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Uptown Chicago Pageant Festival of Fun and Color. Two Hundred Floats in Big Parade Tomorrow Evening.
Source: Chicago Evening Post, 19 August 1925, p. 6.
Gayly decorated streets and shop windows
announced today to that part of Chicago between Montrose avenue, Argyle
street, Racine avenue and the lake, that the pageant of 1925 being held
by the Central Uptown Chicago association was in full swing.
The festivities, which began last night with the opening of the
huge new Uptown Chicago movie theatre at Lawrence avenue and Broadway, will last until Saturday
night. Tomorrow night will witness the "Parade of Color," in
which 200 decorated floats will participate.
The "Central Uptown parade" will be held Friday night.
The festivities will reach a climax Saturday night with a grand ball in
Harmon's Arcadia. Motion
picture, baseball and radio stars will be present.
Crowd at Theater.
After watching the crowds last night, J.R.S. Crowder, chairman of
the pageant committee, estimated that at least half a million persons
would "get acquainted" with the special advantages of the district
for shopping and
amusements.
More than 12,000 persons waited on either side of the Broadway
entrance to the magnificent theater in an attempt to be members of the
first audience. The seating capacity, however, was only 5,000. Several
women collapsed in exhaustion.
500 Cops Assigned.
"Never have I witnessed an opening like it," said John
Balaban of Balaban & Katz, the owners. "World's championship
baseball games I have attended were tame affairs in comparison."
Five hundred policemen have been assigned to the line of march for
tomorrow night's parade. North and south traffic will be halted while
the event is in progress.
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