Double No-Hitter

April 22, 2016 by Administrator Leave a Comment

Chicago Examiner May 2, 1917

Toney and Vaughn Give No Hits in Nine

PITCHING RECORDS SMASHED.

Only 27 Face North Side Hurler in Regulation Time and He Fans Ten in a 1 to 0 Battle.

By Charles Dryden.

Hippo Vaughn, the intelligent southpaw, was doomed from the beginning of this combat. He whiffed the first man up, a sure sign of defeat, and the Reds trimmed him, 1 to 0, in ten rounds, during which Fred Toney closed the Cubs out with nothing that looked like a hit. Neither side struck a safe blow in nine innings and each pitcher walked two batsmen. Hippo fanned ten Beds in nine frames, but Mr. Toney once heaved a rock across the Mississippi River at Memphis and he still has something on Hippo in this respect.

Something was bound to crack in this sort of a battle, and it happened to be the Cubs. The tenth opened with the popping out of Gus Getz, who got into the doings when H. Groh was canned in ths Seventh. Kopf broke Hippo’s crust with a single to right. Anybody is liable to bust a hit. Neale skied to center, and Chase would have done the same if Williams had held the ball. Cy faltered on this clout, and when he did reach the pill he spilled it on the grass. Kopf took third on the muff andI while Jim Thorpe was at bat Chase stole second.

Cincinnati’s Fred Toney and Chicago’s James “Hippo” Vaughn

KOPF COUNTS RUN.
Thorpe bumped a slow twister near the third base line and both Hippo and Wilson went after it. The pitcher picked up the ball and tossed to Wilson, who was looking for the throw to be made to first. Hippo had figured he could not stop Thorpe and was playing for the plate. The ball bounded off Wilson’s manly chest and Kopf counted. Chase came tearing in, but Wilson scrambled after the ball and met Hal many feet from the rubber.

That was the ball game, except for the formality of putting the Cubs out of their misery in the last of the tenth. Mr. Toney remembered about throwing the rock across the river at Memphis and opened strong by fanning Doyle. The esteemed Merkle died hard. He slammed a terrific drive to left that seemed bent on clearing the bleacher front for a homer. Alonza G. Cueto, the fiery little Cuban patriot, bumped himself against the screen and caught the ball. Hollow groans from the multitude still thinking of the rock and the wide river, Mr. Toney let out a fresh kink and fanned Cy Williams. This concluded the exercises, barring the post-mortem in the Cubs’ dressing room.

BEST GAME OF SEASON.
It was not a day for tenderly nurtured athletes to expose themselves to the bitter climate, and yet the Cubs and Reds reeled off the best game of the season. Some of the elderly experts said the nine rounds without a swat on either side constituted a record. Also, that Mr. Toney established a record aside from the one at Memphis. He pitched a great game in all details, stopping once to wave a soiled forefinger under Al Orth’s nose. In ten innings three Cubs reached first base and none ventured beyond that station. Two of these adventurers walked and one of them was forced. That let the third man on.

Hippo was even more tight-fisted than his glittering opponent. Prior to the tenth spasm the only Reds to arrive at first base got there by the pass route. In the fourth Heine Groh got a walk through his own individual efforts, but in the seventh Heine was obliged to collaborate with Gus Getz. A southpaw certainly is there with the goods when it takes two guys to get one pass. Groh squawked about something when the count was two strikes and one ball. Umpire Orth chased Heine and G. Getz got the rest of the pass. Kopf hit into a double play behind this walk, same as he did when Orth was passed in, the fourth.

VAUGHN FANS THREE IN FIFTH.
Vaughn fanned Chase, Thorpe and Shean in the fifth and continued the dusting process with Alonzo G. Cueto, the first man up in the sixth. Thorpe and Shean got it again in the eighthvand Hippo was so breezy he slipped the strike dose to Huhn and Toney in the ninth.

Fred Toney Wins Most Remarkable Game in History

BASEBALL history was made at Weeghman Park yesterday in that 1 to 0, ten-Inning victory scored by Fred Toney of Cincinnati over the Cubs. It was the first game on reeord in which both teams failed to get s hit In nine innings. A careful checking up of the dope book after Fred’s brilliant feat disclosed the fact that neither major nor minor league annals have any record of such a contest. There are several instances of extra-inning, no-hit games, but no reference to a game in which both sides went hitless.

A peculiar coincidence disclosed by the aenrch through the records is that on May 1909, eight years ago almost to the day, Toney pitched and won a seventeen-inning no-hit game for Winchester against Lexington.

It was this marvelous Job that brought Toney to the notice of the Cubs, who gave him his first big league trial, and it was at the expense of his former benefactors that Toney again entered baseball’s hall of fame as the first pitcher in history to win a game that failed to disclose a blow for either team until after nine rounds had been played.

In the almost 100 seasons of Major League baseball that have followed the Hippo Vaughn-Fred Toney “double no-hitter” on May 2, 1917, the event is still unique.

“You’re all a bunch of asses!”—

Charles Weeghman, after the game.

Hearst Building

January 17, 2016 by Administrator Leave a Comment

Hearst Building

Hearst Building
Life Span: 1911-1975 to 1990
Location: 326 West Madison St., N. E. Corner of Market Street
Architect: James C. Green

The Hearst Building
Architectural Record
1912

This structure is located at the northeast corner of West Madison and Market streets, and is a thoroughly modern, ten-story, fireproof building, having a frontage of 137 feet on Madison street by 189 feet on Market street.

This building was erected on the most approved lines of modern construction. Its foundations are entirely of the caisson type, going down 102 feet and resting on bed-rock.

The exterior finish of this building is of white enamel terra cotta and the walls of the main lobby are of polychrome terra cotta, treated with gold bronze frames and sash. The elevator grilles are of gold bronze in elaborate designs. while the corridors of the upper floors are broad and spacious, well lighted and ventilated, and treated in a pleasing manner.

There are six modern, high speed electrical elevators of the “Traction” type and two freight elevators that provide the best of service in this department of the building.

A commodious retiring room and lavatory for ladies is on the sixth floor, and the men’s lavatory and toilet and a barber shop are on the fifth floor.

The building was provided with the most modern facilities for heating and lighting and a vacuum system for cleaning is installed in the building.

The building has a large light court, 50 feet by 75 feet. Chicago Herald and Examiner are located in this building.

The building was also known as the Chicago American Building.

The Chicago American Building
1951

The Hearst Building
Chicago Examiner
1911

Architectural Record, April, 1912

tobey

SOME PEOPLE SAY that the design of the skyscraper is settled, in all essentials, that it is established as a “type.” Others as vehemently contend that what has been done hitherto in the design of tall buildings with metallic frames is provisional and tentative only, that there is nothing definitive about it. The “strict constructionist” cannot be pleased with a building that does not show its construction and exhibit its material. He will pooh-pooh the relevancy and validity of the current convention that the skyscraper should emulate the columnar division into base, shaft and capital. He has even been known to deny the postulate of the Father of Criticism that a work of art must have a beginning, a middle, and an end. There is another class of critics, who may be the same persons, who hold that the analogy of nature should be followed, not only in securing that decoration shall proceed from structure, but also in securing that structure shall proceed from function.

Perhaps the ultimate trouble with the commercial skyscraper is that, being by its magnitude, or at least by its altitude, a most conspicuous structure, it is yet devoted to the humblest and most prosaic purposes. Monumental by its dimensions, it is severely utilitarian by its requirements. There is no monumental idea expressed in it, or expressible by it. It consists of a series of cells in which the occupants do not properly live, but only, properly or improperly, get their livings. The only natural analogy to it is that of the honeycomb, where the “workers” at least sleep and feed, do something else, in fact, than make and store their honey. If the human workers did that, they would give more opportunity for specific and effective architectural expression. In other words, there is more of such opportunity in a skyscraping apartment-house than in a skyscraping office-building. There may be a difference between the apartments. There must be a difference between the rooms of the same apartment, according to their several purposes. These differences are architecturally expressible. But in the office-building the purpose of every subdivision is the same, and functional expression gives no scope for variety of treatment. The offices are all equal cells of the honeycomb.

The Hearst Building
Detail
Architectural Record

It is true that the designer of the honeycomb, to wit, the busy bee, may detect and provide for differences of function. So he does when he lays out his combined apartment-house and office building. The male bee, being a drone, or “clubman,” and reduced to the sole functions of consumption and propagation, is accommodated accordingly. The female worker, analogous to the clubmans’ wife who goes out sewing or takes in washing, is separately provided for in apiarian architecture, while the queen-bee has constructed for her a “royal cell.” Here, you perceive, is a natural analogy for the case of an “institution” which builds primarily for its own accommodation but incidentally provides stowage for a swarm of “workers.” In some cases this process seems to be reversed, and the structure to be erected primarily for the revenue derived from the workers, and only incidentally for the transaction of its own proper business. Such a building offers a chance for differentiation at which an architect ought to jump. His “institution,” his “royal cells” would naturally be at the bottom of the building or else at the top. Sometimes both, as in the case of a respectable newspaper-building, by which we do not necessarily mean the building of a respectable newspaper, though in this case it happens to be both, erected in St. Paul, Minnesota, some twenty years ago, that is after the advent of the elevator but before that of the steel frame, and thus limited to a modest twelve stories, of which the lowest is given to the counting-room, and the upper two to the editorial and typographical departments, the intermediate stories being available for rental. Here the Aristotelian demand fulfills itself without putting the architect under the necessity of making a factitious division, or even of hunting for a division, but only of recognizing a division that exists.

The “layout” of this building in St. Paul is, or might be, apparently, the layout of the Hearst Building in Chicago. But one looks in vain for any recognition on the part of the architect of the facts in the case. Looking at the building as a whole, it might be any sort or condition of a commercial building. It might be an office building, and then again it might be a department store. It is true that the Chicago convention of utilitarianism and practicality is followed in the disposition and the forms of the openings. That is now become almost a matter of course everywhere. Times are changed since a New York architect designed an office building consisting of tiers of two-story orders. The enclosure of two stories in one Order seemed to the beholder to be a device for giving the building scale, but it appears it was a device for avoiding the presentation of the actual windows as squares or nearly so, which resulted from the construction, and for presenting them as, the conventional oblong. It was an unworthy object and an ineffectual device, the proof being that the fenestration of the unregarded sides and back of the edifice in question, where the windows are left to assert themselves as squares, is more grateful to the view than the considered fronts, in which they are presented as “uprights” by an overlaid trellis of two-story orders. It is not on architect shows himself unable to reconcile the discrepancies arising from the conflict of the exigencies of construction and the exigencies of occupancy. That is what it would look like if it were left to itself. But in an evil hour the constructor undertook to be also a decorator. We have seen that his departures, in the interest of architectural expression, from the nakedness of his utilitarian scheme, instead of cloaking its nudity, add absurdity to it. Absurdity is also, unfortunately, the “note” of the decoration. Excepting at the top. The strict logicians have ceased to put cornices on their skyscrapers, seeing that the rainfall on the roofs is in fact discharged inwardly and not outwardly.

The Hearst Building
Entrance Detail
Architectural Record

Nevertheless, we may admit that a cornice, “in the present state of the art,” “tolerari potest,” if it be of moderate projection, and do not pretend to be a shelf projecting over and supported by a massive wall of the same material which does not exist. Also a parapet can be tolerated. It has a conceivable function in preventing the unwary from falling off the roof. The ornamentation of the present parapet is, abstractly, good, good in division, good in scale detail, and good in scale. But it is so rich and elaborate that it is in glaring contrast and contradiction of the wall underneath, which it makes to look balder than ever, while the baldness underneath makes itself look finical. It is a “purple patch” on a coat of frieze. Still, the decoration of the top, incongruous as it is, is by no means so bad as the decoration at the bottom, the lower three stories, the show-rooms of the department store. This section is decorated by a highly elaborate doorway at the centre of each of the visible fronts, by what we may by courtesy call colonnettes on the face of each of the upright posts and also on each of the mullions of the subdivisions of the bays at the corners to which we have already referred as standing on nothing. Much of the detail of this decoration is refined, some of it even “elegant.” But it is all, by its profusion, even more open to the objection of incongruity that we have made against the parapet than is the parapet itself. It is open to a graver objection. We have admitted that the parapet conceivably had a function. But none of this has any conceivable function. It has absolutely nothing to do with the case. Not a bit of it is “decorated construction.” Every bit of it is constructed decoration. The ornamental doorways are painfully squeezed in between the uprights, in a space evidently too narrow for them, and the uprights themselves are interrupted, in one case by crowning them, at the level of the mezzanine, with voluted capitals, in the other case with what may by courtesy be called corbels, projected to carry the projection of the entablature, projected “ad hoc.” But the most absurd and irrational detail is that of what we have called the colonnettes incrusted upon the uprights. These make no pretense at all of being anything but “fancy” ornaments. A cylindrical mass is stuck on to the face of the wall, embellished with spirals, whittled away at the top and bottom to contradict the assumption in which nobody will concur that it means something, and finally, after it has died completely into the wall and one would say ceased, it crops out again, below the floor-line, into one of such niched corbels as are supposed to sustain the entablature over one of the doorways. No “architecture applique” could more ostentatiously advertise itself as having nothing to do with the case, as being irrelevant, incompetent and impertinent.

It remains to be added that he who sees the Hearst Building only in the photographs sees it to undue advantage. The charms of the incrusted decoration are in fact enhanced by color’, by blues and greens and reds which rather aggravate than mitigate its excrescential character, and which also aggravate its inapplicability to the stark utilitarianism of the structure to which it is in fact applied. Whatever the solution of the problem of the commercial skyscraper may be, this treatment is not a step in the direction of such a solution. Most decidedly, this is not the way to do it.

The Hearst Building
Cornice
Architectural Record

Phenix Building

January 9, 2016 by Administrator Leave a Comment

Main page at Phenix Building.

Phenix Building
Life Span: 1887-1957
Location: 138 (now 111 W.) Jackson Blvd
Architect: Burnham and Root

Chicago Tribune, October 18, 1885

SALE OF THE MCNEILL PROPERTY ON JACKSON STREET—A GREAT OFFICE BUILDING TO BE ERECTED.

The negotiations which have been in progress for several weeks for the sale of the lot belonging to the estate of the late Malcolm McNeill on Jackson Street, Pacific Avenue, and Clark Street, just opposite the Grand Pacific Hotel, have been completed, and the property passed into the hands of the Phenix Insurance Company of Brooklyn, N. Y. The price was $100,000 cash. Mr. E. C. Waller of this city noted for the corporation. A considerable part of the money has already already been paid, and by the 1st of December the payments will be finished. It is the purpose of the buyer to begin at once the erection of a nine-story office building, which will be without a superior in the city. The lot is at present covered with shanties, but a note has been posted that they will be removed and sold.

Phenix Building
1887

The lot is 215 feet on Jackson Street and fifty feet on Clark Street and Pacific Avenue. The price looks high at first sight, but it is to be remembered that the lot is a very peculiarly located, being within a few steps of the Board of Trade, and one of the leading hotels of the city, near the “wholesale quarter,” and within a block of one of the principal railroad stations. The shape of the lot, too, is such as to concentrate value, affording as it will, so good light to all parts of the building to be erected. Owing to these facts, prices that have been placed on other properties in this city are no criterion from which to judge of the value of this one. The two principal tests by which experts measure the value of real estate are income and sales in the vicinity. There has been no income on this property, for it has bot been used. The only property in that vicinity which has recently changed hands was an inside lot on Sherman Street, which sold at rate of $1,500 a front foot, but property thereabout is valued at $2,000 or more. The McNeill lot sold at the rate of $1,860 a front foot on Jackson Street, but it is only half the depth of the Sherman Street lots. If the frontage were reckoned on Clark Street or Pacific Avenue it would be $8,000 a front foot. But the fairest way is to reckon by actual area, which would make the price $37.25 a square foot. This is the highest ever paid for property in Chicago, but is a good deal below the rates at which real estate often sells in other cities. Corner lots in best parts of Boston sell at $60 to $80 a square foot and New York at $80 to $120. The McNeill lot was bought about twenty years ago for $2,003.

Phenix Building Lobby
The Inland Architect and News Record

The building, the plans for which are now being prepared by Burnham & Root, will be none stories above a high basement, which will be about level with the sidewalk. The basement and first story will be of rough-hewn gray mica stone. The second story will be of brick, alternated with bands of the same stone. The stories above will be of a dark, reddish brown brick and terra cotta. On Jackson Street will be a centre pavilion, in which will be constructed the main doorway twenty-four feet wide, and two slightly projecting end pavilions near the corners of the building. On the centre pavilion there will be large octagonal bays from the top of the Pacific Avenue and Clark Street fronts. The tow curtains connecting these pavilions are treated more richer than the pavilions themselves, whose points of enrichment are the terra-cotta bays. The main cornice is at the top of the eighth story, which forms a whole balcony extending around the building and opening from the general offices of the company, which occupy the entire ninth story. Opposite the Jackson Street entrance there will be a group of four elevators, and behind them the staircases. The central space will be lighted from the south by court constructed of white brick. The central corridors lead east and west from this court. These, with the central halls, will be paved and wainscoted with marble. There will by this arrangement be a tier of deep offices fronting on the three streets and suites of shallow offices on the court to the south.

Phenix Building Entrance
“If beauty be its own excuse for being, this entrance needs no other, for assuredly it is one of the most beautiful and artistic works that American architecture ha.s to show.”—
Montgomery Schuyler, Harper’s Monthly, September, 1891

The plans as here outlines cover all the important points. There are yet some details to be provided for. The structure will be fireproof. Building and land together can hardly cost less than $1,000,000.

Thus this lot, which has been coveted by so many people since the Board of Trade moved to its present location, has been disposed of. There have been many schemes for its utilization, but from one cause and another they have fallen through. One of the obstacles has been the magnitude of the property and the fear that too many office buildings were going up. It has been intimated, too, that there was some difficulty in getting a clear title, but the title has been passed upon by four leading law firms in this city and pronounced perfect. The fact that the youngest of the McNeill children came of age the 31st of August made it possible to sell the lot under the terms of the will. All the legal questions were carefully sifted and settled, and the signatures of sixteen persons having possible equity in the property were placed on the papers, though some of them were asked for merely as a matter of extra caution.

Phenix Building Facade

The building was sold to the Western Union Telegraph Company in 1892 for $1,500,000. The telegraph company added 2 stories to the height

Phenix Building with two-story addition by the Western Union Telegraph Co.
1892

western Union sold the building to Frederick C. Austin in 1922. Austin donated it to Northwestern University in 1929 with the intention that the income derived from it would “provide scholarships for the training of business executives”. The building was demolished in 1957 and replaced by what today is known as the Transunion Building.

Phenix Building Lot
Robinson’s Fire Map
1886

Western Union Building
Rand McNally Bird’s Eye Views of Chicago
1893

Pneumatic Tube Mail System

January 9, 2016 by Administrator 1 Comment

Delivering mail between Chicago’s post offices at the turn of the century really sucked.

Chicago Tribune August 25, 1904

OPENING CHICAGO’S NINE MILES OF PNEUMATIC MAIL TUBES.

From today, the statisticians will augment Chicago’s list of the “largest things in the world” by the addition of its “nine miles long” system of pneumatic postal tubes, which formally was opened yesterday at the temporary postoffice in the presence of 500 federal, state, county, and city officials, railroad and business men. The first “mail” dispatched through the twelve inch brass tubes was a silk American flag. It was followed by a bouquet of roses addressed to Postmeaster General Payne. It took the mail less than three minutes to travel from the Twenty-second Street postal station to the temporary postoffice on the lake front. The first letter was addressed to President Roosevelt, and was signed by Postmaster General Payne, Postmaster Coyne, and Senators Cullom and Hopkins, who were present.

The first day of the Chicago postal pneumatic tube service: 24 August 1904
On the right Postmaster Frederick E. Coyne places the first bundle of mail into a pneumatic carrier; note its large diameter compared with European versions. On the left is R. W. Morrell, a pneumatic tube expert. The Chicago postal pneumatic tube ran between the post office and the Winslow rail station. The tubes were rented from the Chicago Pneumatic Tube Company.

The tubes just opened are 8.9 miles long and connect the new postoffice, temporary postoffice, Chicago and Northwestern Depot, La Salle Street Depot, Union Depot, Illinois Central Depot, Twenty-second Postal Station, Armour Postal Station, and Stockyards Postal Station. The Twenty-second Street and Armour stations were the first opened for the service.

The system is operated by compressed air, the mail being transported in large oblong leather boxes, metal mounted. The system was constructed by the Chicago Postal Pneumatic Tube Service Company, which will receive $119,625 annually for the service. The tubes greatly will facilitate the handling of mail in Chicago. Where hours have been required for the transportation of mail to and from the various stations has been dispatched through the tubes, the first letter taken out of the same bag will have been assorted and started on its destination. Delays created by the accumulation of mail as well as by its slow transportation will be done away with.

FROM	TO	MILES
New General Post Office, Dearborn, Adams and Clark Streets and Jackson Blvd	Temporary Post Office, Washington St and Lake Front	0.670
New General Post Office, Dearborn, Adams and Clark Streets and Jackson Blvd	Illinois Central Railroad Depot	1.020
New General Post Office, Dearborn, Adams and Clark Streets and Jackson Blvd	Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad Depot	0.570
Illinois Central Railroad Depot	Twenty-second Street Station	1.130
Twenty-second Street Station	Armour Postal Station, 3017 Indiana Av.	1.250
Armour Postal Station, 3017 Indiana Av.	Stock Yards Station	2.650
Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad Depot	Station U, Union Depot	0.430
Temporary Post Office	Chicago and Northwestern Depot	1.160
TOTAL		8.880

July 31, 1905

REPORT OF THE POSTMASTER-GENERAL.

CHICAGO.
The tube service is now working satisfactorily and is a feature of the service that has resulted in a betterment of the mail facilities. Fifteen minutes’ time is gained in the dispatches to outgoing trains at the Union depot, Northwestern Depot, Illinois Central Depot, and La Salle Street depot, after the usual time for closing mails sent by the screen-wagon service, and a corresponding gain on incoming mails from the same depots. About 80 per cent of the mails for the city of Chicago is received and dispatched by the trains using these depots.

The pneumatic-tube system at Chicago consists of three lines from the new Government building: To temporary post-office and Kinzie Street Station (Chicago and Northwestern depot), 1.83 miles; to La Salle Street depot and Station U (Union depot), 1 mile; to Illinois Central depot, Twenty-second Street Station, Armour Station and Stock Yards Station, 6.05 miles; a total of 8.88 miles, and has been in operation from September 12 and 19, 1904, between the temporary post-office, La Salle Street depot, and Illinois Central depot; from October 3, 1904, between Illinois Central depot, Twenty-second Street Station, and Armour Station; from November 28, 1904, between Armour Station and Stock Yards Station; from December 12, 1904, between La Salle Street depot and Station U; and from March 16, 1905, between the temporary post-office and Kinzie Street Station.

Since these lines have been in operation, and up to July 27, 1905, the reports show that 717,510,806 pieces of mail have been carried by tube, a daily average of 2,642,701 pieces, the transit time of which was expedited on an average of fifteen minutes, and advanced delivery and dispatch thereby secured. A system of under ground tubes entirely within the control of the postal service, used exclusively in the transportation of mails, free from depredation en route and the interruption of congested street traffic in the part of the city where the main post-office must of necessity be located, is worth more than can be properly shown in any calculation of minutes and money.

The pneumatic-tube system at Chicago is not fully perfected. Its first few months of operation have indicated defects and that improvements were required. These improvements have been given such attention by the contracting company and its officials that at the present time there are but few interruptions to the service from accidents or other causes. The character of the construction has l)een greatly changed. It is now the practice to lay the bends in bricked chambers, called “manholes,” so that ready access to them is provided, and manholes have been put in at intervals of about. 350 feet. Now when from any cause a carrier becomes lodged in the tube, it can be gotten at from a manhole not to exceed 175 feet distant, and with jointed rods force can be exerted to dislodge it or draw it back to the open space, whence it can betaken out of the tube. Thus instead of searching blindly for a “stuck” carrier, perhaps in a section of pipe a thousand feet long, with the consequent delay, the new construction allows an early recovery of the stuck carrier and the opening of the line for regular business without unnecessary delay. Bends of a better character are being used and an improved type of terminal receiving machinery has been invented and adopted.

The occupancy of the new post-office, about October 15, 1905. will remove a serious handicap from the tube service, as there will then be three lines of tube available to send the 2,642,000 pieces of mail daily, while at the temporary post-office the great bulk of the mail must be sent over two lines and unequally distributed between the two, as the northwestern line carries but 20 per cent of the tube mail and the line via the new post-office carries the other 80 per cent.

The postal officials urge the extension of the tube service to a number of additional large postal stations in the northern and western sections of the city. The tube service from the general post-office reaches north only 1.83 miles and west but 1 mile. The extensions requested (but, never installed) are as follows:

FROM	TO	MILES
Kinzie street Station, C&NW depot	Lincoln Park Station	1.750
Lincoln Park Station	Lakeview Station	2.250
Kinzie street Station, C&NW depot	Carpenter street Station	1.031
Carpenter street Station	Wicker Park Station	2.000
Station U, Union Depot	Station C, 112 W. Chicago Av	1.188
Station C, 112 W. Chicago Av	Station D (Unknown Location)	1.094
Station U, Union Depot	Pilsen station	2.031
Station D (Unknown Location)	Douglas Park Station, Western avenue near Twelfth St	1.460
TOTAL		12.744

Pneumatic tube terminals at the Main Chicago Post Office about 1910.

In 1907 U.S. Postal Inspectors issued a report covering the Pneumatic Tube Service in which it was stated:

This is the most expensive method of mail transportation in use at the present time, and the Inspectors very much doubt whether the advantages obtained are commensurate with the heavy expense.

As stated earlier the whole Pneumatic Tube System was leased to the Post Office Department, and the contract was renewed periodically. Due to this method, the Congress had to authorize the appropriation. Congress reviewed annual reports in order to determine if the service should be continued.

The Postal Appropriations Bill of June 30, 1899, prohibited any new contracts for Pneumatic Tube Service. This prohibition continued until June 30, 1901. Therefore, suspension of service occurred in all cities in from July 1, 1901, through June 30, 1902.

Some early Congressional limitations placed on the Pneumatic Tube System were:

Contracts were written for 4 years or less;
There must be a favorable annual report by the Postmaster General;
No contract could be for more than 4% of the gross postal revenue.

After June 30, 1904, renewals had to be provided for in the annual appropriations bill. By imposing these restrictions Congress placed a ceiling on the cost.

A typical pneumatic mailing tube canister. Empty, the cylinders weighed 18 pounds. Each could hold a pounds of mail, or about 346 letters. The Cylinders went 25 to 30 m. p. h.

In 1906 the pneumatic tube contract expired. The government was unable to secure bids in several cities. Their recommendation was for the service to be discontinued in: Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston and St. Louis; however, it should be continued in New York City. At the insistence of the Pneumatic Tube companies and because of the political strings that may have been pulled, the contracts were extended by the Postmaster General until June 30, 1916, and later extended by Congress until March 3, 1917. The final extension ended June 30, 1918.

A committee report to the Postmaster General October 13, 1916, found the following in relation to the Pneumatic Tube System:
Advantages:

1. High rate of speed between stations for limited quantities of mail.
2. Freedom from surface congestion.

Limitation and disadvantages:

1. Only five pounds of mail could by carried in each container; and all classes of mail could not be carried.
2. The minimum time between dispatches is 15 seconds allowing only 20 pounds of letter mail each minute. Therefore, vehicle service would be required to carry mail during heavy volume times.
3. The inability to carry special delivery parcels due to the size of the carriers.
4. The relays at station are built in delays but they are unavoidable requiring all stations to be manned and open during operation.
5. The inability to dispatch between intermediate stations during continuous transmission between any two points,
6. Inability to dispatch to railroad companies without additional handling.
7. Complaints resulting from careless locking and accidental opening of container in transit causing damaged mail.
8. Dampness and oil damage to mail.
9. Service interruptions block an entire line.
10. Congestion from heavy mail volumes.
11. Equipment takes up rented building space.
12. Excessive costs
13. Competition from new motor trucks, which are replacing the horse and wagon mail rigs.

In the end, it was President Woodrow Wilson who killed Chicago’s pneumatic tubes. Because the tubes served the U.S. Post Office, they needed federal funding, and not everyone in Washington thought it was a good use of money. In 1918, Wilson vetoed funding for postal tubes in Chicago and other cities. He said the tubes were out of date, and that it was less expensive to transport mail by truck. Chicago still used the tubes as late as the mid 1930’s.

A sample of a cancelled stamp that went through the Chicago Pneumatic Tubes at the Chicago & Northwestern Depot in 1910. Several different Chicago tube markings are known. One is a hand-stamp mark in three lines reading “N. Western Tube Sta.-Transit.” Others, such as “La Salle St. Tube Sta.,” ran as the bottom line in regular machine-applied circular cancellations.

Electric Scenic Theater

January 3, 2016 by Administrator 2 Comments

From Masonic Temple.

Steele MacKaye’s Scenitorium ranked among the great disasters of American show business. The Columbian Exposition Scenitorium was never finished due to lack of funds. However, the Electric Scenic Theater, a smaller version of MacKaye’s vision did prove to be fairly successful.

Electric Scenic Theatre

Electric Scenic Theatre

In the Electric Scenic Theatre (A Day in the Alps), Mr. Arthur Schwarz, Concessionaire, is shown something really wonderful.

The stage picture is a beautiful Swiss Alpine scenery, depicting in a realistic way every change of nature shown from dawn to night, as each gradually appears, and representing some of the most wonderfully realistic light effects ever produced by electric lamps. It is almost beyond belief that the visitor is not looking at a marvelous production of nature itself, instead of a picture created by an ingenious and artistic display of electric lights. The scene represents “A Day in the Alps.” Tyrolean warblers perform on their various instruments, and sing their tuneful lays. Their renowned “yodels,” as sung at each performance, are applicable to the scenery. The entire scenic effects are produced by about 250 electric incandescent lamps, operated from in front of the stage, in full view of the audience, by switches. The interior of the theatre is handsomely furnished with comfortable chairs. There are nine electric fans, producing a permanent current of fresh air, keeping the whole room at a low temperature and as refreshing as a sea breeze, it matters not how hot it may be outside.

“The Day in the Alps” begins with sunrise, and over the mountain top appears the ruddy glow of early sunlight. Then, as morning advances, and the volume of light increases, the beauties of the mountain become more apparent until their full glory flashes upon the beholder. The shepherd boys and girls are seen with their herds, and every feature of Alpine life is faithfully portrayed. Then a storm arises, and the effects here produced by electricity are surprisingly beautiful. After the storm dies away and the clouds vanish Nature smiles again. Then the day begins to fade, and at last it is night, with the stars brooding over all.

Western Electrician June 9, 1894

art

Electric Scenic Theaters in the Masonic Temple, Chicago.
The love of the American people for anything that is novel and pleasing to the eye was abundantly exemplified last year at the electric scenic theaters at the World’s Fair. These places of amusement were among the most popular places at the exposition, and they have since been widely imitated and reproduced, sometimes with extended improvements and with more attention paid to detail. Those in Chicago who did not enjoy the opportunity at the fair of seeing the scenic effects which were produced upon stage pictures by the aid of electricity, and who were not able to avail themselves of the chance offered by Steele MacKaye’s spectacle, the “World Finder,” at his suddenly terminated venture in the “Scenitorium,” may gratify their tastes for amusement of the sort in the recently opened summer garden on the roof of the Masonic Temple. The garden in itself, 302 feet from the ground, is a sufiicient at traction to draw crowds. Interest, however, centers in the two scenic theaters which are located in small houses, reminding one/forcibly-in style of decoration of the general idea of the World’s Fair buildings. Each theater is designed to accommodate about 75 persons comfortably, and opera chairs to that number are provided. In the first theater an Alpine scene is presented, the scenery of which, although very pretty,recalls too forcibly the theaters which were made familiar last summer. A mountain stream forms the motive of the picture. Upon its banks the houses are built; a church stands near by, while a mill in the foreground presents an opportunity for a waterfall, after the water has passed over the mill-wheel. A bridge spans the stream, over which villagers pass to and fro; upon a mountain side stands a castlc,while snow-capped peaks stand out in relief against the sky. The scene is called “A Day in the Alps” and begins with midnight, by the tolling of the bell. The break of dawn and the heralding of day present a faithful resemblance to the original and is particularly well done. After the day has been begun, a thunder storm approaches and passes over, accompanied by vivid flashes of lightning and the roll of heavy thunder. The evening is accompanied by the lighting of the street and house lights,and the moon rises, until the clock again announces twelve. The scene is shown upon this page, Fig. 3. Back of the scenes a complicated mass of electrical apparatus explains many of the pretty atmospheric changes. It is not the intention of this article to describe in detail any of the devices employed, for many of them were devised to suit the requirements of this particular case, and the others have been already mentioned in the columns of this journal. Focusing lamps, rheostat boxes, switches, reflectors and many devices of a similar character are present in abundance and are confined in an extraordinarily small space for the many effects produced.

FIGS. 1, 2 AND 3.
ELECTRIC SCENIC THEATERS IN THE MASONIC TEMPLE, CHICAGO

The second theater presents as a stage setting the view of the Court of Honor at the World’s Columbian Exposition, looking northwest from the west end of the agricultural building, and is most perfect in point of detail. The scene is introduced in the morning, and the sunlight illumines the buildings, including the Palace of Mechanic Arts, Administration Building, Electricity Building, as well as the MacMonnies and the two Electric Fountains. The lagoon is well supplied with gondolas and electric launches, which, although stationary, add much to the scene. In detail the scene is perfect. The statues are faithfully reproduced, and one has but to close one’s eyes and listen to the music which accompanies the scene, to imagine that the band in the band-stand really is playing and that the crowds are not mere paste-board fancies, but are living beings admiring ina wondering way the beauties of the departed White City. The approach of evening presents the finest opportunity for a display of the resources of electricity in the presentation of this scene; as dusk advances the lamps scattered throughout the grounds are lighted, the stars begin to shine, now one building after another is illuminated, and soon the border of cornice lights,which extended around the Court of Honor and which was so much admired at night, adds its long lines of light to the scene.

Searchlight effects flash from one building to another, and administration building, with its handsome decorative lighting scheme, shines resplendent under these streams of light. At last the lights are dimmed and the electric fountains, this time, fortunately, unaffected by the winds, begin to play. Many of the designs employed upon the fountains at the fair are used here, and the interior illumination, made by a Packard mogul lamp of 300 candle power, presents the usual changes and studies in color. When the display reaches its end the evening is far spent and the moon is seen in a locality warning the fair visitors of the approach of midnight. Perhaps because of its reproduction of a scene that is held in such regard by those who visited the fair, the second theater seems more attractive to all but those who have some idea of how all of these effects are produced, forthe possibilities of the Alpine scene are much greater in regard to electrical effects. The scene in Fig. 2 shows the fair at midday. The second theater is provided with the luxauleator or curtain of light, originally designed by Steele MacKaye and illustrated and described in the WESTERN ELECTRICIAN of February 24, 1894. It consists merely of a border of incandescent lights around the stage opening. It is outlined in Fig. 2. In the Alpine scene 160 16 candle power and 20 one candle power incandescent lamps are used, and in the other scene no less than too one candle power lamps, taking four volts, are used alone.

While the theaters are the most interesting from an electrical point of view, the garden itself is not without electrical attractions, and more are to be added, which will equip it with some of the finest of display lighting. It is the intention of Sosman & Landis of Chicago, the scenic artists under whose management the venture is being run, to make the place both attractive and cool, and potted plants, flowers, flags, paintings, fan motors and ventilating fans are abundant. From the roof hang vari-colored prismatic glass globes containing incandescent lamps, and refreshment booths, electric organs, phonographs and other electrical and mechanical devices are furnished for the amusement of visitors. Upon entering the building a visitor’s attention is attracted by a large sign composed of incandescent lamps in the form of a hand pointing upward and the words “Electric Scenic Theaters.” From the tip of the forefinger of the hand a row of lights extends upward the entire height of the building to the garden. This is called a “chaser,” and the lamp globes are of different colors. By means of a switch light passes along the line, changing in hue as it ascends, until it reaches the glass roof of the building, from which are suspended over the court three chandeliers of incandescent lights, connected by radial lines of lamps, an idea of which, as well as a partial view of the garden, is presented in Fig. I. There are 105 red, white and blue lamps in the central cluster and 84 in each of the others, while the radial lines are composed of 240. There are 175 lights in the “chaser” and 234 in the hand and sign. By means of the same switch which regulates the light upon the “chaser,” patterns of pleasing figures are formed upon the court decoration. This switch, as well as many of the devices in the theaters, was designed and built by C. D. Baker, the electrical engineer for Sosman & Landis, who has displayed much ingenuity in many of his special applications. It is a wooden, cylindrical commutator upon which are fastened lugs, which act upon 60 quick-break switches, mounted upon a slate board. The commutator is revolved by a small Crocker-Wheeler motor, of which many are in use throughout the garden, by means of belting and worm gearing. The apparatus is so designed that changes can readily be made upon it as new combinatiors suggest themselves. Near this switch is located the board con trolling all the current used in the garden and its signs, and which is furnished by the plant located in the basement of the building. About 700 amperes was contracted for, but it has not as yet been necessary to demand that amount. The board, which is made of slate, is a novelty in its way and is but three by six feet. Sixty circuits enter it and are controlled by one main switch, four separate cir cuit switches and 23 individual switches. Eighty sets of fuse terminals are placed upon it, as well as other instruments. It is but fair to state that all the improvements which it is intended shall make the place a most attractive one have not as yet been made. Much detail is to be added tothe theaters and much in the way of popularizing the garden is yet to he done. All the lamps employed are of the Packard type and range from one to 300 candle power. Whether this form of amusement, which is novel, will be successful in drawing paying crowds is a matter for conjecture, but the place is certainly worthy of a visit from those who enjoy beautiful scenic effects without action and a superb view of Chicago from its highest building.

Chicago Tribune, May 20, 1895

TEMPLE ROOF GARDEN REOPENS.

Several Novelties Provided for Visitors to the Lofty Amusement Place.

The Masonic Temple roof garden reopened last night under the management of George A. Fair. Everything connected with the roof garden is new, and the visitor last night saw but little to remind him of the same place last year. The electric scenic theater still remains, but the other stage has been moved around to the northeast corner of the roof. The present location affords a good view of the entertainment from every part of the roof. Directly In front of the stage are 3,510 opera chairs. while the rest of the floor space is given up to refreshment tables. A new feature of the garden is the concrete walks built around the dome of the roof, where an excellent view of the city and surrounding country can be obtained. It is the intention of the management to remove part of the glass roof, affording the an opportunity of enjoying the view and listening to the entertainment going on below. A large crowd gathered in the garden yesterday afternoon to listen to Brooks’ Second Regiment Band. and last night an excellent vaudeville entertainment drew another large crowd. The second part of the program is aimed to attract the after-the-theater crowd, as the roof garden expects to have its largest patronage after the regular places of entertainment have closed.