History of Chicago and south branches of the Chicago River, which flows through the city's downtown. The three white stripes represent the North, West and South sides of the city, Lake Michigan being the east side. The most famous and serious disaster was the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. On December 30, 1903 the "absolutely fireproof", five-week-old Iroquois Theater was engulfed by fire. The fire lasted less than thirty minutes; 602 people died as a result of being burned, asphyxiated, or trampled. The S.S. "Eastland" was a cruise ship based in Chicago and used for tours. On 24 July 1915—a calm, sunny day—the
Harris Theater (Chicago) Beeby Rupert Ainge Architects; his previous work in Chicago includes the Harold Washington Library Center and the Art Institute of Chicago Building's Rice Wing. Thornton Tomasetti was the structural engineer. The building is located on ground leased from the City of Chicago, and cost $52.7 million ($ million in current dollars). Construction began on , 2002, and the theater opened for use on , 2003. The above-ground entrance to the Harris Theater is a glass-walled lobby at 205 E. Randolph Street, which spans several metallic and neon floors in what the "Chicago Tribune"'s Pulitzer Prize-winning architecture critic Blair Kamin describes