State Street, that great street in the todd’ling town of Chicago, is in need of revitalization. Urban planners aim to bring more people back to “Chicago’s front porch.”
Back in 1893, this was one of the busiest throughfares in the world, and many walking through the frenetic business district were visitors to the World’s Fair. Not all the locals were happy about the thick crowds, as recorded in the article reprinted below, from the August 17, 1893, issue of the Chicago Record.
The busy scene on State Street looking north from Van Buren. [Image from the William Henry Samelius collection of World’s Columbian Exposition slides, Midwest-MS-Samelius. The Newberry Library – Modern Manuscripts and Archives.]
Crowds Seek the City
MANY VISITORS VIEW THE FARE.
The Streets Are Thronged With Strangers Who Are Very Welcome.
Oh, the people, the people, the crowds that are beginning to pour in on us, all with their faces turned Fairward!
Pedestrianism is rapidly become a lost art on the downtown streets which lead to the different lines of transportation; instead of doing anything which could appropriately be called by the dignified name of pedestrianism we contort our muscles and go through a series of acrobatic evolutions, varied by hops, skips and jumps, which would be vastly entertaining to us if we could only watch ourselves. It is positively dangerous to run the gauntlet of the Fair-bound block of folks on State Street, for what with jabs from horizontally carried umbrellas manipulated by open-mouthed, well-intentioned strangers, bangs and thumps from the well-filled lunch baskets swinging on the arms of little boys and fat women, oblique schottisches on our new shoes by struggling mortals walking zig-zag to make time, we are liable to be physically wrecked.
It is impossible to avoid collisions. Half the folks stare into the shop windows and bear down upon us fatally, irresistibly, with a whack for which we brace ourselves to no avail. They apologize effusively, but somehow apologies do not completely fill the vacuum caused by having the atmosphere knocked out of us. The other half see us coming, smile sweetly, vaguely, while we attempt to give them leeway and wait for them to do likewise, but impelled by some evil spirit they fascinate us with their hypnotic stare and we patiently submit to being whacked by them. They don’t apologize. They frown and mutter things about people who don’t get out of the way when they see other folks coming.
A walk downtown is one unmitigated nightmare of horror.
South Side maidens do not ask their lovers if they would be willing to go through fire and water for them; they say instead: “Would you be willing to walk up State Street from Congress to Washington with me?” And few there are who stand the test.
The corner of State Steet and Adams Street in downtown Chicago, c.1893. The Leader store sits on the northeast corner (foreground of photo) with the Palmer House Hotel to its left (north). [Image from Rand, McNally & Co.’s Pictorial Chicago and Illustrated World’s Columbian Exposition. Rand McNally & Co., 1893.]