Great American Railroad Journeys (2016–…): Season 2, Episode 16 - Chicago, the Windy City - full transcript
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.
As I journey across this vast continent,
I'll discover how pioneers and
cowboys conquered the West.
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.
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... 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.
- Mm-hm.
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... 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
and 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.
- Yeah.
- 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.
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.
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.
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 built
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.
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.
The sport was easily
taken onto the frontier,
you just needed a piece of wood
and a ball, and there you go.
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.
Sir, how do I hold a 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.
Now 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, oh!
There we go.
You're looking like a natural already.
Uah!
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.
Portill... 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 on my birthing agent?
- 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 very much.
- Any French fries with that?
- We have got fries with cheese saussage.
- 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 is 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, you know. 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 is in heaven.
283, in the land of the free.
283.
Ah, ah!
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.
To discover how music helped to make
Moody and Sankey household names,
I'm meeting church member Daniel Favero.
Your 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... 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...
30,000 cubic feet per second
of sewage coming out here.
It will be beautiful.
A great image.
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.
As I journey across this vast continent,
I'll discover how pioneers and
cowboys conquered the West.
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.
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... 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.
- Mm-hm.
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... 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
and 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.
- Yeah.
- 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.
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.
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.
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 built
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.
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.
The sport was easily
taken onto the frontier,
you just needed a piece of wood
and a ball, and there you go.
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.
Sir, how do I hold a 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.
Now 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, oh!
There we go.
You're looking like a natural already.
Uah!
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.
Portill... 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 on my birthing agent?
- 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 very much.
- Any French fries with that?
- We have got fries with cheese saussage.
- 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 is 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, you know. 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 is in heaven.
283, in the land of the free.
283.
Ah, ah!
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.
To discover how music helped to make
Moody and Sankey household names,
I'm meeting church member Daniel Favero.
Your 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... 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...
30,000 cubic feet per second
of sewage coming out here.
It will be beautiful.
A great image.