. Chicago. -scraper has been almostas ruthless a destroyer as the Great Fire 27 Chicago itself, so different in aspect is the businessdistrict of to-day from that which arosefromthe ashes of i 87 i. Should some Rip VanWinkle of Chicago awake from a sleep oftwenty years to wander in bewildermentthrough its canyon-like streets, he wouldhardly find an unaltered landmark, eventhe familiar Board of Trade being shornof its tower. Now and then, however,he would stumble upon a familiar objectsadly changed in appearance,— McVick-ers Theatre, for instance, sunk from itslegitimate estate to ten-cent vaud
. Chicago. -scraper has been almostas ruthless a destroyer as the Great Fire 27 Chicago itself, so different in aspect is the businessdistrict of to-day from that which arosefromthe ashes of i 87 i. Should some Rip VanWinkle of Chicago awake from a sleep oftwenty years to wander in bewildermentthrough its canyon-like streets, he wouldhardly find an unaltered landmark, eventhe familiar Board of Trade being shornof its tower. Now and then, however,he would stumble upon a familiar objectsadly changed in appearance,— McVick-ers Theatre, for instance, sunk from itslegitimate estate to ten-cent vaudeville,and the once proud Palmer House, now adrummers haunt. The old Chicago Clubbuilding, too, is reduced in quality to aflashy restaurant; the Tremont House isa college annex, and the Grand Pacific,though still a hostelry, is considerablycurtailed, both in size and social stand-ing. Yet these, and a few grimy oldsix-storied structures with mansard roofs 28 Tbe Board of Trade Building from LaSalle Street. The Heart of the City crouching indigently, here and there,between brand-new office buildings oftwenty-story haughtiness, are all that isleft in the Loop of the ante-Worlds Faircity, — unless it be a familiar name ortwo, such as Buck and Raynor, or TheTribune, appearing on some corner asof yore, but upon a building whollystrange. Barely a step outside the Loop,however, is dingy old South Water Streetunaltered in aspect, and still made im-passable for man and beast by the boxesand barrels heaped upon its sidewalks,and the rows of hucksters carts backedup before its grimy doors. If this Rip Van Winkle were a man oftaste, he would marvel, I fear, at the lack ofit shown by the builders of new magnitude of its fire-proof structuresmight, it is true, fill his heart with ad-miration for the indomitable power thatthey symbol; yet seldom would it thrill 29 Chicago to architectural beauty, and then onlybecause an occasional architect had dis-covered that a sky-scraper n
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Keywords: ., bo, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, booksubjectchicagoillhistory
