The Flamingo-on-the-Lake was another of the 1920's lakeside resorts cut off from the shore by Lake Shore Drive. But at least they have a pool and cabanas. It's a rental building now. And has kept up a restaurant on site--now Bar Louie. According to Empiris, there originally were pyramids on the eastern edges of the two wings. The limestone cornice on the north facade is ornamented with a repeating bird motif. The Flamingo was designed by William Reichert and completed in 1927.

The Flamingo never had the large public spaces that the grand resorts like the Shoreland had, but it did have other modern amenities, like a mail chute and modern garbage disposal system.(1) As Empiris points out, the front fire escape fits into a notch running up the building's narrow eastern facade. At each landing it forms a small curved balcony.

When I first arrived in Hyde Park, the next lot to the south was the Shore Motel. It held Morton's Restaurant in the late 1950s (which evolved into the famous Morton's Steakhouse elsewhere), later there was a Greek restaurant that I actually ate at. For years the derelict motel made the corner disheartening. Now the lot is occupied by Montgomery Place, an assisted living retirement community with assorted services and facilities for seniors.

And here we reach the edge of the official grounds of the 1893 Columbian Exposition. This was the location of a failed enterprise that swallowed hundreds of thousands of investor dollars and never opened. This is where the ruins of MacKay's Spectatorium once stood. The object was to build a viewing tower to survey the hundreds of acres of fairgrounds, but it was never completed. As it says in Clover, "[he] drove down East End Avenue, approaching the gigantic failure known as the Spectatorium, whose bulky, half-clothed skeleton upreared against the sky like a type of blighted hope." (p. 51) Also here, a pier jutted into the lake during the Fair and immediately afterward.

Walking to the corner of 56th Street, there's a great divide. North of 56th, the lakefront is Burnham Park--part of Daniel Burnham's ambitious redesign of the entire Lakefront.

South of 56th Street, we'll be walking through Jackson Park, part of Paul Cornell's South Parks Commission created in 1869--1100 acres that would become three parks: Jackson Park, Washington Park, and the Midway Plaisance that connected the two. He believed that the elaborate parks would attract well-off settlers to his resort on the lake.

Aside from Park District administration, it means that from here on out, the park was designed by Olmsted and later redesigned by his sons. Olmsted said that the park should have "the beauty of the fields, the meadow, the prairie, of the green pastures and the still waters. What we want to gain is tranquility and rest to the mind." It would bring the old ideals of the agrarian republic to the class divisions and chaos of the city. He even had sheep in the open southern end of the park. They may not have healed class divisions but they could help with the mowing.

In 1893, Jackson Park and the Midway were transformed into the White City for one amazing summer. It was here that historian Frederick Jackson Turner announced his famous belief that there was no more frontier--and that its closing would transform America, with the city as the new frontier.

Here is a pavillion that represents one of the few visible indications that the Fair was even here. This is known as the Iowa Building--but it's not even located where the Iowa Building was. This is west of the original location. When the Drive went through, what was left of the original was torn down. The WPA rebuilt this here in 1936. It's made of the native Dolomite that underlies Chicago.

Chicago sits on the lakebed of Ancient Lake Chicago. Below that is a layer of dolostone (aka dolomite--it looks like limestone with a warm yellowish tinge shading running through it and it's a different chemical composition. It weathers to a warm buttery color. (Wiggers 2004). According to "How the Earth Was Made" on the History Channel, this stone is the reason the Great Lakes exist.

The patio was of lovely Bluestone flagstones from the Catskill Mountains of New York, near where I grew up. Unfortunately, the construction machinery used in building the underpass drove over them and smashed them up.

Background on the Iowa Building can be found here. There's also a history of the Iowa Building done by the Hyde Park Historical Society.

The Iowa Building for the Fair was designed by Josselyn and Taylor of Cedar Rapids and cost $35,000. Some people called it the Corn Palace. It looks like this view on the left was taken from the half-built Spectatorium.

This starts the group of the state pavilions--which closed every Sunday, except for a few that mostly provided a rest area for its citizens at the Fair.

The pavillion might not have seen the grandeur (and silliness) of the Fair, but the lovely old trees throughout this stretch of Jackson Park may have because the pictures show that there were young trees everywhere here.

Black oaks on the original sand ridges.

The landscaping of Jackson Park provides hills and dales in this stretch north of 57th Street. The remains of the old bridle path can still be seen in the center of the photo.

During the Fair, the Intramural Railroad ran through here--an elevated electric railroad that skirted the grounds of the main fair. Ten cents got you a ride through the sprawling grounds. Friend Williams was a high school boy from upstate New York, who wrote up his impressions for his teacher. His reaction echoed many people amazed that a "city" could show great care and study, in harmony with the surroundings.(3)

Along 56th Street, there were the state buildings of (from east to west) Virginia, Idaho, Montana,

Jackson Towers--5555 S. Everett Avenue--are condos. The building was designed by Walter W. Ahlschlager and completed in 1925, so it too dates from the era of grand resorts. Many of the units are duplexes with the tall arched windows with views south across the park and lake. It's 19 stories tall. The top tower of Jackson Towers was rumored to once be where the servants were housed.

According to Harris (p. 60) the duplexes suggest "a Gloria Swanson movie set" with baronial fireplaces rising 2 stories. Walter Ahlschlager (a theatre designer) built it as a co-op but it turned to rental when times were hard. Charles Comiskey the baseball magnate lived there. Late in the 1960s it returned to being condo. It's 18 stories high.

North of Jackson Towers is the Museum Walk apartment building--or as the building points out, originally the Saranac Hotel.

The 1700 Building is a condo, towering over the north end of Jackson Park at 38 stories. It's the tallest building in Chicago south of 13th Street. The top story is a community room/entertaining space with great views. I once was there for a party when a peregrine falcon landed right outside the window and proceeded to tear a flicker to shreds. The 1700 Building was designed by Loewenberg & Loewenberg and was completed in 1968.

Right across from the 1700 Building was the Montana State pavillion during the Fair.

Across Hyde Park Boulevard, is the Windermere Hotel, now rental apartments. It was originally the east of two buildings. The original one to the West was built in time for the Columbian Exposition. Now it's a parking lot.

The Windermere East was built in 1924--the first luxury elevator building in Hyde Park. Designed by Rapp and Rapp who were known for movie theaters,(1) It's 12 stories high. It was built with both 200 residential suites and 482 hotel guest rooms. Two underground tunnels connected the two hotels. Famous guests were John D. Rockefeller, Philip Roth, and the Los Angeles Rams. It's on the National Register of Historic Places.

Windermere West was demolished in 1959. Built for the Fair it was a horse and buggy hotel with a large veranda. It was right by one of the entrances to the Fair right across the street. It had a famous garden that stretched to the west. According to the sign posted by the parking lot now, Edna Ferber worked for the Tribune while living here around 1910 and wrote her Pulitzer Prize winning novel, So Big.

According to Harris (p. 74) the distinctive entry to the current Windermere is like the ticket kiosks on Rapp & Rapp theatres.

Opposite it were the Utah and Texas pavillions

Solstice on the Park

Antheus Capital, which owns the Windermere, the Shoreland, and the Del Prado, has a new construction project to be located where the parking lot is, on the grounds of the old Windermere West.

For more on the project:

www.solsticeonthepark.com/

West of the parking lot where Windermere West stood, is Bret Harte School, the redone Metra station, and visible beyond the raised tracks are the University Apartments of I. M. Pei (aka Monoxide Island because they split 55th Street).

Bret Harte (known for his Western stories) lived in Chicago and wrote a poem about it after the fire:

"Chicago," by Bret Harte.

Blackened and bleeding, helpless, panting, prone
On the charred fragments of her shattered throne
Lies she who stood but yesterday alone.

Queen of the West! by some enchanter taught
To lift the glory of Aladdin's court,
Then lose the spell that all that wonder wrought.

Like her own prairies by some chance seed sown,
Like her own prairies in one brief day grown,
Like her own prairies in one fierce night mown.

She lifts her voice, and in her pleading call
We hear the cry of Macedon to Paul--
The cry for help that makes her kin to all.

But haply with wan finger may she feel
The silver cup hid in the proffered meal--
The gifts her kinship and our loves reveal.

Right about where the path enters the park from in front of Bret Harte was one of the main entrances to the Fair.

It's hard to get a photo of it, but along in front of Bret Harte there's a swale. In heavy rain and in winter it will hold water. It's the remnant of the lagoon that was part of the Eskimo village here.

It shows up in Clover "A band was ploaying on its aerial perch above the Eskimo village, and Jack smiled to hear the gay, assured strains of "After the Ball" soaring above a vigorous drum accompaniment. He walked across the bridge and looked down where the Eskimos in their white robes with th e peaked hoods propelled their slender canoes noiselessly amid the darkening shadows of the willows." (51)

Friend Williams wasn't very interested but did like one aspect: "Three or four of the men Esquimaux were engaged in snapping coins from the earth with their long whips or walrus lariats with which they are very dexterous."(3)

Of course, part of the disappointment was because it cost 25 cents to get inside the closure and look around. They look ok in the snow, but in the middle of summer, their sled had to run on wheels and the heat and humidity must have taken its toll.

Stony Island, the street that runs along the east side of the Fair, was originally a ridge where the bedrock was close to the surface (Wiggers 2004 tour) Most of the city is oozy clay. (Wiggers) so finding firm footing turned it into an early road.

Museum of Science and Industry has at its core the Fine Arts Building from the Columbian Exposition though its gone through a great deal of remodeling. The Fine Arts Building had a solid brick interior to protect the art from fire. The outside was staff to match the rest of the White City. It was designed by Charles Atwood. The details were a pastiche of features from the Acropolis.On the top of the dome was a large statue of Winged Victory when the fair opened, but it was removed during the fair.(2)

Friend Williams, "The finely carved, snowy white statuary marble was very beautiful." He fumbled to explain the Japanese cloisonne. He lists pictures with no reaction--an overwhelming amount of art!(3) He went back to give it another try but couldn't deal with it "I went through all but that is about all I can say of it, for in looking at so many and looking at it so quickly, one can have but a confused memory of what he has seen.

Its first post-fair incarnation was as the Field Museum, started with artifacts left behind from the Columbian Exposition. By 1920, the staff was crumbling, and the Field built the new building in Grant Park rather than rebuilding.It was converted to the MSI in 1933 by

Front lawn of the MSI was once tennis courts--40 lawn courts. People coulc bring their own nets and stake them out for the day. (2)