Got a few minutes to read this story?
That’s a question, and I hope the answer is yes. I am asking because this is the second installment of “Ask Rick,” the experiment intended as a way for readers to ask me questions that they might have about the place we all call home.
Google, Wikipedia and those other sources of information as near as your keyboard or phone do not have all the answers and even when they do, some answers can be misleading or wrong.
So, many of you have written to www.chicagotribune.com/askrick and though some of the latest month’s worth of questions were in the form of comments and a few made no sense at all, there were some that amused or intrigued me and most begged for answers.
In going to the “Ask Rick” Tribune inbox, I also find questions directed to the paper’s Food & Dining and RedEye staffs. There are hundreds of those and I’ve been tempted to answer a few of them, especially this one sent by an anonymous reader to the RedEye folks — “I’ve never been completely drunk before. What will happen?” — but I was reluctant to do so lest I write “Don’t do it!” or spend thousands of words trying to explain the many things that might happen when one gets drunk.
But I have answered all the questions that have come my way, even this one: “What is the difference between sanctifying and actual grace?” which entailed a relatively lengthy response. This one — “Rick, wouldn’t have Al Capone’s house on the South Side, that was for sale recently, made a dynamite BnB” — was easy to answer. I wrote “Yes.”
Then there was this: “A softball question — many years ago I used to drink along North Avenue, mostly at O’Rourke’s but also the Ale House. I remember that they (formed) two legs of the Bermuda Triangle, but what was the 3rd?”
I wrote back to William Leahy: “Sadly, that’s too easy for me but there will always be some debate about the other leg of that triangle. For some it was the Billy Goat and for others (me included) it was Riccardo’s.”
Looking for a good definition of that legendarily liquor-soaked triangle, I found this from the late film critic Roger Ebert, who was familiar with its perilous route — bordered on one side by the Old Town Ale House and the bygone O’Rourke’s. He wrote, “The triangle got its name, it was said, because newspaper reporters crashed there and were never seen again.”
There were other questions about a children’s television show of the 1960s, what portions of our lakefront were created by the debris from the Chicago Fire of 1871, the appearance of a B-17 bomber at Meigs Field, black squirrels and St. Patrick’s Day.
There was another tavern-related question too, involving an era before my tavern time. It came from a man named Bob Feiler and this is what he asked: “I’m helping a friend and Chicago Coin Club member research trade/bar tokens used in Chicago taverns 1930-1950s for the ’26 game.’ All of my research has come up blank. Can you help?”
I started digging but before I had the chance to answer, Feiler told me that a friend of his tracked down a 1986 Tribune story by the late Bob Hughes, who wrote a column called “The Way We Were” for the Tribune’s magazine. I had found that too and it does a fine job detailing the history of this tavern diversion.
Here’s how it worked: You selected a number from 1 to 6 and then tossed 10 dice out of a cup 13 times; you would win if your chosen number came up 26 times or more, or exactly 13 times, or fewer than 10 times.
The game was played at taverns across the Midwest and in Chicago at spots as ritzy as the Palmer House or as close as the corner tavern. Bet a quarter and win and you would be paid in a coupon or one of the aforementioned tokens worth $1 in drinks. Keeping track of the action were women known as “dice girls” or more familiarly “26 girls.” There were once an estimated 5,000 females so employed in these parts.
Much of Hughes’ story, of course, was based on previous newspaper stories. I particularly enjoyed a 1974 column by the great Will Leonard, who covered the nightclub scene for decades at the paper. He observed that “the subject of the 26 girl proved more interesting that the dice.” I talked to a couple of much older pals who confirmed that, one of whom said, “I can’t even remember the name of the bar where I played but I do well remember the name of the 26 girl there. It was Vivian.”
I called Feiler to tell him that I was sending him a few old articles and he told me that he is a past president of the Chicago Coin Club and in conversation was a delightful guy, deeply passionate about history. He told me, “My dear old friend Joel Reznick, who lives in Florida, is a collector of gambling and related tokens. He’s the one who put me on the trail of this. He has some of the 26 game tokens and wanted to know more.” (You can learn more about the venerable organization, founded in 1919, at www.chicagocoinclub.org).
The Tribune is venerable too, founded in 1847. As many of you may have heard, we are soon moving out of our longtime home in the Tribune Tower. Some of us are going to the Prudential Building, which made this question from Paul Benz particularly topical: “As a kid, I remember there being an observation area in the Prudential Building. My grandma used to take me there before catching the South Shore back home. Is my memory correct?”
It is and matches mine and surely that of thousands of others. When the Prudential Building went up in 1955 it was the first skyscraper built in the city since the Field Building on LaSalle Street in 1934 and it was the tallest here until the Richard J. Daley Center went up in 1965. (The Prudential now ranks as the 45th tallest in town).
There was on its 41st top floor a glass-enclosed observation deck and, one floor below, Stouffer’s Top of the Rock restaurant. “Top of the Rock” was a nickname given to it after the British consul general donated a chip of the Rock of Gibraltar at the building’s dedication. The restaurant and observation area closed to the public in the late 1970s but the top floors now contain a clubhouse and private deck that can be used by tenants as well as the public (email prudentialplaza@corporateconcierge.com).
Let me know if you come by this summer. I’ll show you around our new Tribune digs.In the meantime, got a question? Fire away.
rkogan@chicagotribune.com
twitter @rickkogan
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