Beware the Ides of March
It's a chilly, blustery day here in Beantown. Noticed the 30-mile/hour gusts while walking part of the Freedom Trail.
The world was once a tiny place. Just go to any historical building, like the ones here in Boston. CL, Stepanie, and I used to go see shows at the Beachland Ballroom east of Cleveland. Well, the "famous" meeting room in Faneuil Hall is smaller than the Beachland Ballroom. I'd say, by a lot, smaller. The room in the Old State House that the Writs of Assistance case was tried is the size of a middling lecture room. Assuming that many, many people, relatively, attended that trial, or meetings at Faneuil Hall, that means that "many" used to be a lot fewer than it is today.
Favorite factoid of the day: Back in the 1870's, the City of Boston considered tearing down the Old State House, which was then run down and badly in need of restoration. (The building does set on a great piece of real estate, downtown.) The City of Chicago offered to buy the building, move it to Chicago, and open it as a tourist attraction. Lesson: There's not a hustle, not a single angle, that the City of Chicago ever misses. I mean, this is a city that dug a canal and reversed the flow of the Chicago River to drain its sewage through the Illinois River rather than into Lake Michigan. A city that turned the Great Fire of 1871 into an excuse to build one of the world's greatest architectural cities. A city that has one of the most ill-fated baseball teams, but that plays in the world's most beautiful sports facility (hint: not the Chisox).
posted by Number Three @ 4:27 PM
3 Comments:
Other little known facts about Chicago:
Home of the Smashing Pumpkins and adopted home of Wilco (JT orginally from Belleville, IL area).
Home of the only place I've ever sat inside a bar inside a stadium because it was too cold to watch baseball in the stands (the aforementioned Wrigley Field).
And home to the place where the CL begged, pleaded, and cajoled a female to become engaged to him.
(Interesting story related to that.
A few minutes after the female party agreed to wear the ring I thought we should call some people. I called sisters one, two and three and then proceeded to dial another number.
Fiance: Who you calling now?
CL: Emery.
Fiance: Who's she?
Don't forget Robbie Fulks!
I'm reading Devil in the White City now, and it's really interesting. I had no idea that the song 'People in the South of France Never Wear Their Underpants' started at Chicago's Columbian Exposition.
The Francy pants comment reminds me of something my grandmother, a lifelong resident of Chicago (1899-1980) and of German extract, used to say: "The Irish and the Dutch will never amount to much!" Those old Chicago immigrant neighborhoods were tough enclaves that gave rise to many ethnic jokes, slurs...
Speaking of the Chicago River, it was the site of a relatively obscure but very deadly naval accident in Great Lakes history -- the capsizing of the Eastland on July 24, 1915 during a picnic outing for Western Electric -- see http://www.getnet.com/~ksup/index.html My grandmother worked for Western Electric from age 15 until she retired in the late 60s. She was on that ship and almost died. It was a sort of mini-Poseidon adventure. She was actually trapped in the stairwell and grabbed the railing. Those who were above fell down and grabbed her legs and and dislocated both knees and one ankle. That ankle caused her problems the rest of her life - she was wearing shoes with laces and the laces embedded into her skin -- I ran my hand over the criss-cross scars myself. But she was tough and survived and went on to marry my Grandfather, son of Norweigan immigrants who had come to Chicago from Oslo (Christiana then) around 1890.
My father, naturally, was a life-long Cubs fan. I was going to take him to the World Series if the Cubs ever made it back -- that cursed Bartman fellow fouled those hopes...
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