Kup's Chicago - Irv Kupcinet [97]
The financial district of LaSalle Street, the Wall Street of the Midwest, is another throbbing center of Commercial Chicago. A beehive of daytime activity it is practically a ghost street at night. There are many banks, brokerages, and stock and commodity exchanges between Monroe and Van Buren, but don’t miss visiting the Midwest Stock Exchange or the Chicago Board of Trade.
At the Board, America’s largest corn- and wheat-trading center, it is especially exciting to see the 9:30 A.M. opening. At 0:29 its hundreds of gray-jacketed “Pit Men” are quietly milling about. One minute later, at the sound of a gong, they are shouting and gesturing in frenzied activity, which may puzzle the spectators – but the “system” works.
Nearby, at 65 West Jackson, is the Union League Club where Chicago moguls have been hanging up their homburgs since the late nineteenth century. There, too, Queen Marie of Romania once caused a sensation by lighting a cigarette – the first woman guest to do so. And it was there that during the Depression a room was papered with a million dollars in stock and bond certificates. Known as the “Million-Dollar Room,” it was later peeled clean, as owners realized their holdings were regaining value.
The two-block-long Merchandise Mart, a treasure house of exhibits by America’s leading manufacturers of home equipment and furnishings, also is worth a tour. Owned by President Kennedy’s father, Joseph P. Kennedy, it is the world’s largest commercial building. If it had been built as a skyscraper it would be sixty-eight stories higher than the Empire State Building.
To further appreciate the scope of Chicago’s commercial activities, you should include tours of Calumet Harbor on the Far South Side, where it is possible to get a close look at ocean-going freighters, the vast South Works of the United States Steel Corporation, on Eighty-ninth Street, and the Union Stock Yards.
The Stock Yards is also the site of the International Amphitheater, where one of many Chicago-nominated Presidents, Dwight D. Eisenhower, was selected. The International Livestock Exposition, the World Professional Wrestling Tournament, and other noted events are held here. Of all the events, however, it was a solo performance that caused one of the greatest uproars. When Elvis Presley made his first Chicago appearance in the Amphitheater, Manager Merton Thayer worked out a strategic plan involving two hundred policemen, three hundred firemen, six ambulances, and a “secret” entrance for Elvis. Even with these precautionary measures, 13,500 Presley fans smashed dozens of chairs and collapsed a protective railing around the stage before the evening was over.
A tour of Commercial Chicago should also include the headquarters of Sears, Roebuck and Company, on the West Side, the leading firm in a field in which Chicago is also number one-mail-order merchandising; the still-expanding Chicago-O’Hare International Airport, the world’s largest and busiest commercial jet airfield; and the R. R. Donnelley & Sons’ Lakeside Press, largest of the city’s many major printing and publishing plants.
It is at R. R. Donnelley where Time, Life, and dozens of other national magazines are printed by the thousands each hour. The Reuben H. Donnelley Company, a part of the organization but a separate corporation, handles publication of Yellow Pages telephone directories and judges four-fifths of the prize contests in America. Of all the slogans and 25-words-or-less statements and jingles that their judges have handled, they will tell you this is their favorite:
My favorite brunette is Hedy Lamarr,
Send her to me, and you keep the car.
And it didn’t even win a prize.
For a glimpse into the city’s importance in the fields