The Billboard 1905-06-03: Vol 17 Iss 22 (1905-06-03)

m Things Theatrical North and West from a Chicago Point of View. CHICAGO OFFICE OF THE BILLBOARD, Suite 61 Grand Opera House Bldg., 87 S. Clark St. Chicago now has an amusement center that ranks with any of London, New York or Paris. In White tty, dedicated to mirth and enjoyment, the managers have made good all their promises, and now nothing remains but the sanction and appreciation of the public. If the Sunday visitors be a criterion, an old fashioned World’ Fair attendance 1s looked for. White City has been a revelation to those who have studied and watched its growth. Its steel structures, broad walks, mammoth plaza, the attractive sunken gardens, the bumps, the chutes with a huge lake at the base, its white columns, its hundreds of vines with growing things, and CHUTES LAGOON, ' ’ White City, Chicago. its innumerable opportunities for delight and recreation, all combine to bring about a verdict of approval and amazement. The success of this venture is due to Joseph Beifeld, Paul D. Howse and A. J. Jones. Mr. Beifield is a man of strong personality, determined in everything he undertakes. The trio went to New York and resolved to give Chicago better fun than the crowds were offered in the eastern metropolis. “One million dollars is none too much to spend op this thing,’’ said Mr. Beifeld. ‘‘White City has to be the best there is in the country or anywhere else. Both Mr. Howse and Mr. Jones are clever Chicago promoters of national reputation, and by their constant and harmonious work with Mr. Beifeld, they have made the dream of White City a reality. Months ago there was a corn field on the site at 63rd street and South Park avenue, where how you see an electric tower nearly 300 feet high, solid white walls, broad arches and big columns, that in outline and design suggest the beauty and grandeur of the World’s Fair. Edward C. Boyce, of international reputation, designed White City. It is a place of recreation for all sorts of people. The romantic find the lights twinkling for them, or they can sit down near the flowers and listen to Banda Rosa’s secrets. The practical can guess at the amount of steel used in the structure of the building and the electric power necessary to keep things moving in White City. AUTOMATIC VAUDEVILLE. White City, Chicago. Families find benches waiting for them; the hungry may spend as little or as much as they please, and go over to Venice and ride around in a gondola while the food is digesting. The College Inn is destined to be the most popular place for dinner parties in Chicago this summer. It is big and airy and furnished in green shades. It adjoins the ball room where there is a polished floor that can accommodate one thousand dancers. This ball room is one hundred and sixty-seven feet long, and one hundred feet wide. A master of ceremonies is in charge, who, with his trained assistants, prevents the dancers from lapsing into any kind of careless conduct. There is a high-class orchestra of twenty pieces, as well as a superb orchestrion bought by the management for $20,000 at the St. Louis Fair. The College Inn ts elevated above the board walk so as to give space for a German Rathskeller and a dairy lunch room below. There is also a refectory called*Terrace Tavern in the grounds especially arranged for women and children where tea, cakes and soft drinks are served. There are all sorts of attractive things going on along the board walk, the only one of the kind, by the way, west of Atlantic City. There is a scenic railway, carrying one three-fourths of a mile into the black forest of Germany, across the Alps and around Siberia. There are flying airships, and there are bumps, and Hereafter and Shoot-the-Chutes, with a 500 foot escalator which carries passengers to the pavilion, and a lake at the base which contains 1,365,000 gallons of water. The Johnstown Flood is reproduced and presented on a gigantic scale and there is an automatic vaudeville, containing all the latest mechanical novelties, a fun factory where a laugh is guaranteed with every admission. There are circus rings where outof-door performances are given every little while, mechanical wax works where a_ collection of life-like figures slide about and mix with the visitors, a photograph gallery, a gypsy camp with real Spanish gypsies, a dog, pony and monkey circus, a toboggan, Jim Key, 4 palmistry Kiosk, Utopia, where one sees unexpected things under and over the sea, a miniature railway with a model railroad system of track, switches, signals and a half mile right of way through tunnels and marvellously improved grottoes. And, too, there is a Temple SCENIC RAILWAY STATION. ~ White City, Chicago. of Music where a piano is played by wireless telegraphy, the electricity passing through the body of a woman. There is a Chinese theatre where actual Chinese artists, men and women, perform.. The fire show is getting a large amount of attention. It covers an area of 300 feet long by 200 feet wide.. There are busy streets, streaming with life and interest. The pavements are of concrete, the streets are paved, there gas lamps that flicker, restaurants in which people are eating, and shops in which purchases are being made. There are the regulation fire alarm boxes, fire hydrants and big buildings equipped with fire escapes. There are over two hundred and fifty people who take part in the fire show. Three complete fire companies, a sixty-six foot extension truck, chief’s buggy, coal wagon, ambulance, patrol wagon, and red shirted firemen, trolley cars filled with passengers moving about the doomed city. Cabs and delivery wagons act the way they do in State street, and men are seen gossiping in club windows. Then comes the alarm of fire, and the fire fighters do the rest, under the charge of Chief William West. There are pyrotechnic displays from time to time of the kind known as ground fire works or set figures. Some are given on floats in the chutes’ lagoon and some in flying machines. The Cammin’s Indian Congress is what makes the trains late these days on the elevated roads. From the tracks one may look directly into the Indian Canip. These Indians enact the Fort Dearborn massacre. Another feature of the Cummins’ show is Monte Zuma the tall Indian who stands nine feet high and who amuses himself by playing leap frog over full grown horses. The aim of the management has been to produce only clean, new and enjoyable amusements. The buildings are all of permanent character, and it is the present intention tu continue this style of attractive entertainment for many years to come. One of the most artistic places in all White City is Venice with its scores of gondolas, its little canals, its old palaces, reproduced on canvas, showing the picturesqueness of Venetian life. There is the Bridge of Sighs, the Doge’s Palace, St. Marks dome, and it 1s always twilight there. Venice is 250 feet long and 100 feet deep, and cost as it is at White City, $75,000. Perhaps the greatest source of interest in White City is the incubator babies, who have been so well provided for that it will be their own fault if they do not grow. They have a house all to themselves, professional nurses to attend them, and the best physicians available to see that everything is done properly. In short, an adequate idea of the way the space is used at White City will be found in the following table: Ball Room, 167x100 feet; College Inn, 208x100; Automatic Arcade, 60x 100; Hereafter, 40x60; Monkey, Dog and Pony Circus, 40x100; Temple of Music, 35x100; Johnstown Flood, 40x100; Photograph Gallery, 20x50; Palmistry Kiosk, 20x50; Midway, 150x 100; Fire Show, 225x180; Chutes, 250x50; Double BALL ROOM. ” 1 ePaan 8h 258 8e-aa8 8 8 ie on White City, Chicago. Circle, 262x85; Scenic Railway, (a) Scene Palace, 100x100, (b) Railway Track, 700x25, (ce) Leading Station, 100x60; Infant Incubators, 90x75; Venice, 250x100; Electric Theatre, 20x75; Fun Factory, 20x75; Band Room, 20x50; Jim Key, 40x100; Flying Airships, 120x100; Bumps, 40x100; Electric Tower (288 ft. high), 40x40; Wax Works, 50x120. The main entrance is kO feet wide and SG feet deep. The Chutes Lagoon is 80 feet wide by 325 feet long. Over 1,000 men have been employed at one time, constantly, in the erection of White City, and over 100,000 electric lights flash a greeting to the visitors. Thus White City is a reality, a marvellous enchanting and substantial fact. It has come to stay and is anxious to show what a good host it can be. Much of the success and assurance with which it makes its initial bow is due to Mr. France R. E. Woodward, manager of the publicity department, who showed the aims and claims of the movement in a convincing and dignified way. WARREN A. PATRICK. INFANT INCUBATORS. White City, Chicago. PROCTOR ENLARGES CIRCUIT E. F. Proctor, the well-known manager, has decided to erect a theatre in Troy, N. Y. The report that Mr. Proctor intended buying the Rand Opera House or the Royal Theatre at Troy has been refuted by his representatives, and it developes that the manager is negotiating for the purchase of a site for the erection of a completely new theatre. His intentions are to build a house similar to the new Proctor Theatre in Newark, N. J., and it is planned to make it thoroughly metropolitan by adding a roof garden, an entirely new feature for the Trojans. The fact that Mr. Proctor is already booking attractions for his Troy house is considered sufficient evidence of his good faith in the matter. The success of his Albany theatre has evidently prompted Mr. Proctor in his new undertaking. AIRSHIP AND BUMPS. White City, Chicago. ITS FAREWELL TOUR The famous German Marine Band, which numbers forty master musicians and is directed by Herr Louis Kindermann, will shortly start upon its farewell tour of the principal cities of this country. The summer bookings now being arranged are devoted to parks, expositions and big outdoor affairs. This organization is the same that proved sa popular at the World’s Fair and on the brief tour which followed its engagement at that place, except that it is being improved, numerically and artistically, being elaborately costumed, and having a more extensive repertoire. Five soloists have also been especially engaged by cable. They sail from Hamburg May 27, arriving in New York in time for the initial concert which is scheduled for the first week in June. Mr. W. H. Isham, manager of the band, is assisted by Mr. Frank E. Tracy, formerly in advance of Brooke’s Chicago Marine Band. FIRE SHOW. White City, Chicago. OFF FOR AUSTRALIA Nance O'Neil and McKee Rankin and company sailed from San Francisco, May 18, for Australia, whither they go for a six months’ tour. The company includes John Glendenning, Andrew Robson, George Friend,, Mrs. Henry Bracy, Ricci Allen, Jane Marbury and Madge Bloodgood. The Australian tour will begin at Her Majesty’s Theatre. Sydney, the initial production being The Fires of St..John. At the conclusion of her foreign engagement Miss O'Neil returns to San Francisco, where ANIMAL CIRCUS. White City, Chicago. she opens an engagement at the Grand Opera House. Albert Sheehan accompanies Miss O'Neil as business man ager. emt