Maybe 450,000 Lollapalooza fans trampling Grant Park every year isn't such a good idea

The 1933 Century of Progress International Exposition worked so well, between the Graf Zeppelin floating by and Sally Rand, with her naughty bubble dance, many Chicagoans never wanted it to leave.

They extended the fair for an extra season in 1934, then wondered: why not keep the party going? Mayor Edward J. Kelly proposed building a sprawling lakefront pleasure center — a "wonderland" of exhibition halls, picnic shelters, public beaches, an ice skating rink, a casino, and big parking garage. Paid for by the federal government, of course.

There are some funny moments in the "Secret Diary of Harold Ickes," where Franklin D. Roosevelt's penny-pinching secretary of the interior, a University of Chicago graduate, dismisses Kelly's dreams of a "Coney Island" on the lakefront, warning FDR that a significant chunk of any federal money thrown at the plan would end up in the pockets of the Kelly-Nash Democratic machine.

Still, Kelly's dream was not far-fetched. The site where this wonderland was to be built became McCormick Place, and having a vast hall — then two — has been a magnet drawing exhibition business to Chicago: all those auto, electronics, restaurant and houseware shows.

With the historic fireworks coming from last week's election, you could be forgiven for overlooking that more than two-third of Chicago voters — 68 percent — said "yes" on the referendum question: “Should Chicago develop a permanent festival and outdoor event space for large-scale events?”

Hell yes. The result isn't binding, but makes sense. Venues lure business. As it is now, big music festivals hijack public spaces not only while they're going on, but during lengthy preparation and even lengthier clean-up. Repairing Grant Park after Lollapalooza took a month. Restoring the damage after this year's rain-soaked Riot Fest in Douglass Park might take until Thanksgiving. Yes, the festivals cover clean-up expenses — topping $1 million with Lolla —but that adds to the already astronomical ticket prices. One assumes a dedicated festival space would suffer less costly damage.

Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times

The devil is in the details. The question is where to put such a venue. The traditional Shangri-La for land-hungry dreams was U.S. Steel's abandoned South Works, 600 acres of windswept nowhere. I've been there; the skyline glimmers waaay in the distance, across the lake, an unreachable Oz.

But the future Illinois Quantum and Micro Electronics Park was somehow gulled into exiling itself there, and could fill half the site. Would the other half be enough? Grant Park is only 319 acres. I can see a series of fun stoner buddy movies about glitter-spangled concertgoers sloppy on ketamine trying to get home to Buffalo Grove from East 87th Street.

Which should give pause — the assumption is that attendees of festivals would relocate to whatever permanent ground is settled upon, convenient or not. That might not be the case. One reason Lollapalooza is so successful is that concert goers like the nearby hotels and public transportation. Nobody wants to have their afterparty on Avenue O.

Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times

I don't see why Soldier Field wouldn't serve the purpose — they used to pack 100,000 fans in there for college football games in the 1920s. Lollapalooza is capped at 115,000 a day, which might make it a tight squeeze, though the area surrounding Soldier Field could be used for secondary stages and t-shirt stands and whatever else they've got at Lolla. (Thank God, I never had to go. My boys' idea of music was seeing "La Traviata" at the Civic Opera House. Though as a sprout I did attend the World Series of Rock and Roll back when it was held in the expanse of Cleveland Municipal Stadium, so witnessed proof of concept.)

An open space is probably better. The stir-'em-up columnist in me wants to suggest the city put the permanent entertainment venue on the Sydney Marovitz Golf Course — 71 acres of prime lakefront property. Golf is struggling to stay popular anyway. But I would never suggest that, first because I don't want to hear from aggrieved golfers. Second, the Montrose Bird Sanctuary is nearby, and it wouldn't do to rattle the feathers of piping plover chicks with whatever sonic booms are pulsing off the festival site.

Never underestimate the power of a good idea. While Mayor Kelly was ballyhooing his various plans, he mentioned to Chicago Tribune publisher Robert McCormick that he wanted some kind of marquee sporting event for the Century of Progress fair. McCormick put his sports editor, Arch Ward on it, and Ward came up with the idea of a baseball "Game the Century" with all the best players. The first All Star Game was played at Comiskey Park, on July 6, 1933. Babe Ruth hit a home run. It was supposed to be a one-off, but they played another All Star game in New York in 1934, and a tradition was born.

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