Chicago has a history for being a tough, exciting journalism town. At the turn of the century, as many as 10 Chicago dailies vied with each other in their scramble to win readers. Competition was fierce and editors would go to almost any length to boost their circulation.
It was known as the Front Page era, a name derived from the 1928 play by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur titled ”The Front Page.” The play concerned real-life reporters who connived, schemed and double-dealed to get their stories splashed on Page 1 of their newspapers.
Through the years a number of movies based on the play have been made, including the recently released ”Switching Channels,” an updated version of Howard Hawks` 1940 film ”His Girl Friday,” which starred Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell.
To relive these colorful, frenetic days, why not take a do-it-yourself tour of the old Front Page days of Chicago journalism? Many of the old newspaper buildings are still around. And the streets are filled with stories about the zany reporters who would do just about anything to get a good exclusive.
There are plenty of places to see on our tour, so grab your press card, make sure your pencil and notebook are stuffed in the pocket of your trench coat and head off in search of the scoop on what really happened in an era of journalism that is gone but not forgotten. You may not stop the presses, but at least you`ll have fun and maybe even learn something in the process.
The first stop on our tour is the old Criminal Courts building on the northwest corner of Dearborn and Hubbard Streets. A seven-story limestone Gothic structure built in 1885, this building is where Hecht and MacArthur set their play. As young reporters, Hecht and MacArthur spent much of their time in the building`s press room as they waited to cover trials and hangings. Immediately behind the courthouse (a fire station now stands here) were the old jail and gallows.
Hildy Johnson, one of the main characters in the play, is based on Hilding ”Hildy” Johnson, a real reporter for the Herald and Examiner who was a snappy dresser, a hard drinker, a notorious brawler and a great newspaperman. Supposedly, he once cheated a condemned felon out of his last $200. The Herald and Examiner agreed to pay Carl Wanderer, a convicted murderer, for his life story. After giving the $200 to the doomed convict, Hildy persuaded him to play a few hands of gin rummy while Wanderer waited to be executed. By the time the hands were over, Wanderer had given Hildy both his memoirs and his money. Wanderer`s last words on the gallows were, ”Don`t play rummy with Hildy Johnson. I think he cheats.”
Currently a privately owned rental office building, the former courthouse has been restored to its original look. The outside limestone facade has been recently cleaned, and the cast-iron and copper-coated metalwork of the newly renovated lobby has been painstakingly restored.
Make sure you go inside the lobby where potted plants, old hanging light fixtures and a sprawling balcony whisk you back to the rollicking `20s.
Take time to look at the lobby walls, where a series of framed photographs traces the people and events that form the courthouse`s history. Note the photos of young-looking Hecht and Carl Sandburg, who served as apprentice reporters in this building. There is also a picture from the `20s of a scene from ”The Front Page.” And another shows attorney Clarence Darrow with Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, two University of Chicago students who in 1924 were tried and found guilty in the courthouse for killing a 13-year-old boy.
Leaving the old courthouse, head north to the Newberry Library, 60 W. Walton St. Go up to the Special Collections Department and ask to see the Ben Hecht Collection, which includes letters written to Hecht by his friends and associates. Such things as Hecht`s scrapbook and a wooden, hand-colored board that he used for his writing can also be viewed. In the collection there are original copies of the Chicago Literary Times, a tabloid that Hecht started;
and three copies of the Dill Pickler, the official literary magazine of the Dill Pickle Club, a hangout for reporters and other bohemians. The collection also includes Sandburg`s 1931 press card, which he used when he was with the Daily News.
Now backtrack to Clark Street and Wacker Drive, the site of Chicago`s first newspaper, the Chicago Democrat. Started by John Calhoun on Nov. 26, 1833, in a single room of a small, wood-frame building, the paper was a six-column, four-page weekly. (A copy of the first issue of the paper can be seen in the Chicago exhibit at the Chicago Historical Society, 1601 N. Clark St.)
Continue west to an old office building at 211 W. Wacker Dr. In the `30s and `40s, the Times, Chicago`s first daily tabloid, occupied eight floors of this 18-story building then owned by insurance magnate Alfred MacArthur, brother of Charles MacArthur. The Times was a direct descendent of the Journal, where Hecht got his first job as a reporter at the age of 16. Marshall Field III eventually purchased the Times and merged it with his other paper, the Sun, forming the Sun-Times, one of the two current dailies in Chicago. (A framed copy of the front page of the first issue of the Sun-dated Dec. 4, 1941-hangs in the public information bureau of the Sun-Times building at 401 N. Wabash St.)
The building housed the Evening Post until 1929, when it moved to a new location on LaSalle Street. The paper died in 1932. A short, lower-level street, named for the Evening Post, runs past the west side of the building. Called North Post Place, the street is the only reminder that a newspaper once occupied the structure here.
There are other remnants in the Loop of long-gone newspapers. If you walk southwest a few blocks, you will see on top of a parking garage at the southwest corner of Franklin and Randolph Streets a large bronze sculpture of a herald blowing on a trumpet. The sculpture originally stood on top of a gable of the now-demolished Chicago Herald building, 161 W. Washington St.
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