Postcard Collection: Chicago
Published October 6th, 2008 in Oddities, Trash, Treasure Tags: History, Photos, Print.
I haven’t been to Chicago in over a dozen years, but I still have my memories. Unfortunately, most of them involve trying driving around the club trying to find safe legal parking for two vans and a trailer. So the next best thing for me are these postcards from my grandfather’s collection, some of which date back a hundred years, to the 1893 World’s Exposition.
Aside from the postcards, the closest I’ve been to Chicago recently has been through a book and DVD by “This American Life” host Ira Glass and illustrator Chris Ware, “Lost Buildings.” The DVD tells the story of a kid who’s love for the work of architect Louis Sullivan led him into the orbit of photographer Richard Nickel. Forty years ago, Nickel traced an ever-shrinking circuit, documenting the progress of urban renewal as it consigned more and more of Sullivan’s buildings to the wrecking ball. Increasingly frustrated by the loss of these historic monuments, Nickel finally met his end inside the old Chicago Stock Exchange building. Seems he’d been trying to rescue an ornate specimen of staircase railing from demolition when the floor above him collapsed.
No doubt, many of the older subjects of these postcards are long gone as well, and the ones remaining are not long for this world. Who knows? One day, I might actually get back to Chicago, create a circuit of my own, and find out.
Chicago has great history and much of it is being torn down, but the Congress is still there. I stayed there in 1985 when I went to Bluesfest to see Stevie Ray Vaughn as he was either getting back on his feet or they were buckling undeneath him. I forget which. Pouring rain. At the Congress the rooms are very,very small. Typical of rooms before the supersize me era. And there has been a strike at the Congress for the past several years. Here is an address to the strike website:
http://www.congresshotelstrike.info/. I thought that would segue nicely with the Haymarket card. And lastly, (sorry Derrick) my dad worked at the stockyards in the 1950’s as a carpenter and said it was very bizzare, as the Armour and Swift building shown in the cards, actually had freight elevators the size of football fields and they would be full of Texas steer, that rise up 7 or 8 stories to holding pens, and from the pens you could see the Loop. Oops, and I forgot the old Stadium…Blackhawks hockey is not associated with the counter-culture, but the few games I went to…the hallways reeked of reefer smoke between periods. Young Archie Bunkers getting high.
“Won’t you come to Chicago..” Nice cards by the way. Social history rocks!
Here is a link to a story in todays Chicago Tribune about a lost Louis Sullivan building just “discovered” on S. Wabash in Chicago’s loop;
http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/arts/chi-1014sullivanoct14,0,4938535.story
How you “lose” a building is hard to figure out…weird timing considering this postcard collection…
I’m surprised they can find anything.
Check out my website of old and many “lost” Chicago buildings. Hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed putting it together.
chicagopc.info
Ray –
Your site is so good, it hurts.
Thanks! Glad you like it!