"Garden City"

[Mike Salovesh]

Barry:

Quoting you:

> WINDY CITY (continued)
>
> "The name of 'Windy City,' which is sometimes used by village papers in New
> York and Michigan to designate Chicago, is intended as a tribute to the
> refreshing lake breezes of the great summer resort of the West, but is an
> awkward and rather ill-chosen expression and is doubtless misunderstood."
> --CHICAGO TRIBUNE, 11 September 1886.
>
>    This bugged me for years.
>    I had looked at the DETROIT FREE PRESS and DETROIT NEWS in the LOC.
> While in the Detroit Public Library, I rechecked these and also went through
> the DETROIT POST, DETROIT EVENING JOURNAL, DETROIT EVENING TRIBUNE, and
> MICHIGAN CATHOLIC.
>    "Garden City" is used in 1885 and for much of 1886 in most all of these
> newspapers.
>    I always thought the Chicago Tribune meant "New York and _Missouri_."  It
> was the St. Louis newspapers that ragged on Chicago the most--not Detroit.

A:  One more time -- "Garden City" reflects the official city motto,
"Urbs in horto", which Chicago schoolkids are taught means "The city in
a garden".

B:  The Tribune to the contrary notwithstanding, "Windy City" never was
a reference to refreshing lake breezes.  It doesn't even refer to what
my older son called the last straw, just before he moved to Washington,
D.C.  (That last straw?  His last Chicago place of employment had to
install reinforced chains at a handy grasping level so that people
crossing the plaza in front of the building would have something to hold
on to in the winter.  Despite the chains, fair numbers of people were
blown into pratfalls every day: the combination of local wind currents
and winter ice was unbeatable.  The second or third time my strong and
athletic son met that fate, he figured the wind was trying to tell him
something.  He took the message.)

The wind in "Windy City" came from publicists for the city -- according
to the unenlightened newspapers of the effete East Coast.  At least
that's the version that once was taught to Chicago schoolkids. Chicago
doesn't try to conceal its excesses; it's proud of them.

C:  Michigan, Missouri, what's the difference?  As far as any good
Chicago publisher was concerned, they were both losers to the true
transportation hub of the nation.  Hence they were worthy of whatever
scorn could be thrown their way with or without factual justification.

Even though I am an expatriate Chicagoan, of course I take no sides when
it comes to any references to my old home town.  As a lifelong Cubs fan,
I haven't had enough practice in sharpening my killer instincts.

--  mike salovesh       <salovesh at niu.edu>      PEACE !!!