1837 - Six Elders meet to secretly vote on whether to incorporate their settlement into an actual city. The final vote was 10-3 in favor of creating the municipality known as Chicago.
1900 - Chicago engineers complete the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, allowing them to reverse the flow of the Chicago River from spewing its frothy raw sewage into Lake Michigan, and instead sending it southwest to St. Louis. The locks are opened secretly at night, to prevent the US Supreme Court from issuing an injunction sought by St. Louis and other communities along the Illinois and Chicago rivers.
COINCIDENCE? I think NOT!
"Don't worry if they're Democrats or Republicans. Give them service and they'll become Democrats."
Richard J. Daley
"Da police ain't here to create disorder. Da police is here to preserve disorder."
Richard J. Daley
Happy Birthday, Chicago. What a past and present, and what a future we have before us.
We witnessed the shooting of a president-elect here, which took the life of Mayor Anton Cermak, we played host to Al Capone before he took his tax-based, public vacation. We were the railroad center which caused the adoption of regular, well defined time zones (except in Indiana. They had not discovered the clock yet, so telling time was a wasted effort) We amused America with the Super Bowl Shuffle, and tore hearts apart with the Black Sox scandal. Our hearts soared as high as Jordan's leaps, only to crash as he struck out in baseball.
At one point our police were so corrupt that when stopped in traffic, you could replenish office supplies by paying $10, $20, or $50 for a pencil, depending on how severe your infraction was. Even in the 60s, our mayor, the original Daley (Richard J., who started off in office as a Republican) bluntly stated, "We ain't ready for reform."
Gun running and booze industries thrived during prohibition, making politicians, police, and mafia members incredibly rich. When alcohol became legal, all three groups moved on to gambling and prostitution, and later, to drugs. We've had entire restaurants wired by the feds (Mayor's Row) in order to catch corrupt aldercritters in the act of bribery, ordering murders and more. We've seen magical zoning changes, where city workers build entire cement swimming pools, wrought iron fences, and other necessities of life for favored contractors and pols for free. We've survived the Hired Truck fiasco, where every single top aide for the second Mayor Daley (Richard M.) was indicted for corruption and fraud, and where millions were poured into the pockets of Richie's best friends.
Air shows? I'll show you air shows. We are now the home of BOEING, which still makes planes for a living. We built the first midwest commercial airport (Midway), and tried replacing it with the largest and busiest airport for a time (O'Hare). Daley Ver. 2.0 even snuck into our municipal airport on the lakefront after midnight, and destroyed Meigs field, which decorated Chicago's incredible scenery. (If you have never flown out of Meigs, you have missed the opportunity. What a view!)
What about other kinds of shows? The Columbian Exposition opened the world's eyes, and gave us the Ferris Wheel, as well as some fan-effing-tastic museums. Blues, Jazz, Classical, Opera, Punk, even that countrified, twang based crap that pretends to be music, all live and thrive here.
Arts? Chicago's Institute is a world class museum that I like to call home. And for are true spectacle, we even held a world class bar-b-que, wrongly blamed on the hoof of Mrs.' O'Leary's pet bovine. The resulting destruction was so widespread, that we created the first formal city construction code in America, insured that power, gas, water, and sewer lines went underground, and even talked France into building us a brand new library. We had the tallest building in the world, and even made room for Trump's ego to build his own corruption-filled sky-raper. Before his monstrosity, we built the very first skyscraper here, followed by the first steel framed sky scraper. Elevators became the norm, not a rarity here. Sears Tower, horribly renamed as Willis, still gives this city a district look not found anywhere else in the world.
Because of modern thinkers like Burnham, we built public beaches, parks and preserves, hundreds of them, including some of the bestest, greatest (fill in the blank)est of any waterfront in any city in any country. Chicago's lakefront is the most beautiful sight imaginable, stunning in every season. We also have the greatest garbageman ever, George Streeter. George squatted on a sandbar he pretended to crash into during a storm, (now called Chicago's Magnificent Mile) and (bragged about) collecting trash from residents for little or nothing. He claimed to have used this trash to grow his sandbar into hundreds of acres of prime lakefront territory. He even declared his independence from Chicago, proclaiming his land the District of Lake Michigan, and tried to blackmail and coerce others to accept his claims (his minimum asking price was $1,000,000, a princely sum for 1895) His personality was almost as entertaining as his claims, but he ended up in jail. Chicago finally extinguished all claims of ownership and sovereignty in 1915. the 200+ acres now host some of the most expensive real estate in Chicago.
Science? We split the atom here, with Fermi's help (using really small scalpels, apparently) we have several world class labs, colleges and universities, and several internationally famous hospitals and medical centers.
1968 showed America the raw side, with cops and hippies battling in the streets, while the Democrats met to select a presidential nominee. We may face something similar in May, 2012. Both NATO and the G-8 are meeting here in midMay, meaning that da police will be here to preserve disorder. Expect lots of arrests and video.
We have two lousy baseball teams, one fantastic point guard, a mediocre, poor football team (how does one trade an owner?), and soccer. We have a Catholic Church which was at the epicenter of deceit and corruption in the sex abuse scandals, (which also happens to be the largest landowner in Chicago, with assets in the hundreds of billions)
Bobby Fischer was born here, as were many Jazz & Blues greats and legends. We created improv theatre, and still do it better than anyone else. As for political corruption, Mayor Daley's son turns out to have a secret ownership in one of the Hired Truck companies. which earned millions in no bid contracts. We just indicted Beavers, William (Aldercritter) for fraud, who claimed, "I'm not worried about this shit. I'm the hog with the big nuts." (He blames Patrick Fitzgerald who targeted him AFTER Beavers refused to wear a wire to entrap John Daley (Richard Daley's older brother).
For one unique span, we indicted or convicted 1.5 aldrecritters a year, for many years in a row. The head of our gang task force turned out to be a spy for the gangs. Yet, the Old Mare Daley died in office, and his son Richie, died out and resigned. Once his lovely bride, Maggie, died, something inside him went with her.
But Richie left us the Bean and Millenium Park (which refers to both the size of the cost overruns, and the number of years it was delayed until being completed) The Bean is just plain effing cool. Stainless steel, and utterly fascinating.
I guess other people like this place, too:
Partner City
Paris (France) 1996
Sister Cities
Warsaw (Poland) 1960
Milan (Italy) 1973
Osaka (Japan) 1973
Casablanca (Morocco) 1982
Shanghai (China) 1985
Shenyang (China) 1985
Gothenburg (Sweden) 1987
Accra (Ghana) 1989
Prague (Czech Republic) 1990
Kiev (Ukraine) 1991
Mexico City (Mexico) 1991
Toronto (Canada) 1991
Birmingham (United Kingdom) 1993
Vilnius (Lithuania) 1993
Hamburg (Germany) 1994
Petah Tikva (Israel) 1994
Athens (Greece) 1997
Durban (South Africa) 1997
Galway (Ireland) 1997
Manama (Bahrain) 2004
Moscow (Russia) 1997
Lucerne (Switzerland) 1998
Delhi (India) 2001
Amman (Jordan) 2004
São Paulo (Brazil) 2004
Belgrade (Serbia) 2005
Lahore (Pakistan) 2007
Busan (South Korea) 2007
Tianjin (China) 2008
Bogotá (Colombia) 2009
Happy birthday, Chicago. 175 more years would be way too few.