a'" ­ VOLUME 18 PUBUSHED BY THE HYDE PARK HISTORICAL SOCIETY AUTUMN 1996

BY JAMES STRONKS In the swnmer of 1895 "The Greatest Building on Earth" (so said the flag on its roof) was going up on 63d Street, a block west of Stony Island Avenue. Inland Architect said "The Coliseum" was ~ the biggest building erected in America \ since the Columbian Exposition, and its ):4> statistics were indeed awesome. Longer than two football fields, it covered 51/2 acres of floor space and would seat 20,000 easily. Eleven enormous cantilever trusses spanned 218 feet of airspace, enclosing nearly a city block. A tower twenty stories high would dominate the neighborhood, its elevators rising to an observatory/cafe, with a roof-garden music-hall atop that, and at the pinnacle a giant electric searchlight visible for miles. The Coliseum's mammoth steel skeleton was all but completed ...and then it happened. At 11:10 p.m. on August 21 the immense framework collapsed. The appalling roar scared people off a standing train as far away as 47th Street. At dawn the next morning engineers with long faces inspected the ruins to determine the cause. Newspaper reporters licked their pencil points, eager to pin blame and expose a scandal. But THE there really wasn't any. The collapse was evidently caused by some 75 tons of lumber having been stacked on the roof COLLAPSIBLE so as to bear too heavily upon the last truss put into place, one which was not yet completely bolted into the structure COLISEUM as a whole. There was no scandal in the AND THE design, declared American Architect and Building N ews (Boston): "Both architect and engineer bear names of the best CROSS OF GOLD repute in the country." Just the same, it did not name them. continued on page 2 2­ ~

But with 600 men working three shifts the Coliseum could be finished in 80 or 90 days, in time for a football game scheduled there for Thanksgiving Day. The Coliseum occupied the block just west of where Hyde Park High School stands today, between 62d and 63d Streets. Thus it stood exactly where Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show had ripped and roared during the world's fair in 1893. On the east and west it was bounded by Grace and Hope, interesting street names (they have been given confusing new ones lately), but the entrance to the Coliseum, as shown in our Harper 'S Weekly picture, was on 63d Street.

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Steel Skeleton ..-::

continued from page I The engineer of the steelwork was in ~ls:: 0]h C1l fact Carl Binder and the architect was S.S. Beman. > p., « Solon S. Bemen, age 42, had designed the Pullman '0s:: s:: Building in his twenties, planned the whole village of 0] .-i 0 Ul Pullman, built the Studebaker-Fine Arts, the H Ul Washington Park Club at the racetrack, the Grand ..-:: Central Station on Harrison at Wells, and the Mines () 0] and Mining Building at the world's fair. In Hyde ..., Park/Kenwood, Beman designed Blackstone Library, the Bryson Apartments, Christ Scientist churches on Dorchester and Blackstone, eight or ten private homes, and [after Rand McNally, 1$93J supervised the Rosalie Villas project (Harper between 57th and The Coliseum's tower gives the historian a problem. 59th). He himself It has been so badly drawn in our Harper's picture as to lived on East 49th, be quite fals~.S. Beman could never have designed moving later to that thing. Was it added by a different hand when the 5502 Hyde Park sketch was mailed to the editors in ? Boulevard. Conceivably the $75,000 loss on the collapsed steelwork Of the collapsed forced the Coliseum Company to curtail Beman's Coliseum Beman elaborate concept for the tower. But that there was spoke with finally a tower is suggested by the name given to the authority. There was Tower Theatre, built on the identical spot after the no doubt as to the death of the Coliseum. Old Hyde Parkers will correctness" of remember a small steel latticework "tower" playfully engineer Binder's capping the facade of the Tower Theatre as late as 1950. steelwork, and Curiously, "The Greatest Building on Earth" is construction would qu.ite unknown today, and has apparently never had its resume with no change in story told before. A recent fat scholarly history of design as soon as new steel 5.5. Beman architecture from 1872 to 1922 knows could be delivered. Barnum and nothing of it. Not even an authoritative 1985 study of Bailey's Circus, booked there for October, would have Beman's total work (which cites more than 100 of his to be cancelled, as would a fat stock and horse show. bu.ildings, including commercial projects) reveals any

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~ ~ u o V'l 61 ~~"f. &, .fJltJlLr- AVLe s PRIGE. 25 GENTS. {JIICA(JO t o u 4\; ,: ~-~---~~~ liS Architect's Original Plan awareness of his mighty Coliseum. The reason must be cartoons of prominent Democrats. They ran reams of its brief life. It rose, it fell, it rose again, it burned interviews with the leading candidates. But none of down-all in little more than two years. Sic transit the portraits or cartoons or write-ups were about gloria mundi. But before it died in flames, The young from . That Coliseum enjoyed one splendid moment of national would change on the third day when the convention fame. bosses let him speak. That big moment came on July 7-11, 1896, when The Cross of Gold was not a keynote speech, nor The Coliseum staged the Democratic National nominating or acceptance speech. Its purpose was to Convention, where William Jennings Bryan, age 36, "conclude debate on the platform." It concluded it, all made his famous Cross of Gold speech and was right. Bryan actually spoke about only one plank in nominated for President of the United States. the platform, the silver plank, but with it he ran away The called the Coliseum with the convention. It was like a classic myth, the arrangements "a grand success." Harper's Weekly one where the handsome young idealist from the compared The Coliseum to Madison Square Garden in provinces wins out over the old professional courtiers New York, pronounced it typical of Chicago in its and is crowned prince. hugeness, and scoffed that no speaker could ever The Democrats in 1896, at least the dominant possibly be heard by all 20,000 sitting in that vast hall. faction who engineered a plurality at the convention, As for convention politicking, a headline declared it were calling for the free, unlimited coinage of silver by a horse race: the U.S. Mint at a ratio of 16 to 1 with gold. "We demand," said the platform "that the standard silver LEADERS ALL AT SEA. dollar be full , equally with gold, for all No Certainty As To Probable Nominee. debts, public and private." It does not sound radical to us today, but in 1896 it was to many good people a Chicago papers printed dozens of portraits and shocking inflationary proposal to continued on poge 4

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continued from page 3 subvert a sacred . Some clearly audible to all 20,000 in that enormous hall. pro-gold, "sound-money" Democrats walked out and (One marvels, since most Hyde Park ministers need a formed a splinter party. microphone to reach 50 listeners.) In the severe depression of 1893-1894 there was a That the Cross of Gold speech was not to be a shortage of money in circulation. Bryan and other technical discourse on monetary policy was evident at in the agricultural West and South-for it once in Bryan's throbbing opener: was very much a sectional cause-believed that The humblest citizen in all the land, unlimited coining of silver would increase the money when clad in the armor of a righteous cause, supply and thus ease the suffering of farmers and is stronger than all the hosts of error. workingmen and small businessmen slipping toward One cannot imagine Mr. Clinton or Mr. Dole trying bankruptcy. to get away with that kind of language in 1996. But It was a simplistic argument, no doubt-that Free the transcript of the Cross of Gold speech which Silver could cure complex economic ills, and social appeared in newspapers allover America the next day ones rising out of them. But by the summer of 1896 tells us of constant interruptions by applause from a had acquired a powerful appeal to the thrilled audience. Bryan's listeners were soon rising to debtor class, and in his speech Bryan milked it to the their feet to shout approval at nearly every other maximum. He himself was sincere in feeling it sentence of his attack on the bankers and gold­ nothing less than a holy cause. standard capitalist money-centers of the East. I have lately read the Cross of Gold speech-it But it was Bryan's pro-silver finale that really set off seemed the least I could do for this paper--expecting the fireworks. It has been a fixture in American to be bored. Instead I found it fascinating: ardent in folklore ever since: emotion, rich in striking metaphors, a masterpiece of old-fashioned populist oratory. No wonder its We have petitioned [said Bryan] dramatic rhythms raised pulses in the Coliseum on and our petitions have been scorned; , 1896, when spoken out in Bryan's wonderful we have entreated, voice, with masterful timing and inflection, and and our entreaties have been disregarded; we have begged, ­ and they have mocked when our calamity came. We beg no longer; we entreat no more; we petition no more. We defY them .. ! We will answer their demand for a gold standard by saying to them: You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not [with outstretched arms] crucifY mankind upon a cross of gold.

Seconds later The Coliseum erupted in roaring delirium. Most accounts say the demonstration lasted nearly an hour. The Tribune reporter said fifteen minutes, but then he objected to Bryan's "profane" last sentence, and besides, the Trib was a Republican paper and was supporting McKinley. The reporter for The Record, none other than young George Ade, another Republican, confided later that, "I didn't believe one word of that'Cross of Gold' oratorical paroxysm, but it Byron 'The Silver Knight of the West" in 1896 gave me the goose-pimples just the same."

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Byran, "The Boy Orator of the Platte," never much did not even attend the convention the next day when of an intellectual, had featured emotion over reason, the delegates nominated him, at age 36, the youngest and style over substance. Indeed, during the sustained candidate for President in history. tumult Governor Altgeld said to the man next to him, The campaign of 1896 was a bitter one. To "I have been thinking over the speech. What did he admiring throngs who turned out for Bryan's say, anyhow?" And Clarence Darrow replied, "I don't appearances, wrote Professor Woodrow Wilson, a know." Later, Senator Foraker, an old-guard Democrat, Bryan seemed "a sort of knight-errant Republican, made the wicked quip that in Nebraska going about to redress the wrongs of a nation." But the Platte River is "one inch deep and six miles wide readers today would scarcely believe the apoplectic at the mouth." vituperation which gold standard advocates and But in the Coliseum at the time, Bryan's speech was G.O.P. papers showered on Bryan and Free Silver. a sensational triumph, which swept the Democrats In November he lost to McKinley 46% to 51 % of into an ecstasy of jubilation and made Bryan an instant the popular vote. He was nominated again in 1900, national figure. Newspapers the next day showed him and (with Adlai E. Stevenson as veep) lost to being carried on delegates' shoulders-"as ifhe had McKinley again. A third time, in 1908, he lost to Taft. been a god," wrote Edgar Lee Masters. When Bryan Bryan and Free Silver and the unlucky Coliseum could get away ftom the pressure cooker in The itself had seen their finest hour that day 100 summers Coliseum, he and his young wife rode the El back to ago down on 63d Street. B their Loop hotel, the modest Clifton House, where reporters again swarmed about him relentlessly. Bryan (e) 1995 James Stronks

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Notes from the Arch ives by Stephen A. Treffman, ON-GOING EXHIBIT AT HPHS Archivist HPHS HEADQUARTERS The Hyde Park Historical Society has, over HOURS : time, acquired for its archives a variety of older small artifacts and memorabilia from various SATURDAYS & SUNDAYS businesses and other groups that once were or 2 TO 4 PM are still active in and around Hyde Park. Among these have been such items as a miniature barrel bank from the University State Bank, a tape measure from the Acme Sheet Metal Works, a measuring glass from R.S. Thomas' Prescription Laboratory, a match book Hyde Park. from the Quadrangle Club, a 45 rpm record of piano music entitled "An Evening at Morton's," postcards, offering brochures for various real Doorways estate projects, and even stationary from the Woodlawn Businessmen's Association. If you would like to donate any older items imprinted PHOTOGRAPHS BY with the names of businesses, clubs, groups or organizations in Hyde Park, we would be ED CAMPBELL delighted to evaluate them for inclusion in our collection. We also maintain a small collection of political memorabilia, primarily candidate pins, from various Hyde Park campaigns. Here again, if you have any items that you think might be appropriate for our archives, please write us a note or drop off donations enclosed in an envelope or other package at our headquarters at 5529 S. Lake Park Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637.

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letters to the Editor

To the Editor: I was very interested in your article on the Ray Schools in Spring/Summer issue. My mother and father were classmates at the original building-the St. Thomas the Apostle more recently. They would have been married, had they survived, for 96 years last]une 8th. In their class was one Matthew Brush-later to make millions on the short side of the stock market in 1931-35. My mother's maiden name being Hair their classmates took great joy and every opportunity to introduce Mr. Brush to Miss Hair. I was born and brought up in Hyde Park. Our first home after I married was at 5721 Kimbark C/ Y/ C/ //· . / (// . / (JO () .//('rl(? ./(/(/~ • r..JNrY/f/r· • / 077. where we lived on the third floor for several years and brought our first N EA R 47TH sn:t EET AND ORE:.XEL BOULEVARD child home from the old St. Luke's Hospital in 1937. The following note from Len Despres was written on the card above: We all miss Jean Friedberg Block. June 10, 1996 The accounts ofthe Ray School and William Ray are excellent. Some day Sincerely, someone might want to unravel the mystery ofthe "Skee Slide" at 47th and Howard Lewis Drexel. Did it ever exist? Spanish Fort, Alabama The photo below, from a book tiNed Chicago and its Makers, by Paul Gilbert and Charles Lee Bryson, published in 1929, seems to prove it did exist at 44th, not 47th, and Drexel. Too bad we've given up such local amenities!

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This Newsletter is published by the Hyde Park Historical Society Hyde Park Historical Society, a Collecting and Preserving Hyde Park's History not-for-profit organization founded Time for you to join up or renew? in 1975 to record, preserve, and promote public interest in the Fill out the form bel(flu and return it to: history of Hyde Park. The Hyde Park Historical Society Its headquarters, located in an 1893 resrored cable car station at 5529 S. Lake Park Avenue • Chicago, IL 60637 5529 South Lake Park Avenue, ~...... houses local exhibits. It is open to Enclosed is my __ new __ renewal membership the public on Saturdays and Sundays from 2 until 4pm. in the Hyde Park Historical Society. Telephone: HY3-1893 -­ Member $15 -­ Sponsor $50 President ...... Tom Pavelec __Contributor $25 __ Benefactor $100 Editor ...... Theresa McDennott Name ______Designer ...... Nickie Sage Regular membership: $15 per year, Address---______contributor: $25, sponsors: $50, benefactor: $100 Zip