Driving Around Downtown Chicago at Night in 4k Video

Filmed on Sunday, December 17 2023, I drive around Downtown Chicago to see what's going on. Then I take a spin around Lake Shore Drive and north to Wrigleyville before I head out. The name Chicago is derived from a French rendering of the indigenous Miami-Illinois word shikaakwa for a wild relative of the onion, commonly known as "ramps". The first known reference to the site of the current city of Chicago as "Checagou" was by Robert de LaSalle around 1679 in a memoir. Henri Joutel, in his journal of 1688, noted that the eponymous wild "garlic" grew profusely in the area. The first known non-indigenous permanent settler in Chicago was trader Jean Baptiste Point du Sable. He established the settlement in the 1780s, and is commonly known as the "Founder of Chicago". On August 12, 1833, the Town of Chicago was organized with a population of about 200. Within seven years it grew to more than 6,000 people. The population would continue to increase rapidly in the coming decades. The Great Chicago Fire in 1871 destroyed several square miles and left more than 100,000 homeless, but Chicago's population continued to grow to 503,000 by 1880 and then doubled to more than a million within the decade. During the rebuilding period after the Great Chicago Fire, Chicago constructed the world's first skyscraper in 1885, using steel-skeleton construction. In the 1800s, Chicago became the nation's railroad hub. In 1883, Chicago's railway managers needed a general time convention, so they developed the standardized system of North American time zones. To accommodate rapid population growth and demand for better sanitation, the city improved its infrastructure. In February 1856, Chicago's Common Council approved Chesbrough's plan to build the United States' first comprehensive sewerage system. The project raised much of central Chicago to a new grade with the use of jackscrews for raising buildings. While elevating Chicago, and at first improving the city's health, the untreated sewage and industrial waste now flowed into the Chicago River, and subsequently into Lake Michigan, polluting the city's primary freshwater source. The city responded by tunneling two miles out into Lake Michigan to newly built water cribs. In 1900, the problem of sewage contamination was largely resolved when the city completed a major engineering feat. It reversed the flow of the Chicago River so that the water flowed away from Lake Michigan rather than into it. Chicago's flourishing economy attracted huge numbers of new immigrants from Europe and migrants from the Eastern United States. Of the total population in 1900, more than 77% were either foreign-born or born in the United States of foreign parentage. During the 1920s there was a major expansion in industry. The availability of jobs attracted African Americans from the Southern United States. Between 1910 and 1930, the African American population of Chicago increased dramatically, from 44,103 to 233,903. The 1920s saw gangsters, including Al Capone, Dion O'Banion, Bugs Moran and Tony Accardo battle law enforcement and each other on the streets of Chicago during the Prohibition era. Chicago was the location of the infamous St. Valentine's Day Massacre in 1929, when Al Capone sent men to gun down members of a rival gang, North Side, led by Bugs Moran. On December 2, 1942, physicist Enrico Fermi conducted the world's first controlled nuclear reaction at the University of Chicago as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project. Chicago is famous for its outdoor public art, and the city is littered with statues, sculptures, and fountains. When Chicago was incorporated in 1837, it chose the motto Urbs in Horto, meaning "City in a Garden". Today, the Chicago Park District consists of more than 570 parks. There are 31 sand beaches, a plethora of museums, two world-class conservatories, and 50 nature areas. The wealth of greenspace afforded by Chicago's parks is further augmented by the Cook County Forest Preserves, a network of open spaces containing forest, prairie, wetland, streams, and lakes that are set aside as natural areas which lie along the city's outskirts. Overall crime has increased during the past five years by nearly 20%, according to an official report by the Chicago Police Department. The year-over-year change in crime was even greater last year. Between 2021 and 2022, overall crime in Chicago increased by 41%. Theft is driving the overall increase in crime. Car theft is up 114% since 2018, and other thefts increased by 32% since 2018. Just last year, motor vehicle theft increased by 102% and theft by 56%. In 2022, there were 243 homicides in Chicago. As of May 2023, year to date, there have been 229 homicides. Chicago ranks first in number of homicides, but due to the immense population, has the 5th highest homicide rate per 100,000 residents. In 2021, Chicago saw more than 45,000 people stop calling the city their home.