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| 1933 Century of Progress Exposition Documents |
Fair Grounds Busy Hive of Day and Night Work with 192 Hours to Go
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Source: Chicago Daily News, 19 May 1933, pg. 13.
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By Harry M. Beardsley.
Since the rains ceased to descend on the
lake front and the opening date of the Century of Progress exposition
crept nearer, hours of work have been lengthened so that now there is
little distinction between night and day. At 10 a.m. today the opening
was just 192 hours removed. With every minute the pressure to rush the
fair to completion becomes greater, with every minute the distinction
between night and day becomes more negligible. Two shifts go on where
formerly there was one. Three shifts are put to work where two were
employed.
Floodlights and strings of incandescent bulbs are installed to
permit night work outside. Within the exhibit buildings the lights burn
all night as men and women in overalls and smocks install exhibits,
while laborers complete the buildings over their heads.
Constant Stream of Trucks.
The peak of activity, of course, is from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. By 10
workmen are busy in every nook and cranny of the 300 odd acres. A
constant stream of trucks pour through each of the entrance gates,
trucks loaded with black dirt, bread and rolls, tools, pipes, paint,
ladders, scaffolding, signs, packing cases filled with exhibits, gravel,
crushed stone, cement, lumber, glass.
They speed past in an endless panorama that leaves one dizzy and
unable to believe his eyes. What appears to be a truck full of oversize
spaghetti turns out to be a load of neon tubing. A huge bowl of alphabet
soup resolves itself into the wooden letters for signs to be erected on
the Midway.
As one leaves the Administration building one notices workmen
apparently tearing up sidewalks completed only a few days ago. Sunday's
crowds convinced the fair authorities that the walks were not wide
enough to handle the traffic they would be called on to bear, so every
walk in the grounds will be widened.
Cutting Paper Dolls.
In the Illinois Host building a half-dozen men in white overalls
sit on the floor cutting paper dolls. They use knives instead of
scissors and linoleum instead of paper; but they are cutting birds and
men, women, horses, letters, stars, flowers, trees, soldiers, an endless
variety of forms and patterns.
Then they solemnly fit these tiny pictures together to form a
linoleum mosaic. A huge eagle in the center of the lobby floor, a series
of smaller mosaics around the edges symbolizing the characteristics and
resources of the state.
Everywhere carpenters, plumbers, electricians, masons, glaziers,
painters are at work. Trucks loaded with crushed stone coated with
smoking-hot asphalt dump it by the ton. Men with shoves or
tractor-propelled bulldozers spread it, to uniform thickness, heavy
rollers run back and forth over it, compressing it. Barricades are
erected to keep traffic off of it for a few hours, and lo, another
street or walk or the approach to another building has been completed.
Lawns Made Overnight.
Over there men toiled all day yesterday spreading tons of black
dirt mixed with peat moss. All through the night other workmen unloaded
sod from trucks. Now, still other crews are busy laying the strips,
creating a beautiful lawn. A few hours hence the rollers will be
reducing it to velvety smoothness. Tonight gardeners will turn the
sprinklers on it.
High up on the cables of the Sky Ride men weave webs of steel,
working from daylight to a few minutes before darkness. They can take no
chances here with dim light or artificial light. Below the [men]
painters are putting the final colorful touches to the exterior of the
Jehol temple. Across the road exhibits are being unloaded before the
Hall of Science.
A truck filled with shining chromium contraptions whizzes by. One
guesses they are dentists' chairs, then decides they are shoe-shining
stands. Behind them come trucks of beer, flags, bunting, electric
transformers, reels of electrical conduits, bricks, milk, hardware,
wallboard, boxes, crates, barrels, strange wooden contrivances, a huge
plaster eagle with spread wings.
Drain Imitation Florida.
Over on Northerly Island laborers set to work digging ditches to
drain a large tract west of the Agricultural building. Thirty inches of
muck, brick-bats and discarded automobile fenders must be removed; tiles
put in and thirty inches of black soil and peat moss spread. Then
seventeen carloads of orange trees transported from Florida in cypress
tubs will be planted.
Behind the Agricultural building on the beach a class of life
guards is drilling. When the bathing season opens they will patrol the
beach. Down at the Hall of Science classes of girls are being drilled in
the intricacies of ticket-selling. All of these and hundreds of other
activities go on through the morning and afternoon.
By midafternoon some of the workmen are leaving and others are
arriving. The crowd in the lobby of the Administration building is as
large as ever, but the procession of trucks has decreased by about half
of the forenoon volume. At 10 a.m. steel and timbers for pedestrian
viaducts over Columbus drive at 11th street had been delivered; by 3
p.m. some of the supports were in place. On the Midway at noon was the
steel skeleton of a minaret; by 5:30 it was almost completely swathed
with wallboard and plaster. A peony garden has come into being south of
the Lincoln exhibit, where a day or two ago was a clay pile. Down by the
39th street entrance are the skeleton of two huge buildings where day
before yesterday there was nothing.
At Work All Night.
After 5 p.m. the tempo of the grounds slows down, there are fewer
trucks, fewer men at work. On some jobs they will keep on until darkness
forces them to quit. On others they will keep on all through the night
in the glare of floodlights. In the Agriculture building at 10 p.m. one
approaches a harried superintendent.
"Are you working tonight?" one queries.
"Yes," comes the reply, "three shifts. This joint
has to be completed 100 per cent by Sunday or there is a penalty of
$1,000 a day."
Until long after dark the pick and shovel men toil leaving off
humps, filling depressions, loading debris. From 5 to 6 p.m. there is
something of a lull, but the restaurants and hot-dog stands do a brisk
business. From 7 to 8 the stream of trucks is augmented. More building
materials arrive, truck after truck loaded with waste paper, and refuse
rolls away.
And thus through the night, the lights gleam brightly, but they are
beginning to blink out. The air grows chill, Percy, the dinosaur, dozes.
What a mad world this is into which he has been transplanted.
Percy dozes with one eye open. He doesn't intend to miss a thing.
[End of news article]
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Page compiled: 29 December 2005
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