Chicago, The Windy City Great American Railroad Journeys

I have crossed the Atlantic,

to ride the railroads of North America

with my reliable Appleton's guide.

Published in the late 19th century,

my Appleton's general guide to North America

will direct me to all that is novel, beautiful, memorable

and striking in the United States.

THEY SHOUT

As I journey across this vast continent,

I'll discover how pioneers and cowboys conquered the West.

GUNFIRE

And how the railroads tied this nation together,

helping to create the global superstate of today.

My rail journey across the United States from north to south

has brought me to Chicago, Illinois, the industrial hub of the Midwest.

At the time of my guidebook,

amongst the smoke and steam of the late 19th century,

a new kind of city was forged.

It expressed its exuberance by reaching for the sky

with architecture that turned its back on Europe.

Here was created a distinctly American metropolis.

I'm halfway along a route that began in Minnesota

then followed the Mississippi River as far as Wisconsin.

Making for the Great Lakes,

I skirted the south-west shore of Lake Michigan

from Milwaukee to Chicago.

From where I'll cut a swathe through rural Illinois.

The final leg of my journey will reunite me with Old Man River

and the city of Memphis

on its banks.

This time, I am exploring in and around the nation's railway hub Chicago.

After scanning the skyline from the Chicago River,

I'll head to the city's fire training academy,

make my way to Joliet to play some baseball,

before returning downtown

to investigate Chicago's evangelical past.

Along the way, I make a few announcements...

258, your train's never late!

258, your train's never late!

Strike out in America's national game...

Here we go. You are looking like a natural already.

And I am blown away by the Windy City...

Chicago at sunset.

Surely one of the world's most stunning cities.

According to Appleton's,

"Chicago ranks next in commercial importance to New York among

"the cities of the United States."

I suspect that Chicago would resent the comparison.

In any case, its response is constant renewal.

New buildings and attractions appear at a dizzying rate,

and it defies any city to match its energy.

-MAN OVER TANNOY:

-Ladies and gentlemen,

in just a moment our next stop will be our final stop -

Union Station, downtown Chicago.

By the time of my guidebook,

Chicago had emerged as the Midwest's major metropolis...

Thank you.

..and North America's greatest railroad centre.

Today, Chicago's Union Station is still the hub of

the United States' passenger rail network.

I feel a special excitement when I'm coming to one of

the world's great conurbations, my kind of town.

Arriving in Chicago today,

it's impossible not to be awed by its forest of high-rise buildings.

This city has been an architectural innovator for

the last 130 years.

I'm navigating the Chicago River to admire

the city's most striking structures,

and I am boarding with architecture expert Jen Masengarb.

Hello.

Looking forward to this. After you, Jen.

The modern skyscraper was born here in 1885

when a metal-framed, ten-storey building was completed.

It's no longer standing,

but there's plenty left for architecture buffs.

I suppose the best way to see Chicago's architecture is from the water.

It is. The Chicago River is that sort of lifeblood of the city.

Dominating us now seems to be a lot of glass-sided towers,

highly reflective.

This seems to be the big fashion these days.

Even within that though you can see different eras in different ways

that the glass was treated or different materials.

One very beautiful thing about

the amount of glass that has been used in the last few decades

is that so much of the city is then reflected in those buildings.

And as you pass by you get this kaleidoscope of the buildings,

that they are all moving as you are moving.

Yeah. One of the earliest buildings to do that is 333 West Wacker.

For many Chicagoans, it's their favourite.

Isn't that beautiful?

One of the sounds of the cities is the trains.

And that sound echoes all along the river.

Union Station is right behind these skyscrapers

and what you see underneath here are the train tracks

with skyscrapers built on top of them

because Chicago developed something called air rights.

That you can actually buy the air of your neighbour's property

and build something on top of them next door.

It seems that the city has remained a playground for architects

to experiment and innovate.

Mostly the architecture we are seeing along the river is from the 20th century

because the land along the river is precious and what happens often is

that the buildings are demolished to build something larger and something taller.

A skyscraper is a building designed to make the land pay.

In the 19th century, as today,

the high cost of land drove lofty ideas.

The first skyscrapers were built to cope with Chicago's growing labour force

as job-seekers piled into the city.

Thank you for suggesting Federal Plaza because we see here

-a range of Chicago architecture from different vintages.

-Yes.

This lovely building behind us. Tell me about that.

This is the Marquette Building. It was designed in 1894.

The Marquette Building is kind of the epitome,

a classic early Chicago skyscraper.

About 18 to 20 stories, is kind of the typical height.

And when you look at it,

the Marquette Building draws our eye up.

This is a new thought. How does the building meet the sky?

So this generation of architects,

they were really sort of thinking about that crown.

Some borrowing from ancient Greece and Rome,

some stripped of that,

some borrowing more of kind of medieval detail.

Was Chicago a suitable place to build tall buildings?

I think Chicago is probably the worst place to build a skyscraper

because Chicago has incredibly poor soil.

It's like a clay mixture almost.

The New York Times in 1891 likened it to a jelly cake.

And so all the attempts through the 1880s and into the 1890s

are to try to make the walls thinner

and make the building lighter so that it doesn't sink so much

-into our really poor soil.

-That is absolutely extraordinary.

I mean, look at Chicago now. It's absolutely dominated by skyscrapers.

In the late 19th century,

Chicago's skyscrapers were impressive feats of engineering

that expressed the city's triumph over calamity.

Appleton's tells me that in October 1871,

"Chicago was the scene of one of the most destructive conflagrations in history.

"The flames swept with resistless fury.

"The total area destroyed was nearly 3.5 square miles."

This water tower was one of the few buildings to survive.

My Appleton's tells me

the fire originated in a small barn in DeKoven Street.

Today the city's fire academy, on that same site,

is a working memorial to the tragedy.

Jerry.

I am meeting Chicago firefighter Jerry Medina.

Jerry, my Appleton's guidebook gives a description of the fire of 1871

of total destruction.

98,000 homeless, 17,000 buildings destroyed.

-Is that accurate?

-Yes, very accurate.

Sadly, unfortunately, 300 people also died as a result of that fire.

How was it possible for a fire to do so much damage, do you think?

Basically the fire was out of control.

Back then everything was made of wood,

plus there was no rain for several days.

Everything was ready to burn.

Whirlwinds of flame, known as fire devils,

spread the blaze and the terror ever further.

How long did it take to put out?

It took about three days.

The fire actually had to burn itself out.

The flames eventually abated,

leaving a city smouldering with anger.

Rumours about how the fire began flew like cinders,

settling on Irish immigrant Catherine O'Leary.

It was said that as she milked her cow in the barn

it kicked over a lantern,

but historians have since suggested that her neighbour could have been to blame.

As recently as about 15, 20 years ago,

Mrs O'Leary was found to not to be the actual cause of the fire.

Poor Mrs O'Leary.

The fire was a very long time ago, but is it still, as it were,

part of the culture and heritage of the city?

You can ask a child about what happened in 1871 in Chicago?

Right away, the first thing they will tell you -

the Great Chicago Fire.

So it is a huge, huge part of our history.

Today the city is guarded by the largest fire department in the Midwest.

Its firefighters respond to half a million emergency calls a year.

Lieutenant Brett Snow is showing me what it takes

to become one of Chicago's finest.

Ready to rock and roll.

-OK.

-All right.

Into the kneeling position.

-Into the kneeling position. There we go.

-This is kind of like...

-using a firearm, almost, isn't it?

-Yeah.

-OK.

The hose is under enormous pressure.

I'm having to use great force just to keep it under control.

I've got to imagine what it would be like to do this in a blaze

or a terrible emergency,

and think that guys from Chicago

and all over do this every day of their lives.

Wow! Certainly feeling the pressure, Brett,

-it must be quite tiring, this?

-Yeah, it sure is.

If you are not holding it correctly it can really wear you out fast.

I can see that. I'm getting tired just doing this.

Yeah, yeah.

And for this hose there's roughly 175 gallons in a minute coming out.

-Let's hope that deals with the fire.

-Yeah.

-Very nice.

-Thank you, Brett.

-I tell you what, I had a great time.

-Thank you.

-You did great.

No fire hose can dampen my enthusiasm for the Chicago skyline.

To see it at its best, I'm making my way to the Willis Tower,

still widely known by its former name - Sears Tower.

For a generation, this was the tallest building in the world.

-WOMAN OVER SPEAKER:

-More than 24 feet per second.

Eiffel Tower.

The Bank of China Tower in Hong Kong.

1,250 feet and the Empire State Building of New York.

103 floors, 1,350 feet in one minute.

HE LAUGHS

Chicago at sunset.

Surely one of the world's most stunning cities.

One of the most iconic sights in Chicago is

the elevated railway or L.

They must have saved money,

instead of going underground they build

the railway at first-floor level. Boy, is it noisy.

The earliest sections of the Chicago L date back to 1892,

making this the second-oldest metro system in the United States.

As railroads fanned out across the United States

they helped to create a shared culture.

And one past-time soon emerged as the nation's favourite.

-MAN OVER SPEAKER:

-Let's play ball.

Baseball.

To investigate the national game,

I'm going to strike out to Joliet, Illinois, base myself there,

although it's not exactly on my home run.

Today baseball is a multibillion dollar industry.

But around the time of my guidebook, it was in need of reform.

At the home of the Joliet Slammers,

I'm hearing how the modern game was born

with baseball historian David Shiner.

David, do you have any theory as to why in the United States

it's baseball that takes over rather than say a game-like cricket?

Well, you know, Michael, it's seen as an American home-grown game

and it's in the American psyche. It goes the deepest, historically.

Baseball was a game that you could play with any amount of people

at any time, on any kind of a field.

A sport that was easily taken onto the frontier,

you just needed a piece of wood and a ball, and there you go.

MICHAEL CHUCKLES

The first written rules for baseball date from the 1840s

and the first professional club was established in 1869.

Places like Chicago were no longer frontier towns,

but busy industrial cities.

As the game became professional,

it became more of a game for immigrants,

a game for people from all walks of life.

Frankly, there were a lot more ruffians than gentlemen when

the game became professional,

and that lasted all through the 19th century.

What could be done about the fact that

it was becoming a bit of a rough and tumble game?

Well, it had a lot of negative side effects.

People being beaten up, a lot of gambling, a lot of roughness.

So in 1876,

the first league of clubs was founded

and that was by a Chicago businessmen named William Hulbert.

He started the notion that

owners needed to pay for their clubs to be in the league,

that there would be penalties if they didn't play their games

in a fair way, and that the players, similarly,

could be fined or suspended or even expelled from the game.

And that was very controversial,

but it led to the structure the National League

that still exists 140 years later,

so I think he has to be given a lot of credit.

On my travels in Europe, I found that cricket and soccer, football,

were very much stimulated by the railways.

-Was that true of baseball?

-Absolutely, Michael.

The railroads were vital to the spread of baseball.

When you have a team having to go from Baltimore to Chicago,

nearly 1,000 miles, the railroads are essential.

People who played amateur ball liked to watch professionals

so it became a spectator sport as well as a participant sport.

In fact, by the time of the National League, often teams would

schedule their games around when the trains arrived.

I'm better suited to being a spectator than a participant,

but I'm stepping up to the plate with coach Ryan Clevenger.

So how do I hold the bat?

Well, you are a right-handed batter,

so you're going to want to put your left-hand at the bottom of the bat

and your right-hand on top of there. You want to get them close together.

If there is any separation it is harder to swing the bat.

You want to start with the bat on your right shoulder.

-On my right shoulder.

-And then as he's throwing the ball,

-then you are going to start swinging.

-OK.

Oh!

Oh! There we go.

You're looking like a natural already.

Enough humiliation. I'm out of here.

After that mediocre performance,

I was hardly expecting to see my name in lights.

Number 99, it's time to dine. Number 98. Thank you, ma'am.

99. 106. 108, there's no more wait, the food tastes great!

Hello, sir. Welcome to Portillo's.

Thank you very much. I'm on a pilgrimage.

Portillo is my name.

-Oh, congratulations.

-Yeah, I feel I've come to my spiritual home.

OK, good. Well, welcome. We're glad to have you.

Tell me, what should I eat?

-Italian beef sandwich.

-That sounds good.

-Yes, OK.

-You can do that with peppers.

So we have hot peppers or sweet peppers.

-Hot peppers.

-Hot peppers, OK.

Would you like any cheese on that? Mozzarella or cheddar?

-Mozzarella.

-Mozzarella, OK.

-Thank you.

-Any French fries with that?

-We have got fries with cheese.

-No, I think that will be quite enough.

-Thank you. Thank you very much.

-OK.

So, the founder was called Portillo?

Yes, Dick Portillo.

Wow! And how did he start out?

In 1963 in a trailer with no running water.

How amazing.

221, your order it out, done! 221.

I see that when they're calling the orders, the girls are making rhymes,

like you do in bingo in Britain.

That's exactly what we do. Do you want to give it a shot?

I'd love to. Thank you very much indeed.

You are a Portillo, no problem. We'll give it a go.

Can I get a short steak and a chocolate shake?

258, your train's never late.

258, your train's never late!

256, the train to the sticks!

Hi, how are you?

You enjoy that now.

247, train to heaven.

283, in the land of the free.

283.

HE CHUCKLES

Look at this understated little number.

It's good. Italian beef in a restaurant with a Spanish name.

It's fundamentally American.

At the time of my Appleton's guidebook, Chicago's architects

were not the only ones with celestial aspirations.

Religious fervour swept mid-19th century North America.

In the fast-growing cities,

there were mass conversions and congregations in the thousands.

Here in Chicago,

this Christian evangelism was led by two men

who played a starring role in the heavenly revival.

The guidebook tells me that,

"The Great Tabernacle on Munro Street,

"where Messrs Moody and Sankey held their meetings,

"will see 10,000 persons and is used for sacred concerts

"and other religious gatherings."

This more modern church, even today, bears the name of Dwight Moody.

And in the words of the psalm,

I will "enter into his gates with thanksgiving."

The tradition of sacred concerts is clearly alive

and stomping at the Moody Church.

CHOIR SINGS

To discover how music helped to make Moody and Sankey household names,

I'm meeting church member Daniel Favero.

Choir, that was really beautiful.

May I say an enormous thank you to you?

That was magnificent.

Daniel, I have come here in pursuit of Messrs Moody and Sankey.

Who were these gentlemen?

On the vernacular of the day, 1880,

they were called workers in souls.

They were polar opposites in personality and background.

DL Moody was uneducated, he grew up in rural western Massachusetts.

Ira Sankey was the son of a bank president in Philadelphia.

How did two such diverse people meet?

They were both delegates to a YMCA meeting in Indianapolis, Indiana

in 1870 and there was a lull in the meeting,

DL Moody was sort of unconventional -

he hated it when it got boring,

and he said that suddenly a man stood up

and started singing and that was Ira Sankey.

So DL Moody ran up to him afterwards and he said,

"Come join my ministry in Chicago."

What sort of ministry had Moody had until then, then?

Well, he actually started as a Sunday school teacher

in the neighbourhood of Chicago called Little Hell.

It was a very rough neighbourhood. They called it Little Hell,

they said, because there is nothing there but bad men and worse women.

Moody hoped that Sankey's music

could help him to reach into Chicago's slums.

He believed that to save the inner-city poor

the message must be accessible.

DL Moody would speak extemporaneously,

he would relate to the audience, but he was very unorthodox.

He would not even preach with notes.

He said, "If I can't keep it in my head,

"I can't expect them to keep it in their head."

Is it fair to think of this as being the start of that

particular brand of American evangelism

-that's known across the world?

-I think so.

In the past, there had been large groups of evangelistic meetings, if you will,

but it was never planned the way these were.

You know, with a large auditorium,

have trained people to pray with people and they walk the aisle,

have contemporary worship music.

All these things were innovations of DL Moody.

A British traveller following my guidebook

might well have already experienced Moody and Sankey's evangelism.

In 1873,

the pair crossed the Atlantic on an international mission.

They were travelling from church to church throughout England, Wales,

-Scotland and Ireland.

-By train, I hope?

By train. They passed out flyers, saying,

"Come hear DL Moody preach the gospel,

"and come hear Ira Sankey sing the gospel."

It started very small, but it grew very quickly.

And by the time they got back to London after their two-year circuit,

in the last seven months,

over two million people came to hear him preach.

Extraordinary.

Moody and Sankey's British tour offered them both celebrity

and inspiration.

On a railway journey from Glasgow to Edinburgh,

Sankey spotted a poem in the newspaper

which sparked perhaps his best loved hymn.

The Ninety and Nine.

# There were ninety and nine that safely lay

# In the shelter of the fold

# But one was out on the hills away

# Far off from the gates of gold

# Away on the mountains wild and bare

# Away from the tender Shepherd's care

# But all through the mountains, thunder-riven

# And up from the rocky steep

# There arose a glad cry to the gate of heaven,

# "Rejoice! I have found My sheep!"

# And the angels echoed around the throne

# "Rejoice, for the Lord brings back His own!"

"Rejoice, for the Lord brings back His own!" #

The moment I stepped off the train at Union Station in Chicago,

I was aware of entering a throbbing metropolis.

This city shrugged off a devastating fire

and architecturally reached for the sky.

Its expansion upwards and outwards continues apace.

Its opulence shimmers from its glass-sided buildings,

reflected in Lake Michigan.

It stands proud and tall at the crossroads of America.

Next time, I gravitate to the ultimate marshalling yard...

So I call this the economy of motion.

Recreate the original brownie...

That is wicked!

Well done, Chef.

And discover the solution to the city's pollution...

Imagine when you have 30,000 cubic feet per second

of sewage coming out here. It will be beautiful.

A great image.