WGN Leaving the Tribune Tower

WGN is leaving the Tribune tower. No more going there on Sunday nights to do a live broadcast on a fifty thousand watt station that beams halfway across the country. You can only imagine the farmer out in Iowa picking up the voice of some writer being interviewed about his latest book. I remember once being on vacation in Minnesota and picking up WGN in the middle of the night. I was the distraught teen on vacation and it was like there was a bit of home sweeping across the cold dark skies of Northern America. And it will still be there but it wont be coming from the Tribune building anymore.

High up on seventh floor you can look out over the city before your interview. You cool your heels in the green room. How many people walked the halls? Sinatra, Newman, Elvis, Marilyn Monroe? You didn't come to Chicago and not do an interview on WGN. This would be before television when radio was King and the top of the mountain was the top of the building that also boasted one of the countries largest circulation newspapers. But that will be no more.

I was able to wait in august lobby of the Tribune building four times. It was always a Sunday night and no one was around. I would get a burger sometimes at Billy Goats  on lower Wacker and then head up to the seventh floor and wait in the green room and then into the studio. Rick Kogans show covers books and my last four have landed me across from him with the big WGN microphone in front of me. Always a great interview with a man who actually reads the books.

And then it is over and you drive home. You always wonder if you will do it again. Not anymore. At least in the Tribune building. That era is over.


Al Capone and the 1933 Worlds Fair

Lady Godiva Rides into the Second Worlds Fair

Sally Rand wanted to be part of Chicago's Second Worlds Fair. The young dancer who had an act at the Paramount on State Street where she danced naked behind giant ostrich feathers but she knew this was her last chance. So she did what any self respecting woman would do she hired a boat and got hold of a horse and covered herself with body paint with nothing on but a cape and headed for the opening ceremonies. It was a warm night for May and Sally Rand put the horse on the boat and had her boss from the Paramount drive her along the Lake front.

She could hear the crowd and see the lights. Her career in Hollywood had fizzled when the talkies came and her lisp resonated like a bad cymbal. Cecil B Demill didn't have to tell her it was over and that's when she headed for Chicago with nothing but a bus ticket. She ended up sleeping in alleys until she hooked the job at the Paramount. But working on State Street didn't compare to the glittering lights of Hollywood and Sally Rand wanted to climb back and she saw the Chicago Worlds Fair in 1933 as a way to do it.

So now she is on that horse heading toward the waters edge. The horse is restless as the boat bumps up against the cement retaining wall and then Sally digs her heels into the warm sides of the creature who just wants to run. It  is a dead gallop through the fair turning one way and then the other. The naked woman on the horse heads for the bright lights instinctively. It will be her last chance to be a star.

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