Latest news with #World'sColumbianExposition
Forbes
24-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Forbes
Chicago Athletic Association Hotel Has A Gilded Age Past
Chicago Athletic Association on Michigan Avenue. Chicago. Some hotels have a clubby feel, and some were once actual clubs. The Chicago Athletic Association Hotel easily fits both of those definitions. The stately Venetian Gothic tower commands a prime location on Michigan Avenue, across the street from the shiny bean sculpture known as Cloud Gate, the Crown Fountain, and the Pritzker Music Pavilion. Down the street is the Art Institute of Chicago and the Chicago Symphony. As you look straight out onto shimmering Lake Michigan, it's hard to imagine a better Chicago location or a more storied hotel in the city. The Drawing Room at Chicago Athletic Association When you walk through this hotel, which is now part of Hyatt, it's a bit like time travel. There are terrazzo marble floors, 19th-century stained glass windows, and vintage marble. The spectacular Drawing Room, which is a second-floor lobby and sanctuary looking out on the lake, feels like the ornate library of a gentleman's club, with wooden columns, fireplaces, work tables, and reading nooks. It may be vintage, but it's more playful than stuffy, with the homey, club-like feel you'd expect in such a building. As I discovered, the enormous room is a great place for a morning coffee or a cocktail after a day out in the Windy City. It's also the antithesis of most hotel lobbies, which are rarely laid-back places to linger. Designed by architect Henry Ives Cobb in 1893 for the Chicago Athletic Association (CAA) as a private men's club, it was built to coincide with the opening of the World's Columbian Exposition, the legendary 'White City.' From the start, the CAA was all about power and privilege. Members included the city's wealthiest and most successful businessmen, such as William Wrigley, owner of the Chicago Cubs, who appropriated the club's logo for that team. There was also Olympic gold medal swimming champion Johnny Weissmuller, who would go on to play Tarzan in the movies. Marshall Field, owner of Chicago's famed department store, was also a member, as was architect Daniel Burnham, who designed the World's Columbian Exposition. Chicago Athletic Association The club featured an indoor basketball court, running track, dedicated boxing ring, and swimming pool. There were bars and restaurants and, during Prohibition, speakeasys, along with a roster of entertainers as diverse as bluesman Muddy Waters and the great jazz artist Duke Ellington. Yet over time, the membership dwindled, and the club finally closed in 2007. What saved it was the billionaire Pritzker family, owners of the Hyatt Hotels chain, who embarked on a massive restoration and reimagining under Hartshorne Plunkard Architecture and Roman and Williams Buildings and Interiors. Founders Suite at Chicago Athletic Association It reopened as a hotel in 2015 and now has 241 guestrooms and suites that are respectful and redolent of the original club rooms. They've been playfully done with conceits like a pommel horse at the end of some beds, table legs wrapped up like vintage tennis racquets, and even wooden climbing racks on the wall. The bathrooms are updated but have vintage-looking cream and white tiles. Modern versions of brass beds and Faribault Woolen Mill Co. custom blankets set the tone. This was one of the first buildings in Chicago to have electricity, and today, they have a contemporary version of Edison lightbulbs throughout the hotel for authenticity. The rooms are comfortable and quiet and high-ceilinged. Pony up for Junior Suite with a lake view, and you'll get a 550 square foot room with spectacular views and a spacious bathroom. The old boxing ring is now the Game Room, where you'll find billiard tables, a bocce ball court, and shuffleboard. The fourth-floor basketball court is still there, where you can shoot hoops, rent roller skates for a spin around the large court, or run on the track suspended above the court. Where there were once Turkish Baths on the ground floor is now a Shake Shack. The swimming pool, nicknamed The Tank, is gone, though the decorative tiles remain. Elevators are paneled in wood from the former fencing court. I'm generally not inclined to get excited about ballrooms, but The White City Ballroom is an exception. Overlooking the lake, it was restored by a team of artisan plasterers who recreated the original ceiling from photographs. That ceiling has 160 ornate stalactites, which look like nothing so much as upside-down meringues. The bas-relief carvings on the fireplaces are extraordinary. Cindy's at Chicago Athletic Association The hotel's restaurants (except Shake Shack) have recently come under the management of the Boka Restaurant Group. They include the Cherry Circle Room, the Drawing Room, the Milk Room, and Cindy's Rooftop. The latter is a light-filled aerie with staggering views over the lake and decorated in bright colors, making it the most feminine space in a hotel that otherwise feels very masculine. It's named for Cindy Pritzker, the late matriarch of the Pritzker family, and a portrait of her by Andy Warhol hangs in the restaurant. It also serves food that is among the best in downtown Chicago. You no longer need to be a club member to get into the Chicago Athletic Association, whose slogan is now 'All Are Welcome.' Chances are that you will feel very welcome, thanks to a staff who seem to go out of their way to make you feel at home. Details at the Chicago Athletic Association Hotel.
Chicago Tribune
20-04-2025
- Climate
- Chicago Tribune
Chicagoans take part in ‘hanami' cherry blossom viewing at Jackson Park as blooms make long-awaited return
After a few years of underwhelming results, Chicago's cherry blossoms are back in bloom. People from across Chicagoland flocked to Jackson Park over the weekend to see the pink and white trees in bloom, located just south of the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry under the shadow of the Obama Presidential Center development. Visitors took advantage of the trees for a nice photo opportunity or to have a moment of tranquility in the park. The successful bloom results are due to the right temperature balance this year, according to Karen Szyjka, operations support manager for the Chicago Park District. In order to have a successful cherry blossom bloom, Szyjka explained, the trees need to experience a certain period of cold temperatures — known as 'chill hours' — to fully break dormancy and produce their flowers. But fluctuating temperatures and earlier springs in recent years have messed up that process, causing many of the buds to go straight into leaf form. 'I was so sad last year when they didn't bloom. So I've definitely made it a point to come out this year to see them,' said Allison Ernst, 28, who drove down from Ravenswood with her fiance, Brendan Hein, to see the trees. The couple had come once before to Jackson Park to see the cherry blossoms when they were in bloom, but they said that time was toward the end of the bloom, when many of the petals had already fallen off the trees. 'It's beautiful,' Ernst said. 'I've been loving seeing all of the trees around Chicago going into bloom, and it gives so much hope that summer is coming and the weather is changing. It's a really good visual indicator of the seasons turning over.' For others, it was their first time seeing the trees in bloom in Chicago. Clarissa Obregon, 28, felt lucky to have a day off during the bloom, despite the gloomy weather Sunday. 'It's still a lovely day, regardless of the rain. (There's a) good amount of people here, enjoying it with me, so that makes it even better,' Obregon said. The Rogers Park resident is a flight attendant, which means that days off can be unpredictable. She decided to use her day off to sit by the Columbia Basin lagoon and sketch the cherry blossoms in a small green notebook she got from Boise, Idaho. 'I'm trying to build up this little notebook that I got,' Obregon said, who just started filling it up with sketches of little flowers. The first set of cherry blossom trees were planted in 2013 to commemorate the 120th anniversary of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition. Another 50 trees were added in the three following years by the Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Chicago in honor of their 50th anniversary and the relationship between Chicago and Japan, according to the Chicago Park District. The Park District planted an additional 34 trees in the fall of 2022 around the Museum of Science and Industry steps, bringing the total to 190. The Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Chicago is also funding the planting of 60 additional cherry blossom trees at the grove in honor of the organization's 60th anniversary. In 2024, 20 trees were planted in the southwest Columbia Basin, north Wooded Island and Japanese Garden areas. This year, sites for another 20 will be identified, and the trees will be planted during the spring and fall planting seasons. Regardless of temperatures and bloom, Chicagoans can also appreciate the bloom cycle. The cherry blossom trees, Szyjka explained, are part of a tradition known as hanami, which is the Japanese word for flower viewing. An important aspect of hanami is appreciating not only the bloom itself, but the transient nature of the flowers. 'The important and beautiful aspect of watching and participating in the whole process is that you're never really assured that you're going to have a bloom, that some years may be great and some years might not be — but that's kind of the way life is,' Szyjka said. 'When there's a beautiful bloom and a beautiful season, you embrace it with everything that you have.' Even when the cycle is finished and the heart-shaped petals are on the ground or floating through air, there is still a beauty for people to appreciate, Szyjka said. 'And to me, there's nothing more beautiful than the end stage, when you see these little hearts floating through the air, or you look down in the ground, you see a little pile of hearts — I just think it's lovely,' Szyjka said. While the cycle is not yet finished, others at Jackson Park expressed a similar sentiment Sunday. Elianis Rosado, 28, has lived in Chicago her whole life but had never seen the cherry blossoms before. The Garfield Park resident visited the trees Sunday with a friend to take photos and enjoy the scenery. 'They're a little paler than I expected, but they're so whimsical, and just seeing the petals blow in the wind was almost cathartic in a way, and just so peaceful,' Rosado said. Chicagoans can also participate in an official hanami festival on Saturday from 1 to 3 p.m. The festival, which is being held in partnership between the Park District and multiple cultural organizations, will include everything from taiko performances to origami folding. Attendance is free, and more details can be found online at
CBS News
16-04-2025
- General
- CBS News
Jackson Park cherry blossoms nearing 2025 peak bloom in Chicago
The cherry blossoms in Chicago's Jackson Park are nearing their 2025 peak bloom. The Chicago Park District said there have been 20 new cherry blossom trees planted at Jackson Park since the last full bloom in 2020. The trees are expected to reach full bloom by the end of April. The park district said most of the trees have moved into bud stage four, and full blossoms are expected in five to 10 days. The trees on the south end of the park, including the oldest "mother tree," have already reach stage five to six, which is when many, if not nearly all, of the buds have opened and the tree is in bloom. Most of the other pink blossom trees are at stage four, in which buds are opening and flowers are becoming visible, approaching stage five, depending on their proximity to the water in the Columbia Basin, the park district said. Most of the white "snow goose" trees are in stages two to three in which their buds are just beginning to open, according to the park district. The cherry blossoms' full bloom is spectacular but short; full bloom lasts only three to five days, depending on the weather. Then the flower petals will start to fall. The first batch of Jackson Park's cherry blossom trees were planted in 2013, commemorating the 120th anniversary of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition. Another 50 trees were added in the following three years by the Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Chicago in honor of the 50th anniversary of the relationship between Chicago and Japan. The park district planted 34 more cherry blossom trees bordering the Museum of Science and Industry steps in 2022, but it will likely take several seasons for them to acclimate and begin blooming.
Yahoo
15-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Today in Chicago History: Donald Trump tells ‘Apprentice' Bill Rancic — ‘You're hired'
Here's a look back at what happened in the Chicago area on April 15, according to the Tribune's archives. Is an important event missing from this date? Email us. Weather records (from the National Weather Service, Chicago) High temperature: 88 degrees (2002) Low temperature: 25 degrees (1943) Precipitation: 1.74 inches (1884) Snowfall: 1.7 inches (2020) 1912: Who was on board and who survived? That's what was being asked — for days — after the White Star Line's famous steamship Titanic hit an iceberg and sank in the North Atlantic Ocean. News of the ocean liner's peril was carved into a late, extra edition of the Tribune on April 15, 1912, and much of the account was devoted to the prominent people aboard. They included Charles M. Hays, president of the Grand Trunk Railway and a Rock Island, Ill., native; Francis Millet, an artist who was the decorations director for the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893; and William T. Stead, English journalist and reformer who wrote 'If Christ Came to Chicago.' A Titanic survivor lived and died in Chicago's Chinatown — and inspired one of the 1997 movie's iconic scenes The Tribune reported several passengers as Chicagoans: Ida Hippach and her 15-year-old daughter, Jean, and Ervin Lewy, a jeweler. The Hippaches survived; Lewy did not. (Fate at other times was unkind to the Hippaches. In 1903, two young sons, Robert and Archie, died in the horrific Iroquois Theater fire. Two years after the Titanic disaster, the third son died in an automobile accident. And in 1915, Jean was the passenger in a car crash that killed an 8-year-old boy.) The agony of not knowing was heartbreakingly illustrated by the plight of Oscar Johnson, of St. Charles. A brief on page 2 of April 17's newspaper reported how his wife, two children and his two sisters were not among those saved. But the following day, under the headline, 'Merchant faints from joy,' the Tribune reported that the 32-year-old businessman 'fell over in a dead faint which lasted half an hour' when he received word that all five were rescued. 1977: A highly anticipated exhibit of items from King Tutankhamun's tomb opened at the Field Museum. Unlike his possessions, King Tut didn't make the trip to Chicago — his mummy remained in the Valley of the Kings outside Luxor, Egypt. A discotheque employee and his sister were first in line at 5 a.m. For the next four months, visitors waited outside in the rain, heat and wind to enter the museum. Only a power outage on the Fourth of July kept visitors away. More than 1.3 million people — at a rate of more than 1,000 per hour — viewed the exhibit. 2004: In the finale to the first edition of the NBC reality show 'The Apprentice,' Donald Trump 'hired' Chicago businessman and Loyola University graduate Bill Rancic over Kwame Jackson during a segment that was telecast live. As part of his prize, Rancic received a $250,000 salary and a job running one part of Trump's corporation. Trump offered him the chance to stay in Chicago and oversee the building of the new Trump International Hotel and Tower and Rancic took it. 'It's a coincidence that Bill comes from Chicago, and I have a big project going there,' Trump said. 'It just worked out. He's going to be outstanding.' As for Rancic's choice of the Chicago building project over a job in California, he told the Tribune: 'Chicago is where I'm from, and to me it's the best city in the world.' Rancic stopped working for the future president before Trump Tower was completed in 2009. Subscribe to the free Vintage Chicago Tribune newsletter, join our Chicagoland history Facebook group, stay current with Today in Chicago History and follow us on Instagram for more from Chicago's past. Have an idea for Vintage Chicago Tribune? Share it with Kori Rumore and Marianne Mather at krumore@ and mmather@
Chicago Tribune
15-04-2025
- General
- Chicago Tribune
Today in Chicago History: Donald Trump tells ‘Apprentice' Bill Rancic — ‘You're hired'
Here's a look back at what happened in the Chicago area on April 15, according to the Tribune's archives. Is an important event missing from this date? Email us. Weather records (from the National Weather Service, Chicago) 1912: Who was on board and who survived? That's what was being asked — for days — after the White Star Line's famous steamship Titanic hit an iceberg and sank in the North Atlantic Ocean. News of the ocean liner's peril was carved into a late, extra edition of the Tribune on April 15, 1912, and much of the account was devoted to the prominent people aboard. They included Charles M. Hays, president of the Grand Trunk Railway and a Rock Island, Ill., native; Francis Millet, an artist who was the decorations director for the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893; and William T. Stead, English journalist and reformer who wrote 'If Christ Came to Chicago.' A Titanic survivor lived and died in Chicago's Chinatown — and inspired one of the 1997 movie's iconic scenes The Tribune reported several passengers as Chicagoans: Ida Hippach and her 15-year-old daughter, Jean, and Ervin Lewy, a jeweler. The Hippaches survived; Lewy did not. (Fate at other times was unkind to the Hippaches. In 1903, two young sons, Robert and Archie, died in the horrific Iroquois Theater fire. Two years after the Titanic disaster, the third son died in an automobile accident. And in 1915, Jean was the passenger in a car crash that killed an 8-year-old boy.) The agony of not knowing was heartbreakingly illustrated by the plight of Oscar Johnson, of St. Charles. A brief on page 2 of April 17's newspaper reported how his wife, two children and his two sisters were not among those saved. But the following day, under the headline, 'Merchant faints from joy,' the Tribune reported that the 32-year-old businessman 'fell over in a dead faint which lasted half an hour' when he received word that all five were rescued. 1977: A highly anticipated exhibit of items from King Tutankhamun's tomb opened at the Field Museum. Unlike his possessions, King Tut didn't make the trip to Chicago — his mummy remained in the Valley of the Kings outside Luxor, Egypt. A discotheque employee and his sister were first in line at 5 a.m. For the next four months, visitors waited outside in the rain, heat and wind to enter the museum. Only a power outage on the Fourth of July kept visitors away. More than 1.3 million people — at a rate of more than 1,000 per hour — viewed the exhibit. 2004: In the finale to the first edition of the NBC reality show 'The Apprentice,' Donald Trump 'hired' Chicago businessman and Loyola University graduate Bill Rancic over Kwame Jackson during a segment that was telecast live. As part of his prize, Rancic received a $250,000 salary and a job running one part of Trump's corporation. Trump offered him the chance to stay in Chicago and oversee the building of the new Trump International Hotel and Tower and Rancic took it. 'It's a coincidence that Bill comes from Chicago, and I have a big project going there,' Trump said. 'It just worked out. He's going to be outstanding.' As for Rancic's choice of the Chicago building project over a job in California, he told the Tribune: 'Chicago is where I'm from, and to me it's the best city in the world.' Rancic stopped working for the future president before Trump Tower was completed in 2009. Want more vintage Chicago?
