Pullman

Pullman continued...

All this was within walking distance of a factory that built railroad passenger cars, some basic and some opulent, some sleepers and some not, for the world.

Among the amenities in the housing built by George Pullman for his people (who, it must be added, paid rent out of their wages): water, indoor plumbing and gas light, none a given in 1880s Chicago, especially in housing affordable to laborers.

"The housing was much nicer than what people were used to at the time," Fabris says. "Some people thought the housing was quite grandiose, but he figured a happy worker was a more productive worker.

"These homes were built between 1880 and 1885. Ninety-five percent of the housing is still here."

And they almost weren't.

"In the 1960s, the city of Chicago wanted to tear down all of Pullman and make it an industrial park," she says. "The people in the neighborhood said, 'Wait a minute. Don't think you realize what you have here.' "

A vigorous campaign led by residents and preservationists saved it. The homes are privately owned and are occupied. Some factory buildings remain, including the Administration Building with its signature clock tower, restored after a 1998 fire.

The Florence Hotel accepted guests until 1975, was a restaurant for a time, functions today as an event venue and looks terrific. (It, and the factory buildings, are now state property -- and all tend to be closed for remodeling and restoration projects.) The Greenstone Church is still a church and looks great. So does much of George Pullman's experiment.

Today, visitors are welcome to stroll through the compact town, either with organized tours or on their own. There is no charge. Home interiors are open for viewing only on the second weekend in October, during Pullman's annual House Tour, but seeing the exteriors is satisfying enough.

There are no food facilities in Historic Pullman. The only full-service restaurant nearby is the Cal-Harbor, a diner on 115th Street just south of town best enjoyed for its breakfasts; a McDonald's is a block to the west. There's a better selection west in Roseland, including Old Fashioned Donuts (and burgers and hot dogs) on Michigan Avenue; and still more a couple of miles farther west in the Beverly neighborhood.

The utopian company-town era was brief. In 1893 -- same year as the Chicago World's Fair, during which Pullman's village was a tourist attraction -- the country fell into economic depression and Pullman cut workers' wages without trimming the rents. In 1894, a walkout disrupted rail and mail service, federal troops were sent in by President Grover Cleveland, the strike was broken and union leader Eugene Debs jailed.

George Pullman, his benevolent relationship with his workers shattered, would be dead three years later and rests in Graceland Cemetery, in the Lakeview neighborhood on the North Side, far from his dream. In 1898, the courts ordered the company (now headed by Robert Todd Lincoln, the late president's son) to sell its residential properties; by 1907, all were in private hands -- and remain so.

Meanwhile, West Pullman was already drawing workers away from the company tracts, and the fortunate moneyed class was building mansions on West Pullman's Stewart Ridge, where they still impress a century later.

An era, albeit a short one, was over.

In the Pullman of today, the exteriors of the houses generally remain largely unchanged while interiors have been updated to varying degrees. Inevitably, electricity replaced the gas light; some owners added pleasantries such as air-conditioning. A series of fires eventually doomed the Market Hall, leaving only its skeletal remains; the former stable is now a car-repair shop -- though the carved horses' heads are still there on the facade. The visitor center, in a modern building, stands where the Arcade once did.

Within the visitor center are furniture from the Florence Hotel, carpeted ladders used to access sleeping cards' upper berths, artifacts belonging to George Pullman and plenty of old photos.

Not in the center: a Pullman railroad car. One was donated, Fabris says.

"But getting it from the railroad tracks to the siding was a big problem," she says. "At that time, the cost estimate was like a million bucks."

So visitors won't see the product that made Pullman -- the man and his town -- famous.

What they will see is something very, very special.

For more information about Pullman, please contact the Pullman Visitor Information Center at 773.785.8901.