Lost Chicago

Famous landmarks, much-loved restaurants, sports stadia, movie palaces that really were palaces, pleasure gardens, piers and lake steamers, plus the Union Stock Yards—all make up lost Chicago

Some of Chicago's greatest architectural losses are represented here in this tribute to a bygone city of Chicago—the Stock Exchange Building; Midway Gardens; the Marshall Field Wholesale Store; and buildings from the 1893 Columbian Exposition, the World's Fair that showed Chicago had bounced back from its ruinous fire of 1871. It also pays homage to the meat-packing industry, railcar construction, and mail-order business—industries that once drove the Chicago economy but have since moved on. Listed by date of loss, this collection traces a nostalgic path from the time it was known both as the Windy City and Porkopolis, and presents an astonishing range of vanished Chicago from the lakeshore mansions of the rich and famous, to communities built up by the city's immigrant workforce. It also includes photographic page spreads of Chicago trains, the village of Pullman, White City, Riverview Park, lake steamers, the Illinois Theater, Comiskey Park, Palmer House, the 1871 fire, and Grand Central Station.

John Paulett is the author of Forgotten Chicago and Printers Row, Chicago. He lives and teaches in Oak Park, Illinois. Judy Floodstrand is a freelance writer, publicity specialist, and public relations director of the Scitech Science Museum in Aurora, Illinois. She is a former advertising promotions manager at the Chicago Tribune. Born and raised in Chicago, she lives in Hinsdale, Illinois.