Let me just share a bit from the Trib’s report on a burglary and murder from the Drake Hotel in 1925, when a group of drunken men in Lone Ranger-style masks burst into the place with guns blazing: “(the bandit) flourished his guns and expressed himself in some choice profanity calculated to impress his victims with the desirability of obedience.” I love that.
The Drake in 1920. Cap Streeter had JUST been kicked out of “Streeterville,” so much of the area was still oddly empty. |
The Drake, like any old hotel, has some gruesome stories behind it. There was the story of “The Woman in Black” who murdered Adele Born Williams there in 1944 – a bizarre case that was never solved. Leopold and Loeb were interrogated there. Their victim’s father later died there. A baroness was found dead in a bathtub there in 1962.
But there’s a chance that such a suicide WOULDN’T have been reported in 1920; the hotel was presenting itself as the finest in the world, and probably would have gone to great lengths to keep such a suicide out of the press. Had the woman landed on the sidewalk, there probably would have been no way to stop the story from leaking. However, if she landed on the roof of the setback, they COULD have possibly had the body removed without any reporters finding out. But some mayhem from the New Year’s party did make the papers – one woman lost (or was robbed of) a $5000 necklace during the party. A week before another woman had lost a $1000 pearl and emerald ring in the washroom.