Chicago Tribune, November 2, 1893
No one could have visited Jackson Park: yesterday without being foreibly reminded that the Exposition had closed. Gone were the trooping crowds of visitors, silent were the band stands, invisible were the electric launches and gondolas, and dusty and dirty were the highways. Railroad tracks defaced the plaza and long processions of prosnie trucks passed to and fro loaded with cases or exhibits. If one entered the great exhibit buildings his first impressions were only deepened that the Exposition was a thing of the past.
The work of tearing down and packing up exhibits in all the Exposition buildings was commenced in earnest. A lot of teams started at an early hour delivering boxes and by night a great many of the packing cases had been filled, nailed, labeled, and placed in readiness to beloaded on the cars. The work of laying down tracks along the south ends of Mining and Electricity Buildings was pushed forward at a great rate. When the men quit work last evening they had ties placed in position almost to the lagoon bridge and the rails spiked on them half way across the distance.
Babel of Sounds in the Buildings.
Sounds echoed through all the big edifices. The crack of hammers, the rip of saws, the crash of lumber, and the hum of voices were everywhere present. It is now a repetition of the noisy scenes witnessed just prior to the opening of the Fair. Wagons loaded with empty cases go flying about the grounds in all directions. The Columbian Guards are full of important business. A few thousand visitors go about trying to see what they can before everything, is dismantled. Only a score of the are lights burned last night.
In the Transportation Building hundreds of workmen were actively engaged in the labor of stripping engines and ears, taking apart machines, moving out vehicles. taking down boat models, and bundling up bicycles. A part of the transfer table was ready for operation. The railings around exhibits have nearly all disappeared and some of the handsome pavilions have been taken down. The Frenchmen are getting their four engines and one car in shape to be made into train and sent away to New York. They expect to leave with them not later than Nov. 15. In order to take the engines and car, in one train it is necessary to put American buffers on them, and this is what the workmen were doing yesterday. The Pullman train is to be taken on an exhibition tour through the Southwest, Mexico, California, and the Northwest. It will probably reach California during the Midwinter Fair.
Hardly anything that looks like an exhibit has been left standing in the fruit and floral departments of Horticultural Hall.The shelves containing products of the orchard and vineyards are bare. The orange tower was cleaned off yesterday. The wine exhibiters are packing as fast as they can, and the flowers and plants are being carted away by dozens of teams. Nearly. all the exhibits of produce and plants in the Horticultural Building were sold to Chicago buyers and there will be little left to ship away.
Begging and Stealing Decorations.
The public was not excluded from the Agricultural Building yesterday and the small boy and decorative young lady created sad havoc with the decorations of grains and fruits. Wherever a handful of wheat or oats could be reached there were a dozen people to beg or steal. The floor was strewn with straw and débris, although little was done toward moving the exhibits proper. In fact the removal of some of the decorations only brought out in strong relief the beauties of others that might have been overlooked. Some of the exhibits are awaiting purchasers while others have already been disposed of. The exhibit of Wisconsin will be sent to the Agricultural College at Madison, and that of Minnesota to the State Experimental Farm at Hamline. The Michigan exhibit has been donated to the State Agricultural College at Lansing and the New York exhibit to the Agricultural Museum at Albany. Iowa and Pennsylvania are anxious to sell a portion of their exhibits. North Carolina has packers at work and the exhibit is consigned to the State Museum at Raleigh. The Florida exhibit is to be shipped to an exhibition to be held at Augusta, Ga., Nov. 15 to Dec. 15, and from there will be forwarded to the offices of the associated railway lines at Sanford.
Chief Buchanan says it will be two or three months before he can commence the preparation of his reports. In his sub-chiefs and assistants he has a particularly happy family. Yesterday they stopped work long enough to have their pictures taken in a group.
In the Forestry Building, also presided over by Chief Buchanan, there are preparations for removing exhibits. The temporary tracks on the east side of the building were never taken up and they will soon be connected with the main lines. Chief Buchanan said yesterday:
- The forestry exhibit is one of the most attractive on the grounds. There is not an exhibiter in the building who has not had from one to fifty offers from museums or individuals to purchase his collection entire. It is hoped that many of the exhibits will be donated to the Chicago Columbian Museum, and they will be if the organization is perfected within a reasonable time.
Banquet Hall Deserted.
The Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building may be regarded as the heart of the Exposition, and will, of course, be the last part to die. But it looked yesterday very much like a banquet hall deserted. There were no crowds, no music, no gayety, but a plenty of resounding noise. Hammer and saw were getting in their work and making sad havoc in some parts of the building. The demolition, however, was confined to the United States section. As to the foreign sections the formalities of the Treasury Department forbid any immediate stampede. The consequence is that, to a person who had not previously visited the Exposition, there was about as much to be seen as ever. The greatest deficiency was the absence of the crowd.
The Electricity Building presented a more desolate appearance. It was always dependent largely on its machinery for its attractions, and the machinery was still. Few visitors wandered along its aisles, and, instead of bands of music, one heard nothing but a roar of hammering and sawing. Everybody was intent on getting away at once. So it was at the Mines and Mining Building, except that the exhibits, being mostly of a massive character, had not, to any visible extent, been disturbed. Everywhere, however, the work of preparation is going forward with immense energy, and when the tracks are laid the disappearance will be magical.
Litter in the Back Yard.
At the south end of the grounds the roadways have remained unsprinkled since Sunday and scraps of paper and remnants of lunch-boxes litter every passageway. In the Shoe and Leather and Anthropological Buildings boxes and crates are being taken in, but no exhibits worth mentioning have yet been removed. At the cliff dwellers’ exhibit the packing of the curios commenced Monday. The structure will be razed to the ground before Dec. 1 and the exhibits will be shipped to Minneapolis and stored in a bonded warehouse. At the Krupp gun pavilion the public is rigidly excluded. Grimy workmen within are stolidly shoveling away sand and slowly uncovering the railway tracks lying under the big guns. On every doorway in both English and German appears the inscription, “No Workmen Wanted.” Contrary to current report at one time the great 120-ton Krupp gun will not remain in this country. It was thought it would be cheaper to present it to the City of Chicago than to pay for its reshipment, but the present intention is to ship it back to the works of Herr Krupp at Essen.
The model workingman’s home, supposed to cost $1,000 and exhibited by the State of New York, has been purchased by E. Soper for $325. Mr. Soper is one of the proprietors of the Big Tree Restaurant near by and he will use the house for a family residence during the winter.
The wind-mills south of the French Bakery are being dismantled and the French Bakery and White Horse Inn, except the bar in the latter, are both closed.
All the live stock has been removed from the barns south of the Stock Pavilion and the structures, thirty-two in number, are soon to be sold to the highest bidder. It is claimed that the material and construction cost $108,000.
Mr. Graham, who has been appointed Director of Works to succeed Mr. Burnham, said yesterday he did not know when the work of demolishing the buildings would begin. He thought the first struetures to go would be on the Midway, then the foreign buildings and the State buildings, the large structures being the last. Today tracks will be laid from the Transportation Building north to the California Building and before Saturday they will be extended along the avenue among the State buildings to the lake-front. Tracks are pushing up from the south to the Krupp gun-house, the Agricultural Building, and the Shoe and Leather Building.
Court of Honor Unlighted.
Last night, for the first time since the Exposition opened, the Court of Honor was dark. There was no light anywhere except from several hundred are lamps seattered about the grounds as patrol lights. Manufactures Building was open yesterday and a great throng of purchasers was busy securing what were believed to be bargains. The bargain-hunter just discovered yesterday that nearly everything in the building was for sale. Hundreds of them went out of the gates loaded with bundles. One man declared he had secured $50 in value for $10 outlay and said he was coming back again today. The attendance at the grounds yesterday was small, but there was much to be seen. The impression has gone out that visitors are discouraged from entering the grounds. This is erroneous.
Chicago Tribune, November 16, 1893
World’s Fair Notes.
The Ferris wheel cars have been provided with oil stoves. The wheel is bound to run until Jan. 4. The paid admissions to the World’s Fair yesterday were as follows: Whole tickets, 1,395; half tickets, 16; total, 1,411.
The Puck Building has been sold to a wrecker for $200, but its smaller neighbor, the White Star Line Building, gets no offers.
Of the thirty-nine United States army officers that were connected with the Columbian Guard Nov. 1 all but fourteen have returned to their army positions and duties.
The Viking ship is at Grafton. On account of low water in the Mississippi it cannot go up the river, as Capt. Anderson intended, to St. Paul. It is to proceed south to St. Louis probably today.
There was an auction sale of furniture yesterday at the Illinois Building. The goods brought over 50 per cent. of their original cost. Dec. 28 the remaining furniture will be sold at auction. The sealed bids for the building will be opened and the building knocked off to the highest bidder.
Chicago Tribune, November 20, 1893
- Demolition in the Midway—Ruins of Old Vienna in the Foreground.
Jackson Park is today the wreck of a dream. It is a deserted city. While all of the beautiful buildings are there the most of them are as the shells of spirits that are gone Yellow dust, scraps of paper, and dead leaves are everywhere around the grounds, while inside the buildings several thousand men with great rapidity tearing out the exhibits, folding up the decorations, and generally dismantling the interior. All of the exhibits will probably not be removed before Jan. 1, but within four weeks there will be little left. Heavy machinery and foreign exhibits go out the most slowly because of the difficulty handling and customs regulations. Visitors to the park will recognize that while all the structures are there the life of the place is gone out. The movement of the people, the means of transportations, the decorations, and all features of that character are wanting.
The Court of Honor has been one of the first features to suffer. The flower pots which adorned the balustrades have been torn away. Two railroad tracks run along the façades of the Mines, the Electricity, and the Manufactures Buildings. Steam cranes and locomotives are on these tracks constantly, and engine bells are clanging the most of the time. One of the electric fountains has been torn up and there remains nothing but a pile of staff and a hole in the ground. The Macmonnies fountain ceased playing early in the week, but it has not as yet been touched. The statuary about the grand basin gives a small exhibition of life, for it has recently been painted a glistening white. On the west side of the Administration Building the Liberty bell still stands, but with its tongue tied.
There is but one official flag floating on the World’a Fair buildings. That one flaps over the office of the Director-General. The thousand others have seen pulled down and stored away. They will be sold shortly.
Frost Strips the Trees.
The lagoons are tenantless and seldom are the smooth waters disturbed. The ducks and wild geese have been taken and sold. November frosts have stripped the shrubbery and small trees on the Wooded Island, and the same dead appearance has seized the plants which lined the edges of the waterways.
Transportation about the grounds is a thing of the past. The electric launches hare been housed and the most of them sold. The gondolas quit doing business some time ago and have been huddled together under bridges. Intramural trains are all off, and the stations, along the route have been taken down. The destruction of the road began yesterday at the north loop. The wires have been ripped from the ties. Willard & Meeker’s steam launches formed a melancholy procession a few days ago as they were towed, part of them to South Chicago and the other half north. The rolling-chair people are the last to go out of business They still maintain an office on the east side of the Manufactures Building, and a few chairs may be seen about the grounds. The movable sidewalk moves no longer, and in the southern portioon of the grounds the roads even are being torn up.
The Administration Building has begun to suffer. A force of workmen was on the dome Saturday tearing off the lines which supplied the electric lights. Some of the offices inside the building have been closed up. The telephone company has removed its public booths. The model of the Treasury Building which stood in the center of the rotunda, has had all of the silver half dollars shelled off. The bank has begun moving out and the most of the entrances are kept closed.
Wrecking Done with Method.
In the Agricultural Building there is a general wreck. The booths of corn and fancy pavilions are being torn down and probably one third of the exhibits are out. But the Exhibiters the are allowed to remove goods through but two doors, and ever night the floor is swept. It is kept sprinkled during the day. German workmen are clearing out the statuary and pretty nearly every display has been attacked. Several of the South American republics have been unable to secure releases of their goods and these stand practically as they did at the close of the Exposition. The American exhibiters are the first to get away and are making great progress. South of the Agricultural Building is much evidence of ruin. The numerous windmills which had their wheels turning all summer have been taken down. The White Horse Inn has its doors nailed up and the other restaurants are similarly deserted. The stock barns are empty and there are piles of boxes and lumber in the southwestern part of the grounds. The Cliff-Dwellers’ exhibit has been donated to the museum. Such the outer covering of tin, which resembles stone, torn away.
The Anthropological Building is not being cleaned out asrapidly as the others. The greater portion of the displays are still there. About two-thirds of the exhibits have been donated to the Columbian Museum.
Destruction has been swift in the Shoe and Leather Building. The most of the exhibits there were by Americans and they have been packed up with great dispatch. There is nothing now to be seen as an exhibit.
The Forestry Building presents a fairly good show. Probably a third of its contents have been donated to the museum. Such exhibits as have been donated are still intact.
Machinery Hall, which during the Exposition trembled with the movement of machinery, is a wreck of its former self. The big Allis engine has been taken apart almost completely. The French, German, and British exhibiters have destroyed the pleasing features of their displays, while the Americans have boxed up and removed the greater portion of the small. er displays. It will be more than a month before Mr. Robinson gets the heavy stuff out of his building.
Decorations Are All Gone.
In Manufactures Building exhibiters are getting away as fast as they can. All the decorations have been torn down, and in cases where the exhibiters could not remove their displays they have closed them up and tacked sheeting around the sides. The clocks have been taken from the big tower in the center of the building and a railroad track is being run beneath it. Tiffany’s splendid pavilion is being boxed up The Germans, Austrians, and English have a third of their goods in cases. The Japanese have done nothing towards the destruction of their pavilion, but it is curtained so as to prevent sightseeing. Some of the French displays are still unmolested. The framework of the pavilion stands, but the interior furnishings have their effect destroyed. The Russian exhibit is still open to visitors and sales are being conducted. The Swiss people, too, are still selling watches. and the Italian section is open to purchasers. The galleries have many of the educational displays remaining. Maps, drawings, cuts of public buildings, and specimens of writing by school children are still numerous. Throughout the building there is the same hammering and sawing that took place before the Exposition opened. All the brickwork at the south end of the building has been removed, and boxes are piled about the entire colonnade. The east side of the building is stocked equally with boxes, while out on the granite beach there are continual bonfires fed from the debris of the interior of the building. Hardly a third of the exhibits have been taken out.
The Electricity Building is as desolate as any on the grounds. There is scarcely anything in it of interest. The galleries have been cleared and there remains but some heavy machinery on the ground floor. The big tower, however, is still there.
In the Mines Building there is confusion and demolition. It has not taken long to remove many of the mineral displays, but the massive iron pyramids and pillars of the German exhibit will require much more time for their removal.
Trains Are Disappearing.
The Transportation Building, Chief Smith thinks, will be empty by the last of this month. Practically all American exhibiters are out now and there are acres of bare floor. The French and German locomotives have been covered over and are nearly ready to be run out. The English locomotive and train were ready to leave yesterday. The most of the American locomotives are gone. Nothing remains in its original state.
In the Horticultural Building there is nothing left of consequence, except the exhibit of foreign wines in the south end of the building. The exhibiters were delayed here on account of customs regulations. The space occupied by the different States with their fruit shows has been cleared completely. The north end of the building is practically empty and nothing remains of the flowers and plants. The miniature mountain under the dome has been stripped and the German wine cellar sold and removed to California.
Two-thirds of the exhibits are still in the Woman’s Building. Some of them are closed up and covered over, while others may be inspected. The rooms on the upper floor, which were decorated by the several States and cities, have had their furnishings taken out. There appears to be little haste to get the displays away.
The Public Comfort Building has all the furniture piled up in the middle of the floor. The Children’s Building, adjoining it, is closed.
Nothing but a “Fishy” Smell.
The Fisheries Building presents nothing of interest. The fish have been removed from the aquarium and the main portion of the building is notable chiefly for its “fishy” smell. The skeleton of the big whale is still suspended in midair. It has become the property of the Northwestern University. Mexico has not yet removed its exhibit. Russia, Japan, and the Netherlands have mostly packed up. The French and British are nearly finished. In the north annex the Pennsylvania display has been torn out and the fish have been removed from the Wisconsin exhibit. Chief Collins thinks two weeks will see everything gone.
Nearly one half of the exhibits in the Government Building have been boxed up or removed. A hole has been cut in the side of the building and the railroad ears are run in. The big guns and mortars and the small guns have been taken outside the plaza east of the building. They are there awaiting cars. The men who are packing up the displays are experts and are working rapidly. The battleship is as nearly packed up as the Government Building.
Not one-eighth of the exhibits in the Fine Arts Ruilding have been packed. The walls are still covered with pictures and the floor is still kept watered. Visitors who secure passes and are admitted to the building go about with their catalogues, seeing almost as much as when the Exposition was opened. The French have not attempted to remove their exhibit. They have sold sixty-one pictures since the Fair closed and are doing better now than they did in the summer. The United States section is nearly intact, except the loan gallery, which has been removed. Germany is packing up, but many pictures are on the wall and nearly all of the Russian paintings are to be seen. The Japanese have done scarcely anything and the Polish artists still have their pictures hanging. There has been difficulty in securing the packing boxes, and to this is due the delay. A railroad track has been laid to the west entrance and when the work does begin the paintings will go rapidly.
Restaurants Are Few in Number.
The Terminal station is the only building about which there is any actual destruction. Here the fences have been torn down to permit trains to run in from the yard. The clocks have been removed and the restaurants are out. The checking-rooms are closed and the sodawater and cigar people have vanished.
All but four of the restaurants on the grounds are closed. The German restaurant in the Manufactures Building still does a large business. The Swedish restaurant in the north end of the grounds is open and the proprietor has announced the intention of remaining all winter. The Philadelphia Café is also open. The restaurant formerly in the Kentucky Building was opened yesterday on one of the ground floors of the Administration Building. These four are the only eating-places on the grounds.
Where Sadness Lurks.
The very thought of the State buildings in the north end of the park brings in a flood of memories of trees and foliage, of green grass. of flower beds, of neatly swept walks, of throngs of excited, happy visitors, of countless joyful reunions of individuals and societies, and of scores of brilliant receptions, banquets, and balls. No watering place in the world was ever such a maze of life. enjoyment. and fashion. It is memories like these that make the present scene one of depressing sadness. Gone forever is the rushing throng of people: withered and trampled into the dirt are flowers and shrubs: bare are the trees, whose brown and shriveled leaves fly before the wind on the littered, unkempt walk. and deserted are the handsome buildings that so lately were full of music and song.
One walks up to the palatial New York Building only to find the curtains gone from the windows, no human being in sight, a lot of boxes standing on the steps, and shovelfuls of dirt being thrown from the roof to what was once the lawn. A few weeks ago it was regarded as the most brilliantly beautiful building of its size on the grounds, and now it has been advertised for sale for weeks as old lumber and nobody wants it. It has been given away and, like a bad penny, came back again.
Just east of it is the incomparable John Hancock Building, which was all the summer a museum of all that was interesting in Colonial and Revolutionary history, and the scene of many social gatherings. Its surrounding yard, inclosed by a wall covered with flowers and creeping vines, is several feet above the roadway. A few weeks ago it was all bunting and flowers without and all life and gayety within. But today it stands empty, deserted, forlorn, and mysterious. Work the old-fashioned brass knockers, front and rear, hard as you will, and you hear echoes in the deserted halls, but never a face will you see at the door. The gorgeous Massachusetts flag that waved from the lofty flagstaff in the front yard is packed away in Boston. The creepers on the wall are parched and dusty, the flowers smile not, and the grass is russet-brown. Nobody knows who is in charge of the premises or what disposition will be made of the building. The probability is that it will be sold to some wrecker for $200. The Pennsylvania Building is the same sad sort of a spectacle with the same prospects before it. As in the case of the New York Building a fruitless effort has been made to give it away, and eventually it will be turned over to the vandal wrecker.
Desolation Among the Buildings.
These sights and sentiments are to be repeated all over that part of the park occupied by the State buildings. A few of them, like the New Jersey Building, hope to be reconstructed somewhere else; a few, like the Connecticut Building, hope to leave the grounds on wheels without seeing death. But many, like the Montana Building, are looking only for the wrecker, and the rest are disconsolate because even the wrecker will not notice them. It will be a relief to the mind when they are all swept away and the space they occupy is once more taken up with grass and romping children.
The scene presented by the foreign buildings is, as a general thing, similar to that furnished by the State Buildings. That is, they wear a look of funereal gloom. The British, Canadian, German, and Brazilian Buildings still retain symptoms of life. The Commissioners and their clerical force still inhabit these buildings, and must do so for months to come. But the smaller foreign buildings seem utterly deserted except by the mechanics employed to do the packing. The ominous word “closed” is on every door, the prosaic cases are piled up in front, and dirt, confusion, and loneliness reign everywhere around.
Not one of these buildings has yet been emptied. What the obstacle is it is hard to tell in most eases. But at least half a dozen of the Central and South American countries have revolutions on their hands, or are threatened with them. As to disposing of their buildings most of the Commissioners are in despair. They have tried to sell them and tried to give them away, and both efforts were failures. Venezuela and Costa Rica are happy because their buildings belong to the contractor who erected them. So that in addition to dirt, neglect, and desertion this part of the grounds seems to have hanging over it a pall of financial and other kinds of embarrassment. It would be a relief to see all these buildings, some of which are very fine, swept away in a moment.
Plaisance Is Almost Deserted.
As for the Midway it looks like the abomination of desolation. If it had been visited first by a cyclone and then by a pestilence it could not look less like its former self. The gates are hermetically sealed against all who do not present photograph or other passes, so that no fee however large will admit anyone. Consequently the great thoroughfare 100 yards wide and a mile long looks almost as bare as a like stretch of the seashore. The few human figures visible are mostly those of Orientals. clad in gowns and turbans of all the colors of the rainbow. These interesting foreigners are reputed to be dying of cold, but they themselves indignantly scout the charge. The Hindoo jugglers, a few of the Turks, and the fifty or sixty Bedouins of the Wild East show seem determined to be the very last people to leave the glorious Midway.
As to the buildings, it is a great mistake to suppose that they are all torn down. In fact, almost all of them are untouched. Among those that be wrecker has not laid his hand on are the Irish Village, the Beauty Show, the Glass Works, Hagenbeck’s, Donegal Castle, the Java Village, the Vienna Model Bakery, the German Village, Cairo street, the Ferris wheel, and the Moorish Palace. Among those that are torn down, or partially wrecked, and rapidly disappearing from view, are the Match Building, the Electric Scenic Theater, the South Sea Island Theater, the Samoan Village, the Home Restaurant, the Swiss Alps, the Turkish Village, the Persian Palace, the ice railway, the Algerian and Tunisian Palace. the Dahomey Village, and the Old Vienna. These are enough to produce an affecting scene of departed hilarity and excitement.
Nothing could be more picturesque than the scene presented by the ruins of Old Vienna. The buildings between the court and the highway all lie in an indistinguishable heap of rubbish on the ground, as if a tornado had ground them to pieces and then churned the débris. The range of buildings south of the court still stands, but great holes have been made in the fronts, as if war had reinforced the elements and cannon balls had plowed their way through these festive halls. The occupants are all gone; and it is well for them, for they could never bear the sight. The truth is it presents a fine subject for an oil painting.
Farce of the Ferris Wheel.
The Ferris Wheel is the farcical feature that relieves the oppressive tragical impression of the Midway. It turns away ten hours in the day, with its doleful rumble and click, with a full corps of employés and nicely warmed cabs, but without a single passenger. The company claims to have a contract with the Exposition until Jan. 4, and the Exposition denies it. The Exposition closes the gates and keeps away the wheel’s patrons. and the wheel company says it will run all the same and sue the Exposition for damages. The prospect of getting any money out of the Exposition is not brilliant, but the wheel is $75,000 in arrears for percentages. So the wheel goes round day after day with empty cabs, and men of every nation stand and look at it and grin.
Away out at the west end of the Midway is the Wild East, where not only the Bedouins but their horses, donkeys, sheep, and camels still stick, as if they had found a good thing in the bracing winds of this climate, and knew enough to hang on to it. Across the way from the enclosure is the grass plant used all the summer for military camps; and here might be seen Wednesday a symbolical charade of the departed glories of the Exposition. It was a flock of camels browsing in a snow-storm. Sic transit gloria mundi,
To Clear Away Fakers’ Shanties.
Building Inspector Toolen Orders Demolition Along Stony Island Avenue.
The places that knew so many noisy fakers and freaks all summer are silent and desolate. The candy booths, lunch counters, peanut stands, and side show pavilions along Stony Island avenue are deserted and their occupants are scattered. Only the empty shanties and queer signs remain. Inspector Toolen says he proposes to commence the work of cleaning up at once. These tumbledown, unsightly structures increase the risk of destruction by fire of surrounding property. From Blarney Castle to Sixty-sixth street Stony Island avenue is strewn with a conglomerate by mass of rubbish left there by the migratory individuals who lived for six months off the cheap tattered fringe of Exposition crowds. Nearly all the vacant spaces between Stony Island avenue and the Illinois Central tracks, along cross as well as parallel streets, were occupied with shap affairs for obtaining money. As a result many wagon loads of trash in the shape of broken boxes, loose paper, tin cans, pieces of lumber, and decayed provender accumulated. Apparently very little, if any, effort was made to keep the grounds cleaned of this refuse.
Since the Fair closed those whose duty it is to look after such things have apparently been too busy attending to other matters. However, within the last week, acting under police instructions. a few of the lot owners have been scraping some of the litter into piles and burning it. But most of the board shanties and small frame buildings used for quick 25-cent-a-meal restaurant purposes, cheap lunch counters, fake jewelry shops, and candy booths are still standing. The signs and banners either hang down the sides, dirty, weather-stained rags, or lie rotten on the ground. The picture is not an interesting one. There is nothing about it calculated to give the observer any pleasant recollections. Yesterday it looked desolate and dreary. The big hotels are all empty and cheerless. Here and there in the vicinity of Sixty-fourth street entrance, the Alley “L” station, and along the south side of Sixty-third street still linger the souvenir dealer and red-hot merchant dispensing wares to workmen and Columbian Guards. The scene presented a strong contrast the Sunday afternoons away back in June, when everything was wide open, in full blast, and playing to large crowds, when the air was overloaded with loud and frightful noises. Less than a hundred poorly clad, shivering stragglers shambled about the now quiet place. North of the Park Gate Hotel is a wide stretch of vacant ground covered over with rubbish. The gutters of Stony Island avenue are choked with old papers and broken fruit crates.
But according to Building Inspector Toolen the work of cleaning up is to be commenced right away and continued until the entire district is freed of all the objectionable matter. It is understood the owners of the property will be given an opportunity to do the work, but where they fail the city will have to undertake the job.
Chicago Tribune, January 13, 1894
The owners of the Ferris Wheel are proceeding in a leisurely way to take it down. They are not afraid of its burning, and it is too heavy for the relic-thieves to carry away.
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