New Year's Eve in Hyde Park
I thought, oh, what’s a quick New Year’s Eve message? Oh, I know, I’ll find some ads for parties at the big hotels when they were big—and down I went into a rabbit hole because there were almost none. The hotels didn’t advertise New Year’s eve parties or even New Year’s Day.
The Windermere East had a special dinner in 1928: oysters, consomme Orleans, filet of sole a l’Admiral en Bordure, California asparagus, Bombe with melba sauce—all for $2.00.
You could aid your digestion by spending some time at the Chicago Beach Hotel skating rink.
Or for that matter, all the winter sports that were huge in Hyde Park, as I wrote about here.
There were festivities in the various crystal ballrooms in the big hotels, but they were either primarily the residents or reserved for various social organizations. The one place that advertised festivities in the 1920s was the Piccadilly Theater, with dancing in the lobby to the radio and noise makers at midnight.
I thought, well, ok, it’s Prohibition. Maybe that’s putting a dent into public parties. In the social columns, there were lots of parties mentioned, sometimes quite large, held in people’s houses. Then it dawned on me, Hyde Park was always dry, but people could have alcohol at home, though Arthur Burrage Farwell of the Hyde Park Protection League and Chicago Law and Order League would have liked to put a stop to that too. There seemed to be drinking going on judging by the number of car accidents and the reports of unending car horns, cow bells, whistles, and guns going off at midnight to ward off evil spirits from entering the new year.
Poking deeper in the Herald I realized that for many people, it didn’t occur to them to think of New Year’s Eve as a big party. They weren’t setting the tone at midnight with noise but with light. Most years the many churches that used to be in Hyde Park were holding Watch Services. It was a standard part of Methodism apparently that had spread to the other white Protestant churches. John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, had adopted Watch Services from Moravian churches in 1738. The suggested Methodist liturgy called for the lighting of candles at midnight, with the minister saying, “Behold, says the Lord, I create a new heaven and a new earth; for the old has vanished away. In this new earth we are called to ministries of love and service. Let these lights remind you that even one small candle in the darkness sheds light on someone's path.” This tradition seems to have faded as have the churches themselves.
There are a couple traditions that still happen in Hyde Park. Quite a few people head out to the Point at dawn to greet the new year. Once the sun is up, there are a few who still take the Point Penguin Plunge (brrr).
And if you want to light a candle of hope in the darkness this year, the New Year’s Eve Luminarias event takes place 4-6 p.m. Sunday on the Nichols Park hill behind the Hyde Park Neighborhood Club, 5480 S. Kenwood Ave. Attendees can create and decorate flameless luminarias, or paper bag lanterns, as well as write their wishes for the new year and place them in a spiral among other neighbors’ lanterns.
The Windermere feast looks like enough food for the month of January!