Transcript for the Piece Audio version of Chicago's Memory

X Chicago?s Memory X

Walk with both palms facing forward, as if you are reaching for a wall in the dark. You will feel warmth, breeze, chills, tingles, vibrations, throbbing and other sensations; breathe with your hands. Spirits will surround you. In this tour, you will visit sights with a disastrous Chicago history; understand that you are not alone. Be aware of sensations intermingled with present day energies, sounds and structures. You will be standing where tragedy, death and fear is still alive, through memories and thought forms. You may choose to be a receiver for their horror, or you may quietly reflect, transmitting sympathetic curiosity.

X #1
Our tour begins at 24 W. Randolph at the now named Ford Center for Performing Arts, the marquee still reads Oriental theater. This structure has been built on the land where the Iroquois theater once stood before it burned to the ground. In December of 1903 a matinee performance of ?Mr. Blue Beard? with Eddie Foy was the highlight of many school-aged children?s seasonal field trip as they entered in busloads. They exited on stretchers. A small fire broke out during the show and patrons were encouraged to stay while stagehands handled the flame. It grew crackling pandemonium struck. Folks pushed and shoved their way to the only exit door that pulled in (instead of the now-regulated push out). Adults carried children to the rafters and found a door to the alley behind the building. The first that exited out of the dark smoke jumped to their death. 572 people died in the space and outside, while 30 more would succumb to their intense burns in the hospital. Across the street, the eight floor of Marshall Field?s department store became a makeshift morgue.

X #2
Walk E on Lake, N on State to the alley behind the Theater. This is referred to as ?Death Alley?. Rampant EVP activity occurs here. The 125 people that jumped to their death here chose not to burn or succumb to smoke affixation. Instead they were flattened under piles of their friends, family and colleagues. The lucky ones jumped and were cushioned by the other humans as the dead softened their fall and decreased the space between the three-story building and top of the last row of lifeless bodies. Empaths can still hear their cries and many can feel the cold air remaining from the freezing December air against charred skin.

X#3
W through the alley, N on Dearborn under El tracks to River. W on Wacker to Clark.
835 bodies drowned under the noses of passerbys on a boat named The Eastland, July of 1915. The Western Electric Company chartered 4 boats for the annual picnic to the dunes of Michigan City, Indiana. As families were boarding the boat, filling it to capacity, it began to show signs of instability. Passengers were placing their day bags in the cabins below deck while more where finding spaces to stand, waving goodbye to those on land, chatting and taking in the smell of the swampy river as the shore is uprooted by new architecture of this growing city. The boat toppled like the Poseidon and trapped those inside as well forced those standing starboard deep under the bowels of the boat. The bodies were trapped with netting at the mouth of the river at Lake Michigan as the retrieval was challenged by the forceful flow of the river. Current residents and day walkers can listen closely, perceiving gurgled cries for help or catching glimpses of arms and heads in attempt to bob above the green water. 22 entire families died. They were held in more makeshift morgues of The Armory Building, 1058 W. Washington. Now, called Harpo Studios.

X#4
Walk to E on Wacker to Michigan Ave, look down. Here you can see bronze corners of the once secure Fort Dearborn on the S. E. Corner. The only ghostly activity that occurs here is documented by police calls from tourists to Chicago. Slow motion figures, dressed in heavy hand spun cotton with ends hanging long & dirty from shuffling across the muddy plaines, have been seen running into the street with looks of terror. The sordid past of the first settlers in Chicago is well documented, however, there still is controversy over the deed of Fort Dearborn and the relationship that prominent civilian, Kinzie, established with the Potowanami peoples at this land at the mouth of the river. After the war of 1812, generals asked Kinzie, the soldiers and their families to seek alternative shelter because the Native people were sympathetic to the British and joining forces. Afraid of a coup, the settlers fled, only to have been betrayed by their Native escorts. Holding gifted ammunition and weapons the Potowanami bludgeoned 148 of the frontiers between here and an unmarked field at 16th and Indiana. Bones have been consistantly upturned during construction, unsettling both native and frontier spirits alike.

X#5
N on Michigan Ave to Chicago, you will find the Water Tower. Built in 1869, most residents and tourists alike know that this is the only building that survived the great fire of 1871. Look up in the tower; can you see the shadow of a man controlling the flow of water pumping the four-mile wide flame as it approaches? Sacrificing his life for the City?s (he hung himself before the fire could capture his body), his apparition has been stagnant and it?s sight, frequent. Lights turn on unexplainably and security and police have to re-examine locked doors due to footsteps and shadows.

The human mind is not always in a subconscious state possessing the ability to empathetically feel/see/hear residual horrific energy nor is the ear or eye keen to random arbitrary stimuli. Just like electricity buzzing along horizon lines on the countryside, so does the memory travel through objects and thought forms. Energy, it is neither created nor destroyed although with force it can be manipulated. Your body?s senses have been the receiver on this tour; perhaps when dead, you too will transmit your memories to those who are on the right frequency.