one may waken in the dark and dress by lamplight for the day's work, but the clear sky and bright sun, plus usually a moist south wind, bring a day of delight, even to the outlooker from the window. Snow seldom covers the ground and winter seems to be delaying purposely around the corner. In mid-November, the fifteenth, 1942, we entered the Outer Drive at 39th Street, traveled slowly north, and if we had not turned left, our car would have gone thru the precise center of the Shedd Aquarium. On this day the visibility was perfect (I do not mention the oc- casional but exotic fogs Chicago meets up with in November). The cream-white walls of Soldier Field, the Field Museum, the Aquarium and the Adler Planetarium appeared directly ahead of us like familiar friends waiting to welcome us. North to 1300 State Street for doing our errand and then leisurely driving down Michigan Boulevard to our office at 33rd Street. It is Sunday morning at ten. The corners are not islands of waiting pedestrians and cars as on a weekday. One can watch the traffic lights for blocks ahead and condition his speed so that none of them stop him. The walls of the buildings do not seem so high, cold and unfeel- ing. CHICAGO THE PAGAN— Page 173 And for window shopping, Sunday forenoon is best of all the week. Artists of display and visual seducement perform their tasks after closing hour on Saturday night, so that the new week's display awaits the early eye on a Sunday morning. The paraders on the Boulevard are not many and either are on the way to religious services or strolling for the unalloyed pleasure of the walk. There is little hurry and the opportunity for striking up a con- versation is favorable. Newsboys on the corner are apt to bid you the time of the day. It is the supreme dogwalking time of the week. Surely one need not hesitate to begin a conversation with a dog owner and his dog. If you are giving your own dog an airing, there are no barriers, none whatever, even tho the other dog owner is fair and of aristocratic mien, and her willing, adoring slave is intent upon tearing yours to shreds, as both tug at the end of their leads (and both of them depending on you to hold them back). The American habit of late sleeping on Sunday morning is as much vice as virtue. He who is up and about early on this day of the week sees much. He senses new aspects of familiar sights. He has fewer of the rabble to jostle him and contaminate his communion with nature, with his enjoyment by eye of the sights, by ear of the quiet, by nose of the fresher, cleaner air. The early Sunday morning walker is wise, selfishly so, and may his breed increase! CHICAGO THE PAGAN— Page 174 CHAPTER 64 THE BOWERY The bowery is short in Chicago, about six blocks on State Street from Van Buren to Roosevelt Road. One steps out of the world's greatest retail shopping center — at night the most brilliantly lighted street by city light, across narrow Van Buren Street and instantly is in a world of charivari and low carnival. Four burlesque theaters, wellheated as most of the performers are naked are crowded in one block and four in the next — on the west side of the street. The tattoo man, the fortune teller, the vendor of pictures of nakedness, the body dancer, and the city slicker ready to sell the Field Museum for a hundred dollars earn their few dollars by the hard labor of taking it nimbly from nitwits and college professors. "Be a he-man ; learn to shoot in the shooting gallery." "Have your sweet- heart placed over your heart forever by the tattoo professor." "See Princess Zula of the Sultan's harem." "Play checkers and pay only if you lose — three players at one time against the expert." "Step in at Uncle Ben's if you need money." "Only twenty-five cents for this hook, suppressed by the government." A worried gentleman steps alongside of you slyly; he looks back and forth, then speaks in subdued tones — "Say, Mister, don't look around: step over here out of the way; I've got to have some money. Here's a genuine two- carat diamond; now don't ask any questions! I've got to get rid of it. Sure, its hot stuff! But say, do you think I'd be offering it to you for ten bucks if it wasn't! Look at that, perfect! Oh, come on — well, five bucks then. All right — give me three bucks. So long." And he's away to the dime store to replenish his stock of imported stones for the next yokel customer. CHICAGO THE PAGAN— Page 175 WHAT IS CHICAGO? CHICAGO is a city where women should wear black gloves. CHICAGO is a city that gets its name from the Indian word for skunk cabbage. CHICAGO is a city where you must walk fast or else be stept on by pedestrians back of you. CHICAGO is a city of death — to more animals than any other city on earth. CHICAGO is a city of women of big hips and fertile thighs. CHICAGO is a city of more bloods and races than any other city in the world. CHICAGO is a city which has the deepest fogs of any metropolis. CHICAGO is a city whose climate is manufactured either in Texas or Hudson Bay. CHICAGO is a city of most nakedness of all in bathing season. CHICAGO is a city of gruff manners hiding a warm heart. CHICAGO is a city where snobbery is the greatest of sins. CHICAGO is a city of apples and Eves. CHICAGO is a city to be held up to ridicule but to be lived in for its joy of living, its heartbeat of sincerity and its men and women of lusty living. CHICAGO is a pagan with a Christian heart and soul — God and devil living happily together. 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