Dark Bilious Vapors

”The Green Mill Cocktail Lounge in Chicago, IL notoriety dates back to Prohibition, when Chicago gangsters used the club as a headquarters.

Situated in Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood, the Green Mill Cocktail Lounge, opened in 1907 as a beer garden named Pop Morris’s Garden. Tom Chamales purchased the bar in 1910, expanding the structure, adding live entertainment, and renaming the establishment the Green Mill Cocktail Lounge. Since then the lounge has become a popular jazz venue. During Prohibition, the Green Mill remained open as a speakeasy and gained a reputation as a gangster hangout favored by Al Capone.

Considered the birthplace of the slam movement in the U.S., the Green Mill has been a fixture of the slam scene for almost two decades. In 1985, Marc Smith launched a reading series at the Get Me High Lounge, another Chicago jazz club. A year later, he relocated the series to the Green Mill and named it the Uptown Poetry Slam. The first slam took place on July 25, 1986, and has been a weekly feature at the lounge ever since
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The Uptown Poetry Slam presents guest performers from around the country, an open mike for newcomers, and a slam competition, all for a mere five-dollar cover charge. Between two to eight poets vie for the top slot in the slam competition each week and three audience members serve as judges. The poets go head to head in a series of readings until the judges determine a winner. The winning poet has a choice of two prizes: ten dollars or the Big John Scam: five lottery tickets.”

”The Chicago Whales were owned by Charles Weeghman and were the original team to occupy Wrigley Field as part of the Federal League. That league folded in 1916 and Weeghman purchased the National League Chicago Cubs and moved them from the west side to the “Friendly Confines’ of the new ball field.”

”The Italian Renaissance style mansion (home to Lawry’s) was first built as a private residence for L.Hamilton McCormick - nephew of the Reaper-King, Cyrus Hall McCormick, and his British wife, Constance Plummer. Mrs. McCormick was one of the “society hostesses” of the era during the 1890’s.

After being widowed in 1934 and raising her 3 sons (Alister, Leander Jr. and Edward Hamilton) Mrs. McCormick leased the home to Mr. Pierre Nuytens from 1935 to 1937 – and he trans formed the 400 person capacity ballroom into the Continetal Casino.

In 1937, famed restaurateur, Fredrik A. Chramer leased the building and opened an expensive Scandinavian “smorgasbord.” The Kungsholm dining room was decorated in a Moderne Swedish style with coats of arms representing each of the three Scandinavian countries. It was Chramer who turned the ballroom into a home movie theater and in 1940 was inspired by Danish puppet shows to create the internationally known Kungsholm Puppet Theater.”