Vintage Chicago Tribune: Friday the 13th

Tomorrow is Friday the 13th — a day that some deem doomed.

According to folklore, Friday plus 13 equals a double dose of bad luck. What does that mean? “It’s like walking under a ladder, having a black cat cross your path and breaking a mirror all at the same time,” according to a 1995 Tribune story. There’s even a name for people who fear the number 13. They’re called triskaidekaphobiacs (tris-ky-de-ka-FO-bee-acs). For others, however, 13 is fortuitous. Taylor Swift has called it her lucky number. And judging by the year she’s had, we believe it is serendipitous, too.

So, we turned to the Tribune’s archives to find out if the day is really as dreadful as some believe it to be.

That’s when we stumbled upon this front-page observation by Ridgely Hunt (a longtime Tribune reporter and editor who later became Nancy Hunt Bowman) from 51 years ago that put the spooky date in perspective:

“Pearl Harbor was bombed on a Sunday the 7th, and the Titanic sank on a Monday the 15th, and the Hindenburg burned on a Thursday the 6th, but all of them were safe as safe could be on Friday the 13th.

“Gandhi and (Abraham) Lincoln and (President William) McKinley were assassinated on Fridays, but none of them on the 13th. Russia’s Czar Alexander II and Venezuela’s president (Carlos Delgado) Chalbaud and Togo’s president (Sylvanus) Olympio were assassinated on the 13th, but none of them on a Friday. ...

“Historically, Friday the 13th has been about as uneventful as any day in the calendar, maybe because you get only one or two of them a year, which puts the odds at about 364 to 1 against anything’s happening.”

This is the second — and last — Friday the 13th of 2023, and it will be almost a year before we experience another one. Until then, here’s a look back at some of the lucky — and unlucky — things Chicagoans have experienced on previous editions of this day.

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Aug. 13, 1937: ‘Our Children Must Be Free From Syphilis’

Carrying banners stating, “Chicago Will Stamp Out Syphilis,” about 1,500 young volunteers from the National Youth Administration paraded through the Loop. They then dispersed throughout the city to ask residents if they would be willing to submit to free, voluntary blood tests to detect the venereal disease.

“A year ago, syphilis for you young folks and your parents, too, was mysterious, a secret shame. Its name could hardly be whispered among respectable people,” said Paul de Kruif, an author and microbiologist who addressed the marching boys and girls. “Today you have dared to march under syphilis-defying banners. It is you young fighters who have smoked one of mankind’s most secret enemies out into the open.”

Jan. 13, 1939: Tying the knot on ‘Dread Day’

Sixty-four couples ignored superstition and obtained marriage licenses on Friday the 13th. Two couples, including Ginger Abbott and William Moore, were married by Judge Roman E. Posanski.

April 10, 1962: ‘Friday the 13th this year will be unlucky only for the smelt’

The Tribune’s fishing forecast declared, “The smelt are here!” The first “large wave” of the popular — and tasty — silver fish was predicted to arrive on the ominous date.

Lucky fisherman — and women — who visited the lakefront on Friday the 13th discovered “that smelt are punctual.”

Sept. 13, 1963: Fire strikes Mercy Hospital, but 109 people rescued

Mercy Hospital & Medical Center in Bronzeville was Chicago’s first private hospital. Sixty years ago, it was the site of a devastating fire.

Firefighters and nuns acted quickly to evacuate 109 patients during the extra-alarm fire, which destroyed the roof and the fourth floor of the building. A human chain of doctors, nurses and aides worked to safely remove 29 newborn infants and their mothers from Mercy’s obstetrics ward. Surgeries — including brain, abdominal and gallbladder operations and a tonsillectomy — were quickly completed as “alarm bells rang thruout the hospital,” the Tribune reported.

Miraculously, no lives were lost.

July 13, 1979: Forfeit follows Disco Demolition Night

“The 88th game on the White Sox schedule will go down as a 9-0 defeat at the hands of the Detroit Tigers,” the Tribune reported on July 14, 1979.

Why?

What was supposed to be a doubleheader between the two teams two days earlier turned into a debacle. The Sox lost the first game 4-1, but never got to the nightcap.

Up to 50,000 people — admitted for just 98 cents and a disco record — showed up for a promotion in which radio personality Steve Dahl took to the field between games to blast thousands of dance-themed discs into oblivion.

Shortly after the detonation, Dahl’s fans flooded the field. Ninety minutes, 39 arrests for disorderly conduct and a half-dozen injuries later, the second game was called off. It was ruled a forfeit by the American League on Friday the 13th.

Sox owner Bill Veeck didn’t agree with the ruling, which was the first forfeit in the league in five years.

“This was a regrettable incident, but not sufficient grounds for forfeit,” he told reporters. “But we won’t go out of business because of it. It seems to me a Chicago paper ran a headline sayin’ Dewey defeated Truman some years ago. Did they go out of business?”

May 12, 1980: ‘I hope I’ve ruined “Friday the 13th”'

This wasn’t an odd thing that happened on Friday the 13th, but did borrow the date for its title — the “meat-clever-in-the-forehead” movie “Friday the 13th.”

Tribune critic Gene Siskel hated the film so much that he gave away the movie’s ending to discourage people from seeing it. Siskel’s review, which ran on a Monday the 12th, also included the address for the chairman of the company that distributed the movie. Siskel encouraged people to write to the chairman to “complain about the film” and argued that the movie should have received a more severe rating due to its gratuitous gore: “If any film should be X-rated on the basis of violence, this is it.”

Siskel’s suggestions, however, weren’t taken into consideration — the “Friday the 13th” franchise now includes 12 movies.

May 13, 1994: Pippen benches himself, but Bulls win

Scottie Pippen played 3,642 playoff minutes during his Hall of Fame career.

But it’s the 1.8 seconds of postseason action he skipped that are never far from the public conscious.

With the score tied, Pippen defiantly benched himself for the final seconds of an Eastern Conference semifinal game against the New York Knicks. He was miffed that coach Phil Jackson drew up a play that gave the last shot to Toni Kukoc.

According to the New York Times, citing ESPN reporter Andrea Kremer, Pippen swore and said, “I’m tired of this,” then sat on the bench and refused teammates imploring him to get up. Jackson had to call a second timeout.

Pete Myers inbounded in Pippen’s place and Kukoc hit the game-winner.

“I don’t think it’s a mystery, you need to read between the fine lines,” Pippen told GQ in 2021. “It was my first year playing without Michael Jordan, why wouldn’t I be taking that last shot? I been through all the ups and downs, the battles with the Pistons and now you gonna insult me and tell me to take it out? I thought it was a pretty low blow.”

Jan. 13, 2006: Bad tooth leads to arrest of ‘The Clown’

FBI agents arrested Joey “The Clown” Lombardo in west suburban Elmwood Park. The mob boss, on the lam for nine months, was apprehended after suffering from an abscessed tooth and going to his dentist, who turned out to be an FBI tipster.

Feb. 13, 2009: Rates increase due to the city’s lopsided parking meter deal

Mayor Richard M. Daley’s administration sealed a deal in late 2008 to lease Chicago’s parking meter operation for 75 years in exchange for an upfront payment of more than $1 billion — an arrangement now infamous as a boondoggle.

Chicago residents had to dig a little deeper into their wallets to pay for city parking starting Friday the 13th. Loop spots were now $3.50 an hour and spots in the Near North, Near West and Near South Sides rose to $2 an hour.

June 13, 2014: ‘Tasteless’ Trump sign debate

Donald Trump answers complaints by Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Tribune architecture critic Blair Kamin that the large new sign on Trump’s building is tasteless. The Donald insists that “everybody loves it” because “we’re probably the hottest brand there is.”

Emanuel asked his staff to look at possible changes to the city’s regulations to ensure that another “tasteless” sign like the one on the Trump Tower is never allowed again.

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