A tragic fire and other tales highlight the start of a new season of WTTW’s ‘Chicago Stories’
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Mayor Richard J. Daley cried. We don’t see this but rather are told about it in the first of the eight episodes in WTTW-Ch. 11′s “Chicago Stories” season which begins this weekend, with each episode available in coming weeks for streaming and embellished by companion material.
“Angels Too Soon: The School Fire of ‘58″ is a detailed and arresting retelling of what took place before, during and after the icy Dec. 1 day when fire destroyed Our Lady of the Angels School in the Humboldt Park neighborhood, taking the lives of 92 children and three nuns and forever changing and haunting the lives of those who survived.
Those of a certain age will remember some details, even if they have grown foggy. Expanding on a previous documentary of the same name and giving visual life to some good books that have been written about this tragedy, this hourlong program captivates.
It neatly sets the scene, reminding us that this was then a city of three million people, some two million of those Roman Catholics spread among 260-some thriving parishes and crowded schools. There were 1,500 children packed into the 24 classrooms of the brick and wood grammar school next to Our Lady of the Angels Church, its age making it exempt from new fire preventive measures.
The fire started in the basement and its spread was swift and deadly. Some students jumped from second-story windows, others remained at their desks, hands clasped in prayers that went unanswered.
News footage of limp bodies being carried by firefighters from the building is jarring. But the documentary’s power comes from the memories of now gray-haired men and women remembering their terror.
They are precise and emotional, talking of siblings lost and lingering nightmares. While many of the students would lead productive lives, some in first responder professions, one of them became famous.
Former third-grader Jonathan Cain became the keyboardist for the band Journey. He recalls when he and other surviving classmates struggled with “How could God let this happen?” and other questions of faith, he was told by his father, “Son, don’t stop believing.”
That would, of course, become the inspiration for the band’s huge hit, “Don’t Stop Believin’”, written by Cain and bandmates Steve Perry and Neal Schon. But Cain still says, “It seemed so unfair.” That was likely why Mayor Richard J. Daley cried when he visited the smoldering school. Watching this film, produced and written by Peter D. Marks, you might too.
The executive producer for the “Chicago Stories” series is Anna Chadwick Gardner. All are narrated by Chicago-born actor Anthony Fleming III, with original music by Paul Brill. Next in the series is “The Race to Reverse the River,” (Sept. 29) produced by Eddie Griffin and written by Griffin and Robert Loerzel (a Tribune contributor). It is an hour that will disgust you before it enlightens and thrills you.
Disgust is the word for what the Chicago River was from the time settlers first discovered and began abusing it. For people and businesses, it became their open sewer, contaminating the city’s drinking water and spreading disease and death.
Once called the River of Onions, for the foul smell it produced, when the stockyards were in full and bloody operation in the mid-19th century, a portion of the river was called Bubbly Creek, because it was filled with animal carcasses and waste that would bubble to the surface.
What to do?
The answers were complicated and laborious and featured some technological innovations that bordered on wonder and some heroes few remember: engineer Ellis Chesborough, who created the first sewer system in the country, which entailed raising the city and prompted construction of the city’s first water crib; engineer Lyman Cooley and Ossian Guthrie, an engineer/geologist, who you will come to admire for their bold ideas and tireless work.
They and thousands of workmen living in miserable conditions somehow succeeded in reversing the flow of the river, steering it away from the lake and, eventually, into the Mississippi River.
This feat did not thrill the citizens of St. Louis, resulting in decades of legal tussles. You’ll hear, as usual, from some experts, which include author and historian Michael Williams and Allison Arwady, the city’s former Commissioner of the Chicago Department of Public Health, ever articulate.
There are lovely shots of the river today, vibrant and boat-filled, but still with potential problems. Think those jumping Asian Carp. Think Deep Tunnel. The story goes on.
“Pullman and the Railroad Rebellion” (Oct. 6), produced and written by Rachel Pikelny, is two documentaries neatly wrapped into one hour. One concerns a man, George Pullman, and the other many men (and a few women) who worked for Pullman.
The man arrived in Chicago in the late-1850s and created an empire by convincing people that traveling by train could be a refined and even luxurious experience. His Pullman Palace Car Company here built finely appointed rail and sleeper cars.
The first one was built in 1864, and at the Civil War’s end, Pullman hired hundreds of former slaves to do the chores on those trains, to act as servants for the passengers, getting little sleep and working mostly for tips. It was dehumanizing.
As Pullman prospered, he built his company town on 4,000 acres at the southern edge of the city to house the workers in his factory and their families. It once comprised 1,300 buildings, but no saloons, no vice, and no Black residents.
In the financial panic of the early 1890s, Pullman cut wages but did not lower the rents for his homes or the price of goods in the company stores. This led to a bloody rebellion as all of Pullman’s workers walked off their jobs. The U.S. Army was brought in and 30 workers were killed and 57 wounded, providing one of the principal sparks of the national labor rights movement.
Still, the trains rolled and 10,000 Pullman Porters, and a relatively few Pullman Maids, continued to work. Then along came a determined, charismatic man named Asa Philip Randolph to create the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters in 1925. This first all-Black union fought for higher wages, better hours, job security and other humane concessions.
You can now see Pullman’s grave at Graceland. He died in 1897, a hated man. So reviled was he that his family feared that his dead body might be stolen and held for ransom. And so, when he went into his Graceland grave his coffin was covered in tar paper and enclosed in the center of a room-size block of concrete reinforced with railroad ties.
You can also see the town he built, now the Pullman National Historic Park, which includes, fittingly, the A. Philip Randolph Pullman Porter Museum.
The fall season of “Chicago Stories” begins Sept. 22 and airs 8 p.m. Fridays on WTTW-Ch. 11; more information at wttw.com
