Chicago - The Windy City

Go Blackhawks!

We spent the New Year’s weekend in Chicago exploring this amazing city, searching for the best Deep Dish Pizza, Chicago-style Hot Dog, marvelling at the splendid architecture and discovering why it is called The Windy City. We had heard once that it was named after the long-winded Politicians (some notables) who never cease to talk. We, however, discovered that it is more of an Urban/Environmental phenomenon. Chicago is located on the West shore of Lake Michigan. The prevailing winds hail from the North through the West. The downtown layout has north to south and west to east streets. When there is a Eastward wind, the west to east streets turn into wind tunnels which, in the Winter, can easily drop the perceived temperature by tens of degrees and make for challenging walking! We think this is the true origin – please chime in if you have a different theory!

The name “Chicago” is derived from a French rendering of the Native American word shikaakwa, translated as “wild onion” or “wild garlic”!

The 1920s saw gangsters, including Al Capone, battled law enforcement and each other on the streets of Chicago during the Prohibition Era.

It is believed that Capone ordered the 1929 Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre in the Lincoln Park neighborhood on Chicago’s North Side. Details of the killing of the seven victims in a garage at 2122 North Clark Street (then the SMC Cartage Co.) and the extent of Capone’s involvement are widely disputed. No one was ever brought to trial for the crime. The massacre was thought to be the Outfit’s effort to strike back at Bugs Moran’s North Side gang. They had been increasingly bold in hijacking the Outfit’s booze trucks, assassinating two presidents of the Outfit-controlled Unione Siciliana, and made three assassination attempts on Jack McGurn, a top enforcer of Capone.

To monitor their targets’ habits and movements, Capone’s men rented an apartment across from the trucking warehouse that served as a Moran headquarters. On the morning of Thursday February 14, 1929, Capone’s lookouts signaled gunmen disguised as police to start a ‘raid’. The faux police lined the seven victims along a wall without a struggle then signaled for accomplices with machine guns. The seven victims were machine-gunned and shot-gunned. Bet they went for Pizza afterwards!

Thanks for visiting our humble Photoblog and make sure to check out some of our other Chicago images!

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