Betcha didn't know about Chicago... (Henry, Energy: travel, jobs, home)

[Steve-o]

Originally Posted by big daryle

What is the actual population of Chicago? Is it still about two and a half million?

A little over last I checked. I think it was 2.75 million or something like that.

[deegers]

Originally Posted by SloopyJ

A recent post by Avengerfire said: "One thing (although unrelated) that most people dont know, is part of Chicago is in Dupage county. Even before the city bought half of Bensenville, part of O'Hare and some of the land the city owns around it are in DuPage county."

OK, I did know that, but it still got me thinking, it might be cool to start a thread of things you know about Chicago that most people probably don't.

Like, didja know that the city grid is 8 blocks to a mile (yes, you know that) except between Madison and 31st Streets? Turns out that Madison to Roosevelt (0 to 1200) is one mile; Roosevelt to Cermak (1200 to 2200) is one mile; and Cermak to 31st (2200 to 3100) is one mile. Then it's back on the 800-to-a-mile grid.

This is a pretty cool thread. Some things I didn't know. Cool!

[Avengerfire]

Originally Posted by MarquettePark

Chicago has the least amount of lake coastline then any other city on the great lakes, but controls and purifys more fresh water than LA, New York, and Hoover Dam in Nevada combined.

Chicago is the only city, government, in the history of mankind to reverse the flow of a major river, and this feat was done before the turn of the century

63rd and racine ashland halstad, from 1928 to 1959 was the highest concentration of Jewish Communists/non jewish communists living in a single community other than the soviet union itself (and they still voted for Daley how about that)

Did you know the single stone coloum (post made of stone) on Balbo and the lake was a gift by high ranking fascists from Italy who flew from Rome to Chicago in amphibian sea planes during the 1932 worlds fair/expo. The coloum is from the Collesuim in Rome.

Did you know that Ford City Mall, was a huge war materials plant, and has tunnells underneath it big enough to fit two B-25 Mitchell Bombers side by side and the tunnells span out as far east as 71st and damen and as far south as 127th and cicero. My brother and I were arrested for breaking into the section in front of what used to be Tally;s pub, Venture, and the original Movie Theaters. The steam you see pouring out of a sewer grade on Pulaski and 111th,, in front of the Agro School is also an entrance and a three lane driveway for storage of war materials

Did you know the Nuclear Bomb, the very first one was designed, built and preassembled on 63rd strret at the U of C, and their waste products were dumped in the woods where 95th street ends to the west

Did you know Chicago has the highest concentration of Lithuanians, than Lithuania itself, and the first post coldwar president of Lithuania, born and raised in my hood MarquettePark 69th street

Did ya know that a black man by the name of Joe Morriss ran the Meto Water Reclaim District from its infancy in the late forties to the late eighties, The District is still the envy of the world, and one of the few places in America where the Japanesse, and the Dutch come to learn how to manage water.

Didya know if you learn and master the Chicago Building Code you would be overeducated in any country city in the world as far as building a structure or construction.

Didya know most kosher meat consumed in Israel, is made here

Didya know the Nation of Islam and its current leadership, maintain 606 zipcode addresses as well as homes, and tax records

Didya know all Campbell's soup is made here in Chicago, every can

Didya know most Suzy Q;s, Twinkies, Ding Dongs are baked here and shipped out to the country

Didya know the worlds largest oven is on 73rd and kedzie and is two and a half blocks long, its located in Marquette Park, and if you live there, you know the days they are baking oreos, and the days they are baking crackers

Didya know 90% of Kool Aid, and all Pop Rocks, are made at 74th and maplewood MarquettePark by the General Brands Company

Didya know that Batman, created by Bob Kane was conceived and origiinally drawn here in Chicago, and Gotham City is really Chicago, with a little bit of london thrown in, I met Bob Kane and he told me this, that is why Christopher Nolan, decided to film the next two Batman movies here

Didya know the worlds first Color TV Camera, was purchased and operated here in Chicago by WGN,

Didya know the worlds first VCR, was purchased and operated here in Chicago by WLS TV

Didya know that WLS Radio can be heard in forty states, and every Canadian Provence

Ive got more, but I will let you digest these,

PS: Dont try and prove me wrong on any of these because I either have the receipts, documentation, or I am related to the original source

Related to the original source?

Aunt Betsy used to tell me many things too, but that does not mean everything she said was true.

If you cant back up your claims with a link on here, I wont believe them.

Some of what you say is true, or true to a degree,but honestly I cannot find any evidence to prove most of them.

[MarquettePark]

vbulletin forums, do not allow live links,

call WLS, pr department
call WGN pr department

History channell dedicated two one hour episodes of Modern Marvels on our water system

Spike Lee hired and used Water Dist officials in his documentry when the levees broke

Youve never been to Ford City Peacock Alley, you think they built those tunnells for Peppers Waterbeds and a head shop

Try visiting the Historical Society of Chicago, and you will discover I left a lot of so called untrue things out

Wow, must have hit a nerve with you I guess


DIDYA KNOW; The lions at the Field Museum, are the famous lions of Savo, a novel titled The Heart of Darkness describes their very rare and greedy behavior of killing and eating humans only. The lions are stuffed and mounted inside the museum. The Heart of Darkness is also the original teleplay of Apoclypse Now, even the characters names are the same, and the VC were the lions.

What links could you possibly want, when all this info was taught to me in 5th grade social studies, by Sister Marie, St Adrian Catholic School, fully illistrated in the McGraw Hill Textbook company, also based in Chicago.

[Chinolala]

Did you know that Cook County has more African American owned businesses than any other place in the United States?

[CarolinaBredChicagoan]

Originally Posted by MarquettePark

Didya know all Campbell's soup is made here in Chicago, every can

A lot of the facts you name are pretty cool, and I buy em. I'm pretty sure this one just isn't true. Campbells has factories all over the world. They're active in, like, 30 countries. My hometown had a Campbells plant. I don't know if they made soup, but I know other factories do. This article toledoblade.com -- Campbell's to invest $50 million in plants talks about some of Campbells other plants. I also found another article from a 1988 NY Times that said the Chicago plant was closed for production and turned into a distribution center.

Campbells is HQed in Camden, NJ, which needs jobs a lot more than we do. I don't see why they'd make all their soup in Chicago.

Not trying to be contrarian, but I'd love to see a little more backup for some of these facts.

[Chiguy1957]

Marquette, you've provided a lot of cool trivia, most of which I believe, and learned as well.

When I lived on Marquette Road, right across from the park, I remember the smell from Nabisco when they were making the Oreos and crackers. Heavenly!

I also knew about Ford City. Did you also know that the Tucker car was made there? The car and the man seemed way ahead of their time with such ideas as seat belts, crash protection, and swiveling headlights.

Remember the explosion at Ford City about a year or so ago? I wonder what they're doing in those tunnels now?! (And no, I don't see black helicopters or wear a tinfoil hat, but that whole story just kinda faded away)

[Preaching2thechoir]

Originally Posted by Steve-o

A little over last I checked. I think it was 2.75 million or something like that.

Of course that's minus the massive illegal alien population and their "pet" chickens.

[Manigault]

* The South Side of Chicago is the largest black neighborhood in the world with more than a million folks. That's more than Harlem, Bed -Stuy, Watts or Brixton.

*The Midway Plaisance was dug out for a 'Venetian' boat canal from the lake to Washington Park. Fortunately, it was never flooded.

*The authors Philip Roth, Kurt Vonnegut and James T. Farrell all resided on the south side while attending the UofC.

*The United Airlines plane residing inside the Museum of Science and Industry landed at Meigs Field with too little air speed or ground clearance to take off again. The pilot, who must be a world class stud, had one chance to make it or he was going in the lake.

*When Mayor Daley's mom died, her home of more than 50 years was in a Chinese neighborhood.

*Arthur Goldberg went from the west side and Crane community college to the US Supreme Court and UN ambassador.

*Harold Washington, Red Foxx and Nat "King" Cole all graduated from DuSable high school.

*Benny Goodman learned to play the clarinet in a youth program at Hull House on the west side. Later, the Hull House director, Jane Addams, received the Nobel Peace Prize.

*Will Geer, granpa on the Waltons, recruited Dickie Loeb to be in his fraternity at the UofC. A few years later Loeb and Babe Leopold were sentenced to life in jail for murder of 9 year old Bobby Franks.

*Amelia Earhart attended Hyde Park High School (which is not in Hyde Park), David Mamet went to South Shore High, Chaka Khan and R. Kelly attended Kenwood.

*Up until the 1980s there were still 'hot' buildings at the UofC due to the early experiments in radioactivity.

*The subterranean coal tunnels which flooded the downtown in the 1990's were considered for use in housing the protesters arrested during the 1968 Democratic convention.

*Due to disagreements within the civil rights movement, a black minister in Chicago had the front entrance to his church altered so it would not be listed as being on Martin Luther King Drive.

*Evanston was originally settled as a college town to support Northwestern University, which was considered to be in the northwest of the US.

*The great Chicago Fire burnt from 1100 south to Fullerton (2200 north) and its debris was dumped in the lake. Covered with dirt, that debris became Grant Park. When the city renovated the Grant Park south parking garage ten years ago, it dug into the debris. The initial ignition site of the fire is a training building for the Chicago Fire Department.

*Mayor Daley attended De LaSalle High as did his father and Mayor Bilandic. Mayor Byrne attended St. Scholastica.

*Before World War II, Midway was the world's busiest airport. By the early seventies it had no scheduled flights at all.

*O'Hare's alphabetical designation (ORD) comes from its history as the site of Orchard Lake, a swimming destination.

*In the movie "The Blues Brothers", the bridge which the car jumped is on 95th street near South Chicago avenue.

[Visvaldis]

I always thought ORD for O'Hare was Old Orchard Airport.
Anyway I know that the airport was named for Billy O'Hare, the first American pilot shot down in the Korean War.