Cermak Rd. Walk Across Chicago
Details
We'll meet at Dunkin' on the corner of Cermak and Cicero. At 10am, we'll begin walking east until reaching the terminal point of Cermak at the McCormick Place train station, 6.6 miles east of the start. We'll stop for lunch in Pilsen (maybe Pleasant House Pub on Halsted?) or Chinatown (maybe Ahjoomah's Apron Korean Restaurant?). If the weather's nice, I'm curious about the McCormick Place Bird Sanctuary just on the other side of DLSD.
Here's the RunGo link: https://routes.rungoapp.com/route/4gwZa0FnnQ
Transit info: the Dunkin' meetup spot is very near the 54th/Cermak Pink Line station. The 21 bus runs along Cermak, and the 54 bus runs along Cicero; both have stops at the intersection of Cermak and Cicero.
In May 1873, Anton Cermak was born to a mining family in a part of Austria-Hungary which is now the Czech Republic (~50 miles from Prague). One year after his birth, he emigrated with his family to Braidwood, IL, 60 miles southwest of Chicago. By age 11, Cermak had begun working in coal mines with his father, working as a mule driver for 85 cents/day. After being fired at age 16 for asking for a raise, he left home and moved to Chicago, where he started and ran a successful business that hauled away discarded lumber. He went on to become a real estate investor, and founded two home loan banks before becoming involved in politics.
Cermak was elected to the Illinois state legislature in 1902. As president of the Cook County Board of Commissioners, he oversaw the development of the Cook County Forest Preserve system. When he was elected mayor of Chicago in 1931, he became the first in the city's still-unbroken series of Democrat mayors. Cermak defeated the incumbent mayor, the notoriously corrupt “Big Bill” Thompson, by famously forming a coalition of working-class immigrant populations including Poles, Czechs, Ukrainians, Jews, African Americans, and Italians.
In 1933, Cermak was struck by a bullet while shaking hands with President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and died from complications. Soon after his death, the city renamed 22nd street after him, as this street traversed significant Czech communities in Lawndale and Pilsen.