Park West (originally the Lane Court Theatre) is a concert venue located in Chicago, Illinois. The theater opened in 1916 as a vaudeville and movie theater by the Ascher Brothers. Currently, it can house up to 1,000 guests in a general admission setting.
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240 m
Chicago Pizza and Oven Grinder Company is a restaurant located in Chicago, Illinois. The restaurant was founded in 1972, and specializes in a signature dish called the "pizza pot pie." It enjoys local popularity and has appeared in many publications and television shows.
247 m
The Saint Valentine's Day Massacre was the murder of seven members and associates of Chicago's North Side Gang on Saint Valentine's Day 1929. The men were gathered at a Lincoln Park, Chicago, garage when between four and six men entered, two of whom were disguised as police officers. The seven men were lined up facing a wall and shot with Thompson submachine guns and a sawed-off shotgun; seventy rounds were fired from the Thompsons, and one cartridge was discharged from the shotgun. Six of the victims died immediately; one lived for a short while but refused to identify the killers.
The murders occurred amid the competition for control of organized crime in the city during Prohibition. Police and historians have speculated that the murders were an attempt to kill the head of the North Side Gang, George "Bugs" Moran, although he had not arrived by the time the attack started. The North Siders were rivals of the Chicago Outfit, a criminal organization headed by Al Capone, and much of the speculation has focused on whether he was behind the murders.
The police, the Illinois Attorney General's office, and the coroner's office all opened investigations into the murders. Calvin Goddard, a pioneer in forensic ballistics set up a lab in Chicago with his team and equipment. Two cars likely to have been involved in the shootings were found; both had been destroyed. Police arrested several gang members in connection with the shootings, but a lack of evidence meant none were charged.
In 1935, Byron Bolton, who had been identified as a possible lookout at the crime, was arrested on unrelated charges. He confessed to being a lookout and said the murderers were Fred Goetz, Gus Winkler, Fred Burke, Ray Nugent and Bob Carey. His accusation was supported by the memoirs of Winkler's widow, Georgette. The accusations have been disputed by some historians who have suggested that "Three Fingered Jack" White and Tony Accardo were involved.
The violence associated with the Thompson machine gun in events like the St. Valentine's Day Massacre and the activities of John Dillinger led to changes in gun control legislation in the US, with the introduction of the National Firearms Act in 1934. The massacre has been discussed or referenced in books, including histories, and depicted on television and in film.
298 m
Café Brauer is a restaurant building and official landmark located in Lincoln Park in Chicago, Illinois, at the edge of the Lincoln Park Zoo. It was designed by Dwight H. Perkins and completed in 1908.
The building, known for its green roof, red bricks, second floor ballroom, and lagoon-side setting, has been called "an outstanding example of the Prairie School of architecture" and "perhaps the finest expression of Perkins' design philosophy". It was financed by the Brauer family of Chicago, who worked in the restaurant business, and was one of the most popular restaurants in Chicago during the early twentieth century. Caspar Brauer, who died at age 68 on April 29, 1940, was the longtime proprietor of Café Brauer.
The original restaurant closed in the 1940s. In 1947, Café Brauer's second floor ballroom was opened to the public as an indoor recreation room featuring ballroom dancing for children, square dancing, and waltzing. At the time, it was announced that the facility would be renamed the Lincoln Fieldhouse. By the 1960s, the structure was largely used for storage. Part of the second floor was used as a theater, and there was a small cafeteria on the first floor. A nine-member committee was chosen on October 10, 1967 by Chicago Park Board Vice-President Daniel Shannon to look into restoring the structure as a restaurant-ballroom and adding an outdoor dance pavilion. Their project never moved forward because of restrictions on the sale of alcohol in park district facilities.
In 1987, the Lincoln Park Zoo Society began a $4.2 million restoration project. The second floor ballroom was renovated so that it could be used for private events, and the first floor was remodeled as a small family restaurant and ice cream parlor.
Café Brauer was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986, and it received Chicago Landmark status on February 5, 2003.
The building is located on the site of the South Pond Refectory, a wood-frame boathouse and restaurant designed by William Le Baron Jenney which was open from 1882 until 1908. Café Brauer is sometimes called the South Pond Refectory, the primary name for the site used in its National Register nomination.
360 m
The Nature Boardwalk is an outdoor space managed by the Lincoln Park Zoo, in Chicago's Lincoln Park, in the U.S. state of Illinois.