"City in a Garden"

The "City in a Garden" Bookshelf: "American Pharaoh"

2006-07-25T07:45:00.000-05:00

American Pharaoh: Mayor Richard J. Daley- His Battle for Chicago and the Nation by Adam Cohen and Elizabeth Taylor

This is one of those books everyone thinking about moving to Chicago or already living in needs to read to truly understand how this city works... warts and all. Daley (the First) is a complicated character. In a period when other rust belt cities struggled with violent crime, population fleeing for the south and west, decrease in tax base, and dips in commerce, Daley kept Chicago above all that with O'Hare Airport, building huge expressways while still increasing public transit, constructing the massive convention complex McCormick Place, and giving the city the University of Illinois-Chicago. Yet, under his watch, Chicago faced it's worse racial crises ever (and barely made it through with a failing grade) and that we still contend with today, corruption abounded, voter fraud was a way of life, and of course the national embarrasment of the 1968 Democratic Convention riots.

For instance, when Martin Luther King, Jr. moved north to fight "socialized" segregation on Chicago's West Side, he found a more dangerous character in Daley than in fighting Alabama's notoriously racist George Wallace. According to King, Daley would "call for a press conference praising me with his right hand and stab me in the back with his left."

So naturally, this is a thick and weighty book to deal with such a complex, contradictory, and sometimes heinous, sometimes compassionate man. But because of him, Chicago would never be the same city and you can't mention the city without thinking about the him. He built Chicago up with great architecture, quaint neighborhoods, and a powerful economy... essentially making it the city it is today.

Buy it from Amazon here...
Support local business and buy it from Myopic here...

Jack the House: Early House Music and Chicago

2006-07-25T06:56:00.000-05:00

Interesting article in NewCity this week on a massive House music festival being planned for Chicago. The main thrust of the article is about House music returning to it's "Spiritual Home". And while Chicago is more famous for it's contributions to other musical genres, such as R&B (R. Kelly, for example), Jazz (Herbie Hancock, Chicago), Hip Hop (Common, Kanye West), Rock (Styx, Smashing Pumpkins), and Blues (Too many to possibly mention here), yet House music seems to be our only native musical format. (Some in Manchester, New York, and Detroit would like to argue this, but things like this always happen. And as a Chicago blog, we're biased.)

Now, we here at City in a Garden don't really know House from a home, (we prefer to listen to Sufjan Steven's "Chicago" on repeat at ear-splitting levels) but we can't help but to be a little proud of the little musical genre that could.

Back in the 70's, when Disco (an imported "art" form from New York) was so overexposed it began a backlash (culminating in a massive disco explosion at Comiskey Park, an event which will recieve an epic post of it's own in the near future) and people stopped going to the big clubs and dance music started going underground to the smaller clubs, such as the Warehouse out on Jackson Street (which gave the "'House Music'" genre it's name). Frankie Knuckles (whose picture appears on the top of this posting) began to "mix" one record into another, thus setting the stage for one of House music's signature moves. Another would be when a Sheffield man invented the "drum machine" allowing the DJ to play with the beats, slowing them down and speeding them up in time with the record to help move the crowd and interact with the audience in a way disco never could. But we're getting ahead of ourselves.

Another popular contribution Chicago brought in was when young DJ Tyree Cooper was so inspired by DJ Knuckle's use of Martin Luther King, Jr. speeches mixed in with the music that he brought in speeches from local Chicago pastors and mixed them in. Also going in was anonymous gospel singers, which would eventually become another house hallmark: the unseen, unknown female vocalist using vaguely gospel-esque vocal stylings.

The clubs were still too small for house music to reach the masses, but it was when local radio stations like WBMX 102.7 (Now V-103) and WGCI 107.5 started playing the mixes on the air, the clubs started to get packed in again, and a movement began.

Eventually, Detroit, and various towns in the UK would get on board and popularize it throughout the 80's and 90's (also giving birth to "rave culture" along the way). Because of Chicago, the DJ is now the dominant musical force in clubs around the world.

Don't Walk!

2006-07-19T22:42:00.000-05:00

According to "Urban Biker's Tips and Tricks" (an offical "City in a Garden" recommended book, by the way) "Don't Walk" Signs in Chicago will blink 13 times, and in New York a more abrupt and ruder 10.

Just thought you should know this.

Your Guide to Chicago Street Gangs: Ragen's Colts

2006-07-19T08:38:00.000-05:00

(Disclaimer: Again, not an endorsement of the awesomeness of organized crime)

One of the more notorious Irish street gangs in Chicago history began life in an inauspicous way (as a gentleman's baseball club) and ended just as simply (as the founding club of the NFL's Cardinals franchise). But the middle history would be one of the more brutal in Chicago's long brutal history of street crime.

Founded originally as a baseball team named "Ragen's Athletic and Benevolant Assocation", pitcher and co-founder Frank Ragen figured out a way to sell use of the team as extra muscle to the city's Democratic machine on their "get out the vote" effort. Typically this meant getting every drunk in a fifteen mile radius a costume so he could vote two, three, four, sometimes as many as 30 times in various districts in exchange for more free drinks. Or it could mean intimidating new immigrants and locals naive enough to believe that if they voted republican, they could lose their home or their jobs. (Refraining from making a current political statement). After all, in Chicago, elections are held in early March and November, so not a lot of baseball going on to keep the boys occupied.

During baseball season, when the gang was playing in one of the popular semi-pro ball leagues, bench players and members not on the team would mug, shake down, and otherwise harrass the people who came to watch the game. This would get them kicked out of many leagues where they hoped to attract teams of a "higher gentlemanly caliber". Yet these setbacks did not deter the Colts from recruiting over 2,000 members by 1908. This led to their motto: "Hit me and you hit 2,000". Probably a better marketing strategy than "Army of One"

But the thing Ragen's Colts may be best remembered for is the race riots during the summer of 1919. The gang instigated and led raids into the "black belt" in the west and south sides of the city, looting, killing, and injuring dozens without police interference. Rioting began in other parts of the city, and before it was all over, 14 blacks died, 20 whites died, and over 1,000 Chicagoans of all colors were injured.

And because of the Klu Klux Klan's anti-Catholicism, they marched against them too, clashing with the groups surburban members on more than one occasion. There is also record of 3,000 showing up to watch them burn a KKK hood and mask in effigy near the Stockyards.

But once prohibition hit, Colt member Ralph Sheldon started running bootlegged gin, rum, and beer. They even went so far as to begin hijacking Al Capone's outfit. But instead of fighting a prolonged war against the now mature gang, Capone wisely hired them on as enforcers and street soldiers in his bootlegging operation. Some former Colts members even went on to become high ranking officers in the syndicate and three of the participants in Chicago organized crime's most infamous day, the Valentine's Day Massacre were members of the Colts.

But some of the members still retained the club's original goal, forming a football club in 1920 known as the Chicago Maroons (after the club team of the University of Chicago), then they merged with the Racine (because of the street they played on, not the city in Wisconsin) Cardinals, then they became the Chicago Cardinals, then moved to Missouri to become the St. Louis Cardinals, and they are now currently the Arizona Cardinals.

The Drunken Prophesy

2006-07-18T00:00:00.000-05:00

On July 4th, 1836, a ceremony to begin construction on a canal was being held on the south branch of the Chicago River. Between the ceremonial toasting and Independance Day parties, there was much drink to be had. But almost everyone in attendence of the groundbreaking ceremony would call Judge Theopholus W. Smith's boast the most outgraeous. In front of several local reporters, the Judge decreed that within a century, the small mud-ridden trading town's population (at that time around 3,700) would grow to 100,000.

This rediculous boast of course was greeted with great laughter from the crowd, and one canal offical pulled him down to prevent him from making a further fool of himself.

However, the 1860 Census (a mere 24 years later) placed Chicago's population at 112,172.

The population within a century's time (1936) would be around 3,380,000, making Chicago at the time the fifth largest city in the world.

(Photo from "Flipped Out" via Flickr)

Know Your 'Hoods: Streeterville

2006-07-13T01:37:00.000-05:00

In 1886, Civil War veteran and former circus owner George Wellington Streeter had a wild idea. He would drive a barge of Chicago's trash out to Canada and create a lucrative trans-Great Lakes trash hauling business. But his ship, "The Ruetan", didn't get very far. Instead, it ran aground around E. Superior Street on a sand bar not far from shore.

The lakefront was often used as a dumping ground post-fire, despite the protests from the landowners along the shoreline. Yet Streeter actively asked for trash to be dumped along his boat (and a new larger one he also ran aground he nicknamed "The Castle") so that he could build up more land in what he deemed "The Independant Deestrict of Lake Michigan." Understandably, this did not make lakefront landowner Nathaniel K. Fairbank (who built a fortune making soap from the byproducts of the meat slaughtering industry) very happy. In 1889, he came to demand Streeter vacate his new "land", but this was met with shotgun fire and boiling water tossed by his loyal wife, "Ma" Streeter.

Various other gun battles would ensue over the years between Streeter's supporters and the Chicago Police, backed by the wealthy landowners of the "Gold Coast". Besides blocking their otherwise gorgeous lake scenery, Streeter would also sell liquor on Sundays, claiming his land was on no map of Chicago or Illinois, thus not subject to their laws. In 1893 during the World's Fair, he undocked the Ruetan and used it to ferry "thirsty" passengers to his pirate paradise on the lake.

But eventually, in 1918, Streeter was forced to relocate to Indiana, and continued to fight for his right to his land. His death in 1921 made claims to his land even more complicated as he was apparently married to two women at the same time, making his next of kin impossible to determine, and in 1928, the courts ruled for the city.

Today, the land where his ramshackle tavern and house stood on landfill is the location of the John Hancock Center, Water Tower Place, and some of the most expensive property in the United States.

Streeterville is bordered by Michigan Ave. to the west, Lake Michigan to the east, the north branch of the Chicago River to the south, and Lake Shore Drive to the north.

Happy Fourth of July!

2006-07-04T23:01:00.000-05:00

I'm a sucker for Independance Day. After Thanksgiving (enough food to choke a horse AND football! Awesome!), it's probably my favorite holiday (barbecues AND explosives! Sweet!). I'm also a soft touch for cheesy patriotism. Not the lame Toby Keith kind of patriotism, the folks-y Bruce Springsteen kind.

Anyway, here's a quote from the great French actress of the 19th Century, Sarah Bernhardt:

"I adore Chicago. It is the pulse of America."

See you tommorrow!

Why all the "Y's" in Chicago?

2006-06-28T19:57:00.000-05:00

This is one of those things that will probably drive you crazy once it's pointed out to you, and you'll wonder why you hadn't noticed it before. I know I did. But then again, as this blog can attest to, I'm a nerd.

The "Y" symbol that the city puts on just about everything (Lamposts, bridges, fences, park benches, offical seals, manhole covers, sewer grates, yada, yada, yada) represents the confluence of the two branches of the Chicago River as they meet at Wolf Point and become the major branch that connects to Lake Michigan. Wolf Point was the location of the

Da 'Burbs: Schaumburg!

2006-06-28T18:13:00.000-05:00

Schaumburg (Pop: 73,345) is located to the northwest corner of Cook County, between I-90 and I-290. It's unusual for most large cities and towns in the Chicagoland Area because it didn't grow up around a rail depot.

Schaumburg got it's start when (as legend has it, of course) from Trumball Kent of Oswego, New York and Johann Sunderlage of Germany settled near what would later be called "Sarah's Grove" (for the three women named Sarah that lived near there). This dynamic of "Yankee" (or English northeasterners) and German settlers continued until 1870 when gradually all the Yankees moved westward to Iowa and Missouri looking for more land and were replaced by yet more Germans.

Supposedly Sunderlage was a surveyor who came out originally to divide Cook County into townships and liked the land so much he sent for his family and word to other German friends and family how great his new lands were. The land (known offically as "Township 41") had no real name until 1851 when a heated debate over what the town's name would be (Lutherville, Lutherburg, and Sarah's Grove were all discussed) until a powerful landowner, Frederick Nerge slammed his fist on a table and shouted at the crowd: "Schaumburg ichall et heiten!" ("It will be called Schaumburg!") This is apprently how the Germans roll. (Schaumburg was a small region between Dortmund and Hannover in Lower Saxony, Germany)

A mere 27 miles from downtown Chicago meant that the sleepy farming community had a short trip by Oxen drawn carts to bring their products to market (down an old Indian trail called "Algonquin Road" which runs parallel to the Northwest Tollway on this map), but far enough away from the hustle and bustle of Chicago's exploding population and the problems it brought. Game was plentiful, the small village had several busy butchers, sausage makers, and cheese shops. As late as 1900, local boosters would brag, "We don't even have a jail!". The local language was almost exclusively German (The town's oldest Church, St. Peter's Luthern, would hold German services as late as the 70's), and local streets would be named after the immigrant's home towns and regions (Springinsguth, Biesterfield).

But after the Great Depression, many farms were forclosed on (Schaumburg was a little too swampy for wide scale farming), and many non-Germans moved in from Chicago and Southern Wisconsin. For the most part though, Schaumburg maintained it's Old World character until Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley and Illinois Governor William Stratton would change their world with three major projects.

The first of these, in 1956, was building the Northwest Tollway (I-90) into a major freeway which would link Chicago to the north, and downtown Chicago to the second major project, O'Hare International Airport. This major anchor, with a freeway to take cars there, on the city's extreme northwest side would spur development along the northwest corridor. Businesses quickly began to build further northward, and while Schaumburg itself kept it's village center intact (centered around the intersection of Roselle and Schaumburg Roads), they became pinned in with the third major project, the I-290 arterial to the west part of town. Designed to give suburban commuters even more options to get into the Downtown Chicago area, Schaumburg would be hemmed in and real estate developers began to buy up old swampy farmland from struggling German farmers (who's families may have been there for almost a century) to build massive subdivisions of single family homes.

The largest of these subdivisions was "Weathersfield", by one of the most powerful developers of the time, Alfred Campanelli. Started in 1959, and having over 22 phases, Campenelli built 6,800 homes. This would constitute 20% of the Village's housing stock. In 1968, Motorola would complete their campus along the northwest tollway, and two years later, Woodfield Mall (currently the nation's second largest mall by shopping area) would open along Golf Road.

Over the next couple of decades, population and construction would continue to boom, to the point where several academics would look at Shaumburg, Naperville, and Aurora as huge "sprawl sites" and make Chicagoland, and the LA/Orange County areas the United State's first megalopolises after the BosWash Corridor.

I just go there because the closest IKEA is there. Apparently, they also got hot Independant Northern Minor League baseball action, too. (Go Flyers!)

(Many Bothans died to bring us this picture. I'm joking, of course, but let's just say Schaumburg's traffic makes it a bad place for cyclists Also, I'm half-German, I get to poke fun.)

The Flag of Chicago

2006-06-28T03:11:00.000-05:00

Usually when you hear about the stars on Chicago's flag, you hear that they stand for "The Founding of Chicago", "The Great Fire", "The World's Fair of 1893", and "Exposition of 1933".

Well, there is more to it than that. Allow me to "geek out":

The White Stripes are for the North, South, and West sides of the city.

The top blue stripe represents Lake Michigan and the North Branch of the Chicago River.

The bottom blue stripe represents the South Branch of the Chicago River and the Great Canal which linked Chicago to western United States.

In 1917, when the flag was first adopted, there were only two stars. They stood for the Great Fire of 1871 and The World's Columbian Exposition of 1893. And each point on the six pointed stars stood for something too.

The "Great Fire" star stands for the great qualities of the city:

religion (In your face "Seperation of Church and State"! Then again, Chicago does have a ton of churches)
education (Thanks, CPS!)
esthetics (I feel pretty...)
justice (Unless you oppose machine politics)
beneficence (We're nice to people!)
civic pride (Hence, this here blog)

And the "World's Fair 1893" star represents the various flags which have flown over Chicago:

France 1693
Great Britain 1763
Virginia 1778
Northwest Territory 1798
Indian Territory 1802
Illinois Statehood 1818

The Exposition of 1933 star was added in 1933 and it's star's points mean:

Country's Third Largest City (actually in 1933 it was the second-largest but this was changed later)
City's Latin Motto ("Urbs in Horto" or "City in a Garden". Sound familiar?)
"I Will" Motto (Chicago's English language motto)
Great Central Market (Since closed)
Wonder City (No idea where this comes from. Looks like I need to do some research)
Convention City (Well, we have a lot of conventions)

And in 1939, they added a fourth star to honor Ft. Dearborn and the city's first founders. It's points signify:

transportation
labor
commerce
finance
populousness (We've got a lot of people! Yeah!)
salubrity (I had to look this one up. Apparently it means "Conducive or favorable to health or well-being". Drop that on your next Scrabble game!)

I saw in my research that someone thinks we should add a fifth star if the Cubs ever won a World Series. What? Are the White Sox chopped liver? I think we should have a fifth star for the 1968 Democratic Convention (this will NEVER happen as long as Daley's son in mayor) and the points could stand for all the bad things to we're sort of embarrased about, but not really:

Al Capone and the Valentine's Day massacre
Baseball Futility (White Sox went from 1919 to 2005 while the Cubs have been suffering since 1906)
The snowstorm of 1979 (Hey, it was so bad it drove a mayor out of office... really!)
Dave Matthews shitting on our city
The day they fired Coach Ditka and replaced him with Dave Wannstedt
The most segregated city in America and the current gentrification

In actuality, though, if we do get an Olympics, that would be cause for a fifth star... write your alderman now!

Queen Victoria, Mother of the Chicago Public Library

2006-06-28T02:39:00.000-05:00

In October of 1871, upon hearing about the disastrous fire that destroyed much of Chicago, Queen Victoria of Britian sent as part of a relief effort 8,000 volumes from private donors such as Benjamin Disraeli, Alfred Lord Tennyson, and John Stuart Mill to make up for the destruction of Chicago's public libraries. But there was a problem:

Before 1871, there were no public libraries in the City of Chicago.

Some private collections had "for fee" racks, and the city itself had some collections stored in an old water tank at the corner of LaSalle and Adams. But before the fire, the city had very little in the way of buildings dedicated solely to the arts and culture. Unless you count churches and taverns, of course.

This would change when some of the town's more prominent citizens would create a board for the formation of the Chicago Public Library. They built a large stone (re: fireproof) structure around the water tank, expanded the reading rooms, and had an impressive amount of books available for loan at the time. The thought behind this was to give Chicago's working class a place to "spend their idle time", rather than to fall to the temptations of vice and liquor. So to create better workers, the town fathers had to make sure they were doing something constructive when they weren't risking their lives at their dangerous, non-organized workplaces.

Chicago: In the Years 2010, 2016

2006-06-27T20:49:00.000-05:00

Psst... Wanna see what the Chicago skyline is gonna look like in four years if everything that's proposed actually gets built?

Then go here: http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=319055&page=1&pp=20

Trump Tower is going up as we speak. But the real classy addition (unless you live near there...) is the Fordham Spire. My first impression is, "Unicorn Horn"? But when the architect explained that the design resembled a campire, such as the ones the ones the first settlers and Indians would have on the shore of Lake Michigan, that got me. Well done, Santiago Calatrava, well done, indeed. I just hope it gets built and isn't just some pipe dream.

Speaking of future Chicago structures... the Chicago 2016 Summer Olympics Initiative has a quandry. We can't use the "new" Soldier Field for our opening ceremonies and track and field events, but we JUST built it and can't just spend the money to build a state of the art 80,000 seat stadium for giggles. Mayor Daley seems to think the NFL should give us another franchise (Quote the NFL: "fat chance"), but some are beginning to mumble... Should we pull an Atlanta and remodel this Olympic Stadium for baseball. And if so, does it replace US Cellular (built in 1991) or Wrigley Field (1914)? Well, a World Series championship, a mayor as a fan, and the fact it's not falling apart makes "New Comiskey" an unlikely canidate.

Add to that the issues of parking, growing neighborhood complaints during game nights, and rowdy fans, and well, maybe Wrigley does need to move, get refurbished, or something. And while they'd raise the ire of thousands, if not millions, of Cubs fans, I'm sure the Tribune Company would leap at the chance to get a free stadium, outfitted with spanking new skyboxes and ample parking.

Could our Olympic hopes be tied up in replacing Wrigley Field? I know I seem like a biased guy, but a great Olympiad could permanantly cement Chicago's name in the list of world class cities, and if that's the case, maybe the Tribune Company might have a rough choice to make. And who knows what demons could be excercised?

(Update: Looks like Chicago, instead of looking to replace Wrigley, told the International Olympic Committee that they wanted to build a temporary stadium just to the south of Soldier's Field and tear it down afterwards, the IOC was not pleased.)

Your Guide to Chicago's Gangs: The Vice Lords

2006-06-27T19:47:00.000-05:00

(Edit: I recently recieved an e-mail from someone who felt I was "glorifying the Vice Lords". Believe me, I'm not. It's just like it or not, the Vice Lords, along with gangs like the Latin Kings, or the Folks, are every bit a part of our history as the 1893 World's Fair or Millenium Park. And do I really have to point out the "Chicago Gangland Tour" bus that tells all the tourists places where Capone drank or where Dillinger was shot? This is also practical information to know if you're driving around a neighborhood and see a graffiti painting of a Playboy Bunny. Hint... they aren't really into it for the articles.)

Usually when people think of "gangs" and "Chicago", images of tommy guns, speakeasies, and Al Capone spring to mind. But back in the 70's, 80's, and most of the 90's, the crack epidemic hit Chicago hard, and many of the country's largest and most powerful gangs either called Chicago home or had major operations based here.

And during that era, the streets of the west side where run by the Vice Lords, Chicago's oldest and second largest gang. Founded in 1958 as a club in the St. Charles Juvenile Correctional Facility, and as several "club" members were released, they'd relocate to the Lawndale area of Chicago, yet once crack began to trickle onto the streets, they began to fan out to pockets around the city, as well as several Midwestern cities.

These "breakway" groups have several names ( i.e.- Conservative Vice Lords, Insane Vice Lords, Spanish Vice Lords, Undertaker Vice Lords, and the largest and most autonomous group, The Four Corner Hustlers, or 4CH, of Madison Ave.) and many have different "ranks", (Usually General, Minister, Lieutenant and Foot Soldiers) but someone who attains the rank "Universal Elite" typically gets respect amongst all Vice Lord groups.

Identifying Vice Lords:

Typical Racial Make-up- All, but mostly black.

Colors- Black and Yellow, sometimes Black and Red. They tend to prefer University of Iowa, Pittsburgh Pirates, and Pittsburgh Penguins apparel. However, my alma mater of UNLV (When spelled in reverse it means "Vice Lord Nation United") and Louis Vuitton (Their symbol is a large "VL") are common as well.

Various Symbols-

Playboy "rabbit" logo
Martini Glass
2 Crescent Moons
Circle with fire around it
Top Hat
Five-pointed Star
21 Brick Pyramid
Upside down pitchforks (sign of disrespect for their biggest rival, the Gangster Disciples)

Handsigns

For more info, read "A Nation of Lords: The Autobiography of the Vice Lords"

"I act, I move, I push"

2006-06-27T19:12:00.000-05:00

The French explorer Rene-Robert Cavelier, Sieur De La Salle (The guy "LaSalle Street" is named after) didn't have the highest regard for the Chicago area, (it was a brackish swamp covered in swarms of malaria-infested mosquitos) but he did have this to say about the commercial potential of "Du Portage de Checagou" in 1682:

"This will be the gate of empire, this the seat of commerce. Everything invites to action. The typical man who will grow up here must be an enterprising man. Each day as he rises he will exclaim, 'I act, I move, I push,' and there will be spread before him a boundless horizon, an illimitable field of activity."

Everytime I read that it makes me happy to live here.

(photo from Chicago Board of Trade, quote from Donald Miller's "City of the Century: The Epic of Chicago and the Making of America")

A Terrible Time to be an Orphan's Fan

2006-06-27T14:39:00.000-05:00

I grew up a huge White Sox fan, yet a lot of my friends are Cubs fans. In Chicago, this is akin to a Palestinian in Tel Aviv with a large amount of Jewish Isreali aquiantences, but we all act respectfully (to a point) to one another, and everyone seems to have a good time. But still, listening to my friend Zach list the many and various things the Cubs need to do THIS SEASON to turn everything around, I got to thinking about the time the Cubs were the White Sox. Well, more accurately, the White Stockings.

In the mid 1800's, baseball was an amatuer club activity until the Cincinnati Red Stockings organized as a powerful semi-pro team. Other teams in other cities formed their own teams to play them, and thus, the National Association was formed in 1871 (it included teams from New York, Cleveland, and... Ft. Wayne?) and the Chicago team (nicknamed the "White Stockings" for their, get this, White Stockings. Doye!) held their own pretty well. Up until the fall of that year when the Great Chicago Fire burned down their clubhouse and stadium and forced the White Stockings to play out the rest of the season in borrowed uniforms.

The rebuilding effort after the fire put Chicago baseball on hold until 1874, and in 1876, the Chicago team broke away and helped to form the National League under team president William Hulbert. In the early years Chicago, led by player/manager "Cap" Anson, dominated the National League (never thought you'd see that in writing, huh?), with five pennants throughout the 1880's. They bounced around several ballparks until moving into the $30,000 "West Side Park" in 1893. (Located at Polk and Wolcott, I couldn't find out if they had any skybox suites or not. Also, the "Bud Light Bleachers" were more the "Open air field where anyone could stand for a penny... brought to you by crushing poverty" Bleachers.)

"Cap" Anson, besides being a frothing at the mouth racist, was also incredibly arrogant. For this reason he was fired by team president and chief stockholder Albert Spalding, and sportwriters nicknamed the team "The Orphans" because they didn't have a set manager. In 1901, several players bolted for the American League, giving the Chicago team on the West Side the unfortunate nickname "The Remnants". In 1902, under new manager Frank Selee they became known as the "Colts" (if there was a baseball team named the "Patriots" back then, I wonder if they would've choked to them like our modern day Colts?)

In 1905, Spalding sold his interest in the team (Competition from the new American League team on the South Side, various player disputes, and Spalding's age made him believe baseball wasn't as strong a business as it once was), and the team became known as either "The Nationals" (because they played in the National League), The "Spuds" or the "Cubs" (because the team had so many young rookies on the team during Spalding's last season) depending on the sportswriters in the paper you read. Guess which one stuck?

Frank Chance (of "Tinker to Evers to Chance" fame) was the Cub's new manager and he would lead them to another great decade for Chicago baseball. In 1906, they would set the record for best record in Major League history (116-36) before losing to crosstown rivals (heh, heh, heh...) Chicago White Sox in the World Series. In 1907 and 1908, they would beat the Detroit Tigers in back to back World Series wins. It would be their last titles until, well, ever. This of course means we're only two years away from some "100 Year" anniversary patch of the last Cubs World Series Win.

In 1916, The team was sold to Charles Weeghman for $500,000 and they moved into the former Federal League team ("The Chicago Whales") stadium, Weeghman Field at 1060 W. Addison. In 1920, William Wrigley bought the team (in part to promote his chewing gum conglomerate) and renamed Weeghman Field, "Cub's Park", and finally in 1926, "Wrigley Field" (thus setting a precedant for corporate naming rights and beating the White Sox and "U.S. Cellular Field" by a good 76 years.)

Pink!

2006-06-27T03:00:00.000-05:00

Wow, big weekend for the unoffical "voice" of Chicago:

The CTA guy!

The guy that makes all the automated announcements on the L Trains has some work to do with a new train route going up (The Pink Line. I'll not point out the delicious coincidence of it opening during Gay Pride Weekend... and for someone so used to gazing at the CTA map for years now, this new, weird loop map BLOWS MY MIND!) and as a Blue Liner, I'm supposed to be geeked because it means double the service for me. Whoo-Hoo!

But still, I like to imagine the last couple of weeks the CTA Guy (who remains anonymous) was running around Milwaukee (his hometown) hitting raw sides of beef, lifting logs, and outrunning KGB agents through the snow just to get all ready to throwdown hot fire on some Elevated Train Speakers. He's like the Micheal Buffer of Public Transit, it's just not a big time event without the CTA guy involved.

I really am fascinated by this guy. He taught me the correct way to pronounce street names like "Goethe" (Like "Gurr-Tah"), reminds me to report to the CTA if I see something suspicous, and cracks me up whenever he says "This... is Grand".

Also, Hyde Park is getting special shorter buses (to navigate the tight little streets down there) so now U of Chicago students are literally riding the short bus to school (joke ripped off from Chicagoist.com), Ashland and Cermack are getting Express Bus Routes, all of which means this is a massive week in the realm of Chicago Transit.

(photo from the Trib)

How "Ashland Avenue" got its name...

2006-06-27T02:01:00.000-05:00

Saturday night I was riding the brand-spanking new "X9 Ashland" bus route home from the Intonation Fest. Sadly, it is my duty to report that they didn't break out brand new Hybrid Fuel Cell buses (coming soon! *chortle*) for this momentous occasion, but trying to ride this route has always been problematic for me (triple stacked buses seem pretty common) so any change seems welcome to me. Ashland Avenue, though, always reminds me of one of my favorite Chicago historical figures... Carter Harrison.

Carter Harrison, III. was Chicago's 28th (and 32nd) Mayor. His son, Carter Harrison IV, would go on to become Mayor himself (setting a precedant for the Daley father and son mayors) and both would serve five terms.

Under Harrison the Elder, though, Corruption ran rampant through the City Government (Corruption in Chicago? Clutch the pearls!) and vice drove a major part of the city's economy. Yet, despite all this, he was beloved by the poorer and more downtrodden classes. And naturally, despised by the city's more prominent business people and "moneyed gentry". Especially when he was elected mayor right before Chicago's greatest moment of the 19th Century: The Columbian Exposition of 1893.

He was flamboyant, outgoing, and spoke in a booming southern drawl. He originally moved to Chicago from his native Kentucky to make a go in the real estate market, but found his true calling in politics. Classically educated at Yale, but he was not above partaking in some of 1870 Chicago's "more colorful amusements." Often he could be seen by his constituents riding his prized thoroughbred bay mare, "Kate", "in the manner of a plantation owner looking over his acreage" (according to one detractor) around Chicago's streets.

At the close of the World's Fair, however, Carter Harrison, Sr. was gunned down by a disgruntled office seeker, Patrick E. Prendergrast. The city couldn't name a street after him because a downtown street already bore the name of his first cousin, twice removed: former president William Henry Harrison. So instead, new mayor, George Bell Swift renamed Harrison's home street, Rueben Avenue (Coincidentally, the source of the term "rubes" comes from this street because the mostly immigrant population that lived along there were often the marks of grifters) to "Ashland Avenue", after the sprawling plantation, "Ashland" in Lexington, Kentucky where Carter Harrison was born and raised.