The Great Chicago Fire of October 1871 has burned a four-mile-long scar across the heart of the city. It’s time to rebuild the city as Chicago plans to host the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition. Reach your hands into the bag and select your next tile to create your unique vision of Chicago … before your opponents upset those plans.
Chicago 1893: The City Beautiful is a new tile game from Transit Tees in Chicago. Players use a set of ninety-one heavy chipboard tiles to sequentially build a map of the city, with Features that include railroads, boulevards, parks, monuments, and neighborhoods. Placing either Worker or Alderman pawns on a tile can earn points.
Chicago history buffs will appreciate the tile and card design, which feature treasured city properties such as Union Station, Garfield Park, the Water Cribs, and William Le Baron Jenney’s Home Insurance Building. A special thrill during our inaugural game was pulling the tiles for “Jackson Park,” the “Midway Plaisance,” and the “World’s Exposition” (though we wish that the game used standard names such as “World’s Fair” or “Columbian Exposition.”) As players attempt to build longer railroad lines, larger city parks, and have their Alderman control a bigger ward, the growing city can take on a Frankenstein appearance that is initially jarring. Can Humboldt Park be placed on the South Side next to the Water Tower? It can happen! A willingness to let go of historical and geographic accuracy will not only make the game more enjoyable, but help you win.
Columbian Exposition enthusiasts will be enchanted by the gorgeous decorative box, featuring the Court of Honor. This image is also available as a separate eleven-by-seventeen-inch printed poster, certain to brighten the home or office of any World’s Fair fan.
Transit Tees Art Director Tom LaPlante served as creative lead for the game. LaPlante previously designed two games about Chicago transit: LOOP: The Elevated Card Game, and EL: The Chicago Transit Adventure Board Game, filled with street festivals, baseball games, pigeon swarms, construction delays, sick passengers, and a holiday train.
World’s Columbian Exposition Director of Works Daniel Burnham co-authored (with Edward H. Bennett) the famous 1909 Plan of Chicago. This a vision of the city, though only partly realized, continues to inspire. The city that emerges while playing Chicago 1893: The City Beautiful will lack such a cohesive and lofty plan, but that is more than made up for by a fun competition as you try to prevent your railroad tracks from running into the Chicago River.
The tile game sells for $40 and the poster for $26 (shipping is free) and can be ordered from Transit Tees or picked up at one of their two Chicago locations (1371 N. Milwaukee Ave. or 5226 N. Clark St.).