The Excalibur nightclub is a source of mystery for Dee Zrnich, 25.
“I saw this documentary on Excalibur, and I’ve been on this site called hauntedchicago.com,” the Jefferson Park resident said of the club at 632 N. Dearborn St. “When I go there, I always want to ask somebody if there are ghosts there, but when you’re drinking, it’s not a good time.”
But ghouls aren’t the only local fascination. One South Sider’s quest is to find the building where media mogul Oprah Winfrey lives.
“I just keep wondering where it is,” said Aleria Butler, 20. “She just is such a big figure nationally.”
Those mysteries are among the most popular for those who live in or are visiting the city, history buffs said. About 10 years ago, locals were obsessed with Chicago’s mob history, but the new focus is on simple history, local legends and pop culture trivia including:
– Did Mrs. O’Leary’s cow really burn the city to a crisp?
– What exactly is the Cubs’ curse?
– Why does the Chicago River run backward?
RedEye picked the brains of several local historians and sports experts to uncover the truth behind popular traditions, myths and rumors blowing around the Windy City.
TRADITIONS
1. What are the origins of the “Chi-caw-go” accent?
Mayor Daley’s pronunciation of Chicago as “Chi-caw-go” illustrates the accent that outsiders attribute to the city, said Russell Lewis, chief historian of the Chicago History Museum.
Chicago natives have a distinctive nasal accent that also can be found among Michigan, Cleveland and western New York State residents, Lewis said.
“This may have been derived from heavy German, Polish and Eastern European influences in the Great Lakes Region,” Lewis said.
2. Why is Chicago called the Windy City?
There are two possible sources, according to Chicago greeter Jennifer Gordon.
“Some think that during the competition for the 1893 World Fair, which Chicago won, that it came down to Chicago and New York,” Gordon said. A New York editor, tired of hearing Chicago politicians brag, dubbed Chicago a “Windy City,” full of politicians with a lot of hot air.
Another school of thought attributes the slogan to a Cincinnati journalist in the 1860s who tired of Chicagoans bragging about their sports teams, Gordon said.
3. Why do we load our hot dogs with toppings–except ketchup?
Local culinary historian Bruce Kraig told RedEye in 2003 that dog-loading can be traced to the 1920s, when local Italian and Greek hot dog stand vendors tried to outdo each other with toppings. That’s why a Chicago-style hot dog is piled with German condiments of mustard, pickles and celery salt along with Mediterranean-inspired tomatoes, hot peppers and relish.
So locals empty the entire vegetable garden on a hot dog but frown on adding ketchup. Why?
“Nobody knows for sure, but it may be that the relish is already sweet and adding ketchup just makes it too darn sweet,” Lewis said.
4. Why doesn’t the Billy Goat serve fries?
The cry of “Cheezborger! Cheezborger! No fries, cheeps,” reached nationwide notoriety courtesy of a vintage “Saturday Night Live” skit starring John Belushi. Today, that line lives on at the Billy Goat Tavern Original at 430 N. Michigan Ave.
So why does the Goat spurn fries? It doesn’t, said owner Sam Sianis.
“The reason we don’t have fries in the original location is that we didn’t have room to put a fryer,” Sianis said. “That was back in 1964, so we just didn’t serve fries.”
And the original restaurant likely won’t add them, Sianis said, adding that no fries are sold at the Navy Pier location. But you can get your fry fix at the other five local Goat locations, plus a recent location that opened in Washington, D.C., Sianis said.
AROUND TOWN
5. Where does that chocolate smell wafting around the city come from?
If you smell a sweet, cocoa-scented aroma downtown, you might just have your nose pointed near the Blommer Chocolate Co. factory in the West Loop. It’s a delicious aroma known in and around Chicago, but it also could be considered a pollutant.
The Blommer factory–which grinds roasted cacao beans at the 600 W. Kinzie St. facility–was cited in November by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for violating limits on opacity, the amount of light blocked by the factory’s grinder dust.
Those tiny dust particles can cause maladies in people suffering from lung or heart diseases and trigger asthma attacks, according to a Tribune report.
After being cited, Blommer offered to install new filtering equipment to prevent future opacity violations, the Tribune reported.
6. Does the city actually clean the streets when those signs are posted?
You wake up, go outside to your car and … freak out! A ticket for $50 and an orange sign is taunting you. But street-cleaning notices don’t appear out of nowhere, according to Streets and Sanitation spokesman Matt Smith.
The notices for street sweeping must be posted at least 24 hours in advance, Smith said. Locals should look to make sure they don’t miss those signs, but if they can prove that one wasn’t posted, they can request a hearing through 311. The best proof is a photo, Smith said.
“The problems really arise when someone is going out of town and they aren’t sure of the sweeping schedule,” Smith said. The department is working to improve its schedule on the Streets and Sanitation Department page cityofchicago.org.
But in the meantime, locals also can call 311 to take the mystery out of the process.
7. Where does Oprah live?
Rumors abound that Oprah lives in Lake Point Tower (above) in Streeterville, said Chicago greeter Jennifer Gordon.
But Oprah actually owns a condo in the Water Tower Place, Gordon said, a fact confirmed by a spokeswoman for the Tower’s condominium.
8. Why does the Chicago River flow backward?
The Chicago River has run in rewind (away from Lake Michigan) since 1900 because the river–which had become a source of intense pollution due to industrialization and meat processing–was contaminating Lake Michigan, said Friends of the Chicago River spokeswoman Margaret Frisbie. The Chicago Sanitary District, formed in 1889, dug a giant canal called the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, which was deeper than the Chicago River. That dip causes the river to run backward into the Des Plaines River, instead of connecting to Lake Michigan.
LEGENDS
9. Is the Excalibur nightclub haunted by the spirits of a doomed boat excursion?
Some think the Excalibur club is haunted by boat passengers who drowned in the Chicago River during the Eastland Disaster in 1915.
The Excalibur site is rumored to have been used as a morgue for those victims, but Russell Lewis of the Chicago History Museum–who said the building once housed the Chicago Cultural Center until it moved in 1932–busted that myth by saying that the building was not used as a morgue.
But if the club was haunted, there is another possible culprit.
“That building also burned down during the Great Chicago Fire,” Lewis said. “It’s possible that during that fire, somebody got trapped in that building and died.”
Chicago paranormal expert Chris Fleming told RedEye earlier this year that Excalibur is crawling with spirits and ghosts. Fleming filmed at the club for his show on the Biography Channel, “Dead Famous: Ghostly Encounters.”
“When we were filming at Excalibur, I was walking through the storage room and a cup was thrown off the shelf behind me,” Fleming told RedEye in April. “We watched the tape over again, and no one in the room had moved. It just came out of nowhere. When things like that happen, it’s really exciting.”
10. Did Mrs. O’Leary’s cow really set the city on fire?
O’Leary and her cow (above) emerged as scapegoats in the 1871 Chicago Fire mainly because she was Irish and a woman, two negatives during that time, said Lewis, of the Chicago History Museum. There is no proof that O’Leary’s cow started the fire that burned 3Q square miles of the city, killed 300 people and left another 100,00 homeless.
“A reporter made up the story that Mrs. O’Leary and her cow started the fire, and he admitted as much,” Lewis said.
The latest theory is that a meteor sparked the flames, since a city across the lake from Chicago–Peshtigo, Wis.–caught fire that same night, and 2,000 people were killed. “The mystery is why we never think about what happened in Peshtigo,” Lewis said.
SPORTS
11. Why do they play “Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye”at White Sox games?
This catchy little ditty–played when an opposing pitcher is pulled from the game or after a decisive White Sox win–entered team history courtesy of organist Nancy Faust.
Faust, who has played at Sox games since 1970, said she has always scoured the airwaves for catchy tunes she could play on her organ. Back then, “Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye” by Steam was one of those tunes.
But it didn’t become a ballpark hit until nearly 10 years later when Faust played some of it during a competitive game against the Royals in the summer of ’77. Both teams were vying for first place when the Royals pulled their pitcher. Faust hit the retreating player with a little “Na Na,” and the rest was history.
12. What is the Cubs’ curse exactly?
Some blame the Cubs’ World Series woes on the players. Some blame it on the managers. But back in 1945, locals blamed it on the goat.
The Cubs were battling the Detroit Tigers during Game 4 of the 1945 World Series, when Billy Goat Tavern founder Vasili “Billy Goat” Sianis crashed the party by bringing his pet goat to the game. Legend has it that the goat’s smell was so offensive that Cubs’ management threw both the goat, and his owner, out of Wrigley Field.
Offended right back, Sianis put a curse on the Cubs, saying they would never win a pennant or play a World Series at Wrigley until the goat got his due. Over the years, a goat has been invited into Wrigley several times to lift the curse, but Cubs’ history demonstrates it hasn’t worked.
13. Why don’t the Blackhawks televise home games?
This is a fan question that Blackhawks spokesman Jim De Maria has heard more times than he cares to count, he said.
Anywhere from one to six home games air on Comcast SportsNet each season, said De Maria, who has worked for the Blackhawks for 23 years. Also, all playoff games–at home or on the road–are telecast, he said.
De Maria did not offer a specific reason why more games aren’t televised, but said this policy has been part of the team’s legacy for “many, many years.”
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kkyles@tribune.com
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