The Medical Center has become a complex that stretches from 57th Street to 59th Street and from Cottage Grove to Ellis Avenue, covering over 25 acres. It's a mass of improvisation with one wing after another being tacked on and tucked in to the other buildings. It's so confusing inside that patients and visitors are handed maps. The oldest part lines the Midway and was once called the Albert Merritt Billings Hospital. Some of the early wings were added along 59th Street and their now unused entrances face it.

The family of Albert Merritt Billings gave the money in 1916 but the hospital didn't open until 1927. Members of the Billings family gave more than 1$ million to found the medical school and hospital, persuaded by Dr. Frank Billings, who was a professor of medicine at the University. The original five buildings were planned to be separate but closely connected units. The first courtyard, above (the doorway in the middle of the block) was the administrative building, joining the surgical and medical buildings.

The Gertrude Dunn Hicks Memorial was also a 50-bed clinic for the Chicago Home for Destitute and Crippled Children. It opened in 1931.

During the fair this was the location of the Captive Balloon ride, which was a hot air balloon tethered to the ground. It would take 16 people at a time up to 1492 feet over the fair to get a view of the whole extravaganza and the city beyond. They went up to 1492 feet in honor of Columbus. It lasted until a wind storm swept through and destroyed the balloon.

Next door was the Ostrich farm.

Stepping out to cross the Midway and looking back toward the quads, there is an anomaly in front of the Medical Center. The other trees on the Midway outline the grid of streets and walkways. Here there is one sitting all by itself in the middle of the panel. This native bur oak was the tree that was planted next to Sitting Bull's cabin to give it some shade. Inside the cabin was an exhibit of relics found on the battlefield at Little Big Horn.

A hooded figure of Time turns his back to the Midway and looks across a pool to a long procession of human beings moving through the stages of life. Around on the back side is another procession of people, including the sculptor and his assistant. A marker on the ground points to them. There are 100 separate figures.

The statue was commissioned in 1914 to commemorate a hundred years of lasting peace between England and the United States--which somehow produced this meditation on how nothing lasts, which can't have been quite what his patrons expected. Taft said his inspiration was a poem by Austin Dobson:

"Time goes, you say?Ah no!/ Alas, time stays, we go. "

It eventually led to his plan for turning the whole Midway into a mile-long meditation on history.

It is said to be the first use of concrete as an artistic medium, which was chosen for the cost. Time has had an effect on the fountain itself, eroding the figures so that they are less distinct until a large refurbishing was done recently. Money is still needed to fix the pool.

Cottage Grove, the busy street between the Midway and the statue, had a car line in the 19th century and quickly became an area of shops, cottages, and boarding houses. The population in the 1900 census listed Irish, German, Swedish, Greek, Chinese, and African American families living along it, who used the car line to commute to their jobs. Early in the 20th century, at Cottage Grove and 61st, there was a large amusement park called Sans Souci, built to recapture the joys of the Old Vienna attraction and other rides at the Fair. Slightly further west into the park was the race course that was once glamorous in the 19th century. Though fairly deserted now, this area was jumping in the early years of the 20th century.

In this space, a new garden is under construction, to open in the summer of 2005--the Dr. Allison Davis Garden. The one-acre garden is being designed by Peter Lindsey Schaudt, a landscape architect. There will be a circular main section that is lower than ground level, an echo of the perennial garden on the east end of the Midway, across Stony Island (which of course is cut off from view by the tracks). The $800,000 project is being done with the University, the Park District, and the Davis family. Davis was a distinguished professor of education and one of the first African Americans granted tenure. He had a doctorate in Anthropology from the U of C in 1942. He had an impact outside the academy--questioning standardized intelligence tests, examining how to value the talents of people from diverse backgrounds, and supporting desegretation of the schools. He advocated public gathering places where people from different backgrounds could mingle. Hopefully the garden can be that place. His family liked this location because he walked across this site to get from his home in Woodlawn to his office on the north campus. (from U of C Chronicle 11/18/04)

If you had turned to look at this location during the fair, this is the view that you would have had. The captive balloon, ostrich farm, and Chinese Village are on the left. The ferris wheel, of course, is looming in the middle. The Wild East show, Dahomey, Lapland, and Old Vienna stretch down the right hand side.

It was in this district of entertainment centers that one of Frank Lloyd Wright's more famous lost structures once sat: the Midway Gardens. The beer garden and entertainment center was on the corner of Cottage Grove and the Midway Plaisance at 60th Street. It covered three acres--a square city block--surrounded by low masonry terraces, promenades, loggias, galleries, winter gardens, and a dance floor. It was supposed to be a festival for the eye and ear, with areas for mystery and romance--a place for good music, good food, good beer, and dancing. It was mostly of concrete with scarlet and green flash glass in relief.

The Midway Gardens opened before they were finished to a grand society opening. Pavlova danced there. But it had been under financed so it was quickly sold to the Edelweiss Brewery, which badly altered Wright's conception of it. Soon after, Prohibition ruined the business since the open airy plan couldn't be converted into a speakeasy. After an attempt to convert it into a dance hall and skating rink, it was torn down in 1929 and replaced with a car wash. It's now the home of a gas station and a ground level parking lot--and soon to be a new parking structure for University of Chicago Hospital employees at Drexel and 61st Street that will begin construction in 2005.

Midway Gardens was bulldozed into Lake Michigan as break wall, but the building didn’t go down without a fight. Two wrecking companies went out of business trying to demolish the concrete structure. Though they weren't supposed to, a number of the workmen salvaged some of the Sprites that had been sculpted by Alfonso Ianelli. These large ladies in the picture are at the Arizona Biltmore.

Remains of Cottage Grove entertainment district at 6349S Cottage Grove, in the Grand Ballroom, now being redone by the former manager of Piccolo Mondo. Ballroom 60 feet long with an art deco bar and chandeliers, 20 foot tall ceilings, decorative plaster. ornate terra cotta on the outside. Built in 1923. Also on that corner was the Tivoli Theaterh, 3, 400 seats, , and a Trianon Ballroom.

One bit of hype was that one of their Arabian horses Aigme had supposedly caught the eye of someone in New York and they'd been offered $12,000 for it.

Some parts of the current studios line 60th Street, marked by the 1957 Cadillac embedded in 16 tons of concrete. It is a sculpture by Wolf Vostell called "Concrete Traffic" put there in 1970.

The National Historic Landmark Midway Studios are around the corner at 6016 S. Ingleside Avenue. The university gave this shed and land to Lorado Taft to work on his sculpture commissions.

The South Campus plan for 2020 includes a center for creative and performing arts to be built surrounding all sides of Midway Studios.