On a cold, spring day I was accompanied by architects Uriel Schlair and Jerrold McIlvain and two Park District engineers into a great stone grotto few Chicagoans have ever seen. We entered the only way possible: by climbing a ladder, then descending through a manhole into a kind of crawl space, and worming along painfully through several openings before entering a large, circular, concrete cavern. In the middle of this area is a tangle of ancient, rusted pipes forming a central shaft rising up through the ceiling. The cavern looks very much like a cave, especially because of the mass of sodium stalactites hanging from the gray walls. The area down here is frequented only by occasional ducks which come in to lay eggs or stray cats which usually die because they can’t find their way out. Even the homeless are wary, since the place is cold, dark and, in the spring and summer, pretty wet. Standing there, I found it hard to believe we were in the very bowels of what many consider the city’s most beautiful and enduring architectural monument, the Buckingham Fountain. A rumor, recently publicized by the supermarket tabloid, the Star, has it that Al Capone buried $5 million in gold bars somewhere down here. But Chicago Park District engineer John Burke, who frequents these dank environs regularly, was dubious. “If it’s down here,” he said, “he sure did a great job of hiding it, because we sure haven’t seen it.”
Next we toured the fountain’s power plant, which can be entered through a small, mostly underground building at the southeast corner of the plaza which surrounds the fountain. It houses the controls for the 134 individual jets of water and the more than 600 lamps and projectors that create the water and light effects. Until 20 years ago this was command central where technicians in season manipulated the levers daily. Gradually over the years the functions were automated–partly in response to public complaints that (as one letter writer told the Tribune) “unesthetic operators” were creating “weird futuristic designs.” In 1980 the entire operation was computerized. The Honeywell Corp., which controls the temperature in thousands of buildings all over the country by computer, was asked to develop a special program for Buckingham. The result allowed the fountain to perform all its functions exactly on time at the direction of a computer in Lincolnwood. In 1983 Honeywell centralized its computer operations in Atlanta, and it is from there that every mechanical and electrical activity of the fountain has been directed for the past 11 years.
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Schlair, a Weese archtect who specializes in this area, said he and colleague McIlvain were shocked when they conducted a thorough inspection of the fountain. “It was not a case of neglect,” he said, “just the ravages of time and Chicago weather.” They went over the place inch by inch, eventually producing three, thick volumes of analysis, photos and specific plans for restoration.
Two years ago in an effort to measure human honesty, Conde Nast Traveler magazine had briefcases placed unattended at prominent locations in 14 major cities, including New York, Los Angeles, Paris, Moscow and Tokyo. Some were stolen within a few minutes and a few were left untouched for hours. But at only one site in the world did a passing Good Samartian open the briefcase, find a name and phone number, call and arrange to return the property to its ownner. That briefcase was the one left at Buckingham Fountain.
“It was an almost metaphysical experience,” he said. “I sensed the dynamism and drive that’s in America.” He moved to Chicago and completed studies at the University of Illinois Chicago campus in 1976. Since 1986 he’s been with Weese.
“There’s no argument, no need to struggle–you have to attribute this to the respect everyone has for it. And I must admit I get quite a lift out of being involved in what matters so much to so many people.”
