Mccormick place
Mccormick placeThe McCormick Place Story
The history of McCormick Place is quite remarkable for a building that is only thirty-nine years old. It was built in 1960, burned down in 1967, and was rebuilt and reopened by 1971. When we think of McCormick Place today, we think of the North, South, and East buildings together. But the North building wasn't built until 1986, and the South building was completed just last year; both well after the Richard J. Daley administration. The East Building, (Also known as Lakeside Center) built from 1967-1971, and the original McCormick Place, completed in 1960, are the main foci of this paper because Richard J. Daley was directly involved with their planning. Because the North and South buildings did not exist during this time period, the building (either the original or the East building) was called McCormick Place.
McCormick Place is named after the former President of the Chicago Tribune Colonel Robert R. McCormick. He was born on July 30, 1880 in Chicago. He worked as the head of Streets and Sanitation Department from 1905-1910, and in 1911 he became president of the Tribune. He worked there until he was called into action for World War One where he served in the first infantry; directly under the command of John J. Pershing. When he returned home to Chicago, Robert became somewhat of an entrepreneur ("Exhibition Center Hailed�"). In the late 1940's, McCormick recognized the need for a permanent convention center in the city. He began the campaign for this exhibition hall that would eventually bear his name. Sadly, Robert McCormick passed away April 1, 1955, and never saw his dream come to life (www.mccormickplace.com).
In 1927, a similar plan to build a convention center was blocked by the Illinois Supreme Court. Further progress was stunted in the 1930's by the Great Depression. After the United States' entrance into World War Two, industry got a jump-start. Then in 1951, a one-percent tax was added on running racetrack parimutuels. The tax was designed to pay for industrial, cultural and educational fairs in Illinois. Most of the money would be staying in Cook County, because downstate county agricultural fairs were getting comparable benefits for several decades (Tagge).
By 1953, it became apparent that the convention buildings in Burnham Park were no longer big enough to host the size of events that Chicago wanted to host. The owners of the Burnham Park buildings knew their buildings were inadequate, but they didn't want a new building to be built because they would lose money. At first, the state general assembly sided with the Burnham owners and defeated legislation in 1953. But when Richard Daley became mayor in 1955, things began to change (Tagge).
Daley enacted a series of bills to permit use of the Cook county cut of the racetrack one-percent to build and equip an exposition building....
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