Video | Downtown Disasters | Chicago Stories

Chicago Stories: Downtown Disasters — Full Episode

Chicago Stories recalls two Loop disasters: the Iroquois Theatre Fire and the Loop flood.

clip thumbnail

Chicago Stories: Downtown Disasters

Chicago Stories recalls two very different disasters that occurred in the heart of Chicago’s Loop 90 years apart: First, the deadliest building fire in U.S. history: the 1903 Iroquois Theatre Fire.

clip thumbnail

Dig In to Chicago’s Curious Freight Tunnels

Why does Chicago have a freight tunnel system? Explore the strange tunnels that played a big role in the 1992 Loop flood.

clip thumbnail

An 'Absolutely Fireproof' New Theater

The Iroquois Theater was a brand-new, opulent theater considered to be "absolutely fireproof" and designed to boost Chicago’s reputation as a world-class city.

clip thumbnail

The Aftermath of the Iroquois Theater Fire

In the wake of the Iroquois Theater Fire, the city, theaters, builders, and other groups involved learned painful lessons about fire safety.

clip thumbnail

The Flood Stud

The man in charge of fixing the Loop flood, John Kenny, earns a strange nickname from the press and becomes a local celebrity.

More Episodes

clip thumbnail

Jane Byrne

As a woman once again occupies the fifth floor of City Hall, Chicago Stories remembers the city’s first female mayor. After pulling off one of Chicago’s greatest political upsets, Jane Byrne found herself caught between the political machine that shaped her and the reformers who elected her.

clip thumbnail

The Real Mad Men of Chicago

You may not have heard of Albert Lasker, Eugene Kolkey, or Tom Burrell, but you most certainly know their creations. They’re Chicago’s Mad Men - the local executives who created iconic figures like the Marlboro Man, Charlie the Tuna, and the Pillsbury Dough Boy.

clip thumbnail

The Union Stockyards

At the end of the 19th century, Chicago completely transformed the way Americans eat, and the Union Stockyards on the South Side were the center of that revolution. Experience the sights, sounds, and awful smells of the Union Stockyards and the complex of meat factories next to it, known as Packingtown.

clip thumbnail

Our Soldiers, Our Lady of Guadalupe

This is the story of pride and heartbreak in a close-knit South Side community. Our Lady of Guadalupe, Chicago’s first and oldest Mexican-American parish, lost 12 young men in the Vietnam War during a brutal five-year period.

clip thumbnail

The Birth of Gospel

The episode follows “The Father of Gospel”, Thomas A. Dorsey, who wrote one of gospel’s early hits while coping with his grief over the death of his wife and child. It explores the roots of gospel from southern spirituals during slavery, through gospel’s early years.

clip thumbnail

Inventing Improv

Chicago’s greatest cultural export just might be improvised theater — an art form that was devised by a woman named Viola Spolin — who wasn’t out for laughs.

clip thumbnail

Ida B. Wells

There are few Chicago historical figures whose life and work speak to the current moment more than Ida B. Wells, the 19th century investigative journalist, civil rights leader, and passionate suffragist.

clip thumbnail

The Great Chicago Fire

On October 10, 1871, Chicago awoke to an unrecognizable landscape: where 48 hours earlier there had been a vibrant city, now there was nothing but rubble stretched for miles on end.