We Love a Parade!

From the archive...

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.