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| TOWN HALL IN OLD VIENNA - There were rival Irish, Turkish and German attractions on
Midway Plaisance. There had been, in the City of Vienna, a clever
reproduction of ancient times, and the success of this undertaking
furnished the idea of a similar entertainment at Chicago.
Accordingly a large space was set aside, just west of the Ferris
Wheel, on the south side of the avenue; the houses were built
entirely surrounding an open square; and Robert B. Jentzsch, a member
of the Imperial Austrian Commission, assumed the director-generalship
of the German community that at once settled in these picturesque
surroundings. Conspicuously placed in the square was an open
pavilion where a good band from Austria gave two concerts each day.
At least forty little shops of all kinds opened, and if they sold
wine or beer they did not offer their goods without reason. A
restaurateur also set his tables in the open air, and soon all
Chicago, at least, was talking of Old Vienna. To pay twenty-five
cents admission in order to pay ten cents for a glass of beer and
listen to the excellent music and the compliments of the Vienese
waitresses, became a fashion among fashionable young Americans, as it
was a pleasure for old-country people. The engraving shows the
decorations of the principal buildings on October 4, 1893, when the
Austrian heir-apparent was in the city and on the Plaisance. It is
not generally believed that he entered the inclosure of Old Vienna. |
