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The Chicago Film Tour was such an amazing experience! I checked it out with my “movie-know-it-all girlfriend” a couple weeks ago and it is a definitely a must-see in Chicago. If you like movies and history, I strongly recommend this tour. Pat McDonald, a film critic for www.hollywoodchicago.com, was our host for the day, leading us through the city with tons of film history knowledge and trivia. The bus is equipped with video screens, comfortable seating, and for those of you with tiny bladders -you guessed it, some of their buses have a bathroom. As we drive through Chicago slowly rolling past film locations, we are directed to the screens to watch the final clips that made it into the movies. I learned so much from this tour and how ingrained the history of movie making is in Chicago culture. Pat really knows his stuff and the staff of The Chicago Film Tour have put a ton of effort into making this a great experience.
The tour covers about 30+ miles of film history. We traveled past the world famous Wrigley field all the way south to Chinatown. There was a great selection of movies and not just the classics like Ferris Bueller’s Day Off or Blues Brothers. Pat covered everything from the 1910 silent movie The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, My Bodyguard, Child’s Play, Back Draft, While You Were Sleeping, and North By Northwest, to new releases like Eagle Eye, Wanted, and The Dark Knight. Possibly my favorite moment of the day was Pat’s homage to Vince Vaughn. There really is nothing quite like big guys dancing and no one does it better than Vince. (Fred Claus, The Breakup, etc.) You can tell Pat enjoys what he does which makes the whole trip even better. He’s freaking hilarious and is the kind of guy you want to have a beer with and watch a good flick. If you have friends and family coming in from out of town, or even folks you know in town and you want to show them how great our city is, tell them to take this tour. No matter what age you are or what you think you know about the movies, you’re sure to learn a ton on this tour.
Get yourself some tickets and check this out today!
Did you miss Valentines day? Don’t worry, all you need to do is to show your girl some Chicago history. A tree is all that is left at the site where the St.Valentine’s Day Massacre occurred on Feb 14th, 1929.
The tree is at 2122 N. Clark Street in the Lincoln Park neighborhood. Almost eighty years ago, four of Al Capone’s henchmen, posing as police officers, drew machine guns from their overcoats and murdered six members of Bugs Moran’s gang. Apparently, Capone didn’t like Moran cutting into his market. Moran was also muscling in on a Capone-run dog track in the Chicago suburbs. Jack McGurn is one of the people most frequently cited by researchers as a suspected planner.
No one was ever charged with the crime, and the warehouse where the slayings occurred was torn down in 1967. Now this unassuming tree sits on an open lot at the south end of an apartment building. Rumor has it during the month of February you can hear the shots from their Thompson sub machine guns. If you guys cant keep your girl at arms length at this scary peice of Chicago history….Even “Cousin Vinnie” thinks you might be outta luck.
If you are wondering where other Big Al hangouts are, don’t stress. The City of Chicago made it easy for us. The Chicago Department of Transportation has placed a sign there pointing out the architectural significance of those buildings. They are located at Michigan and Cermak, which doesn’t look anything like it did in the 1920s and 30s. Back then, two luxury hotels — The Metropole and The Lexington — were the center of those roaring times. That sign also indicates that this is where Al Capone and his gang were headquartered. City officials almost never like to connect Big Al with Big Shoulders. History is not always pretty, or something that we are proud of, but sometimes it’s best just to “deal with it”. You learn from mistakes that have been made and you move. People want to see sights like this. This is history, and I apprieciate living in a city that realizes it. This one is for you Chicago.
It was called “The Roaring Twenties” for a good reason. America had recovered from the First World War and words like demobilization and urbanization graced the front pages of the newspapers. We entered a new era of musical, artistic, and technological development. It seemed like the perfect time to suppress the creative sparks that consuming massive amounts of alcohol brings, right?
Prohibition and the gangsters are a vital part of 1920s American history. The 18th Amendment banned the sale, transportation and manufacturing of alcohol. But anyone with any sort of common sense knew that millions of Americans neither wanted this law nor would respect it. Besides, with people making homemade gin in their bathtubs instead of taking baths, there was obviously a huge market for alcohol.
It was the gangsters who dominated various cities who provided this commodity. Each major city had its gangster element, but the most famous was Chicago with Al Capone. In 1931, the law finally caught up with Capone and some say it was with the help of E.J. O’Hare, Al Capone’s lawyer, had a son named Butch; with big dreams of being a pilot. He wanted to join the Naval Academy at Annapolis. But the government could not see the son of a lawyer who works for Alphonse Capone getting accepted to a prestigious school like that. Well, Capone did get convicted of income tax evasion in 1931 and he got slapped with 11 years in jail. In prison his health deteriorated, and when he was released he retired to his Florida mansion. He was no longer the feared man he was from 1925 to 1931.
A few years later, Butch did go to Annapolis, and graduated Class of 1937 (coincidence? I think not). In World War II he became a pilot and earned a Medal of Honor (the award, not the video game). He was later killed in another engagement. Today he is the reason our beloved O’Hare Airport is graced with such a nice name. In 1939, E.J. O’Hare was fatally gunned down on Nov. 8, 1939, while driving in his car on Ogden Avenue near Western Avenue
Alderman Ed Burke, a Chicago historian, has gotten the police department’s Cold Case Squad to take another look at E.J.’s murder. If you take a look at this new book by Jonathan Eig, Get Capone, it will shed new light on O’Hare’s role in Capone’s downfall. I want this book!
Proudly referred to as Chicago’s “front yard,” Grant Park is among the city’s loveliest and most prominent parks. The site of three world-class museums — the Art Institute, the Field Museum of Natural History, and the Shedd Aquarium — the park includes the museum campus, a 1995 transformation of paved areas into beautiful greenspace. Grant Park’s centerpiece is the Clarence Buckingham Memorial Fountain, built in 1927 to provide a monumental focal point while protecting the park’s breathtaking lakefront views.
Grant Park’s beginnings date to 1835, when foresighted citizens, fearing commercial lakefront development, lobbied to protect the open space. As a result, the park’s original area east of Michigan Avenue was designated “public ground forever to remain vacant of buildings.” Officially named Lake Park in 1847, the site soon suffered from lakefront erosion. The Illinois Central Railroad agreed to build a breakwater to protect the area in exchange for permission for an offshore train trestle. After the Great Fire of 1871, the area between the shore and trestle became a dump site for piles of charred rubble, the first of many landfill additions.
In 1901, the city transferred the park to the South Park Commission, which named it for Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885), 18th President of the United States. Renowned architect Daniel H. Burnham envisioned Grant Park as a formal landscape with museums and civic buildings. However, construction was stalled by lawsuits launched by mail-order magnate Aaron Montgomery Ward, who sought to protect the park’s open character.
Finally, in 1911, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled in Ward’s favor. New landfill at the park’s southern border allowed construction of the Field Museum to begin, and the park evolved slowly. In 1934, the South Park Commission was consolidated into the Chicago Park District, which completed improvements using federal relief funds.
At the turn of the 21st century, the north end of Grant Park is undergoing a multi-million-dollar facelift, as old railbeds are transformed into Millennium Park, a major landscape and festival site.