Posted on 10/04/2014 8:09:44 AM PDT by infool7
With more than $2 million in production costs on the line, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel's first-ever Great Chicago Fire Festival may get a chilly reception — at least from Mother Nature, always a force to be reckoned with in this city.
Indeed, what could wind up being record cold for an early October evening threatens to put a damper (rain is in the forecast too) on what was designed to be a major fall spectacle to attract local residents and tourists. The latest forecast shows daytime temps on Saturday will be lucky to top out at 50 degrees. By the time night starts to fall, temperatures could drop to near 40 degrees or lower.
Slated to unfold at 8 p.m. tomorrow, the Great Chicago Fire Festival was conceived over the past 18 months by Redmoon Theater and its Executive Artistic Director Jim Lasko to be a Chicago River-focused spectacle celebrating the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 and the city's remarkable recovery from it.
Some 400 people are expected to participate in the 75-minute Festival, with "Chicago Fire" television stars Jesse Spencer and Taylor Kinney serving as the show's Grand Marshals.
Blazing fire cauldrons lowered onto the River will mark the start of the show, and a Victorian steamboat then will move down the River setting ablaze replicas of homes as they would have looked in Chicago in the years just before the Great Fire in 1871.
As the buildings burn to reveal symbolic imagery concealed inside them, projection screens situated up and down the Chicago River will show images of residents from neighborhoods all over city. Finally, a fireworks display and a parade of 75 kayaks pulling buoys of prairie grass will materialize to symbolize the rebirth and renewal of the Chicago River and the city around it.
But as rain and cold began to envelop Chicago this morning after what seemed an all-too-short summer, it was tough to conjure visions of rebirth and renewal.
Fire Festival organizers were reluctant today to predict how big the turnout for Saturday's big show would be. The best they would say is that "thousands" are expected to attend.
But right now, the best advice for anyone is to bundle up and prepare for some nippy weather. And yes, no matter how this year's Festival fares, its organizers said the plan is to make it an annual event.
Am I the only one who thinks that celebrating a tragic event to the tune of $2M of which our city suffered horrific losses, is a BAD idea?
I think this is a gross waste of taxpayers hard earned money in an already depressed economy... oh wait I forgot the BLS is reporting unemployment fell to 5.9%. Happy days are here again.
http://chicagofirefestival.com/
Actually sounds pretty nifty. Agree about the taxpayer money, though.
It does seem odd to have a “celebration” of the Chicago fire.
Yes, it is an historic event, but one to celebrate and build a festival atmosphere around?
How many times will the “knock out game” be played?
Sadly, you have to wonder if the youth gangs will come up out of the south side and the west side, and cause trouble at an event such as this.
I can’t help but thinking that the types that rioted in Ferguson MO didn’t need much encouragement to set things on fire. Maybe Rahm thinks this will vent some of that pent up desire to burn down local businesses.
Darn Gorebull Warming!:
a Victorian steamboat then will move down the River setting ablaze replicas of homes as they would have looked in Chicago in the years just before the Great Fire in 1871.
As the buildings burn to reveal symbolic imagery concealed inside them,
What could they be, I wonder???...not.
Scroll down on the site http://chicagofirefestival.com/ to the creepy map with little fire icons in various places across the city.
They used to call it edgy marketing it just gives me the willies.
Maybe we should celebrate by recreating the incident.
http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1854.html
”As the Phoenix from the ashes....”
Because of Chicago’s pre-fire economic momentum and commercial ties and the unique geographic situation, the city couldn’t have failed to rebuild itself if it had tried. It was “meant to be.”
One thing the Great Fire hadn’t taken from the people of Chicago was their grit and determination to rebound from the calamity — it would become bigger, better — and wiser.
The worst of times had rallied the best of men. Joseph Medill, publisher of the Chicago Tribune, put out a special edition trumpeting, “Chicago will rise from the ashes!” Potter Palmer, whose new hotel and 32 other holdings were destroyed in the fire, set out immediately to raise capital for reconstruction. Jonathan Scammon broke ground on a new, fully pre-rented office building only four days after the fire. The confidence and enthusiasm of those men and others rang up and down the social ladder, calling Chicagoans to the challenge.
City officials, in makeshift offices in the First Congressional Church on the city’s west side, set the price on bread, forbade wagon drivers from charging more than what was normal, and limited saloon hours, in order to keep looting and price-gouging to a minimum. They also banned smoking.
Even before the fire burnt itself out, plans were being made to remake the city. Within days, even as the rubble was being removed, enterprising small businesses erected sheds and stands. Business traffic began to move again. Within six weeks, more than 200 stone and brick buildings had been started in the South Division alone.
By 1872, $50 million had been pumped into construction. In 1873, amid a national recession, Chicago proudly hosted the Inter-State Industrial Exposition, which promoted the city and the Northwest (of that era). By 1885, America had its first skyscraper, the nine-story high Home Insurance Building.
Over the next two decades, hundreds of millions of dollars would pour into Chicago. By the end of the 19th century, the city was well on its way to recovery.
Zero, is my guess. Most thugs (but not all) are smart enough to know not to mess with Chicago tourists at a tourist event . . . because the police will eff them up.
On the other hand, if you are stumbling home drunk after midnight, then bets are off.
There is a great possibility that the fire was actually caused by asteroid showers. Large sections of Michigan burned at the same time, but it was not publicized like the Chicago fire.
“Smoke and mirrors” from Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel.
http://meteorite-identification.com/mwnews/08232004.htm
http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2013/05/how-the-great-chicago-fire-started/
http://www.angelfire.com/mi2/gfmeteor/fires.htm
More bread and circuses for the masses; don’t pay attention to a city that continues to become more insolvent, more corrupt and more violent. Oh well, once the suburbanites stop coming into the city to spend money, or work for that matter, it’ll all be over as it implodes due to the weight of no more public debt refinancing or union corruption. Good riddance. I was born and lived there for almost 6 decades, threw in the towel this summer and haven’t looked back. I think I was the only registered Republican on my block, probably the whole neighborhood. Pathetic. Truly pathetic. A once great city survives on smoke and mirrors.......
Wisconsin had massive fires too around the same time - Peshtigo Fire. But this makes no sense but nonsense to celebrate a fire that decimated Chicago. Rahm Emanuel and the first city wide celebration of a fire. Why does not this sound right?
I read about the asteroid somewhere a few years ago also.
Sadly, I do not think it makes sense either. The Chicagoans of 1871 were certainly much different than the Chicagoans of today and I do not think revisiting that past recovery will somehow inspire the gibmedats of today to the greatness of their geographical ancestors. I think it’s is more along the lines of john drake’s “bread and circuses” comment.
The event that brought 1871 Chicago to it’s knees only to rebound even higher was an accident or an act of God. The current calamity of unemployment violence and decline is being caused by an evil consortium of politicians, unions & corporations all working in concert to demolish the middle class, ironically the host on which they feed.
Fire is a good theme for them.
A “nippy” night? I’d post pictures, but I don’t want to get banned.
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