Chicago from the air, 1914

October 30, 2017 5:44 AM

The Chicago Tribune has recently rediscovered 1914 aerial footage of Chicago. Filmed by aviation pioneer Roy Knabenshue from his craft 'The White City' (reportedly the first passenger dirigible, which offered regular flights from the city's White City Amusement Park) it's thought to be either the first or second filmed aerial tour of the city. To show how the city has changed (and how it hasn't) over the past century, they've paired this vintage footage with modern footage of the same locations.
posted by orthicon halo (8 comments total)

It's fascinating to see all of the changes; just the fact that the modern Loop footage had to be taken at a higher elevation is kind of telling. And then, in contrast, there's the U of C, which looks pretty much the same in both sets of footage.
posted by Johnny Assay at 6:03 AM on October 30, 2017 [2 favorites]

According to the article, the video was filmed in early August 1914. Just several months earlier, in March of 1914, Harriet Monroe had published Carl Sandburg's "Chicago" in Poetry magazine. "Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth ..." is what came to mind watching the smokestacks in the film.
posted by octobersurprise at 7:12 AM on October 30, 2017 [4 favorites]

It says "acquired" but I wonder what the Tribune paid for this, and if it's a lot whether or not it made sense as an investment to sit on for 103 years rather than show in theaters/nickelodeons/whatever right away? And IF SO, is there a business model for just taking the advantage of the latest in shooting techniques to make movies that you can sell decades down the road as "shockingly early transcranial feely footage of the 2021 innaguration".

I'm looking for investors. Memail me.
posted by LiteOpera at 7:50 AM on October 30, 2017

It was apparently shown in theaters at the time -- the second photo gallery on the main article (first link) includes a couple of newspaper ads from October 28, 1914 (Chicago Tribune, Chicago Herald -- you may have to click in to see the whole thing) indicating that the film was screened at the Hamlin Theater as a short subject before the now-lost two-reeler The Mystery of Grayson Hall ("and other good ones").
posted by orthicon halo at 8:06 AM on October 30, 2017 [2 favorites]

Even better. I can show them now and then keep them in a vault for 100 years and sell them again!
posted by LiteOpera at 9:34 AM on October 30, 2017

The action that opens Thomas Pynchon's Against the Day takes place in an airship over Chicago's 1893 World's Fair. That was 21 years earlier, but this film includes at least two buildings that were part of the World's Fair: the German pavilion, and the Museum of Science and Industry (originally the Palace of Fine Arts at the Fair, and the Field Museum in the 1914 footage).
posted by beagle at 11:20 AM on October 30, 2017 [3 favorites]

...the Museum of Science and Industry (originally the Palace of Fine Arts at the Fair)

It blows my mind that the Palace of Fine Arts was only like the fifth largest of the Great Buildings at the World's Columbian Exposition. The Manufacturing and Liberal Arts Building was like FOUR OR FIVE TIMES ITS SIZE! Think about that the next time you're walking around the Museum of Science and Industry.

That Fair would have been absolutely unreal to see in person.
posted by Hey Dean Yeager! at 1:51 PM on October 30, 2017 [3 favorites]

How come Manhattan Beach looked so swingin' while modern-day Rainbow Beach is so sterile and empty? (Perhaps the new footage was filmed on a cold day?)
posted by Atom Eyes at 7:02 PM on October 30, 2017 [1 favorite]