Jim learned to fly while serving in the U.S. He was the third to fly for American Airlines. Jim Tilmon was the fifth black pilot to fly for a commercial airline. My purpose was to describe one pilot I had the privilege of traveling with on several occasions between New York and Chicago. I suppose I should approach the purpose of this collection of thoughts. This was the forerunner of the red carpet of Oscar fame. All of the cars were met in both cities by red carpets as you exited or climbed aboard. All of the cars were Pullman, so every passenger had a bed and white- cloth dining prepared by the best chefs in America. The train made one stop, Cleveland, along the way. The Limited made the New York-Chicago trip in sixteen hours, boarding in New York at 4:00 pm and arriving in Chicago at 8:00 am. The 20th Century Limited was the queen of all rail travel, rivaling Europe’s Orient Express. Up until the 1940s, the train was the fashionable way to travel in the U.S., particularly between the two cities. If you set your imagination free, you could almost see the bodies floating along the waterway, bumping into barges and the like-such a rich source of short stories and poetry. Al Capone had a home in Cicero and that stretch of waterway was a favorite dumping place. I once spent several hours sitting on the bank of the Industrial Canal that ran through the suburb of Cicero. In Chicago, many found peace on the bottom of the Chicago River along with stolen cars and corpses that had found a final resting place in the murky water. Thus, the culinary explosion was on, expanding to most major cities.Ĭrime was big business in the two cities with bodies strewn all over the dark neighborhoods of New York. Over time, chefs gravitated to the largest two cities to open their own restaurants. The fanciest food in America was found in the dining cars of passenger trains. European chefs originally came to the U.S. One interesting sidelight regarding the New York-Chicago food discussion is that both became famous for food because of the trains.
Both were known for food and music, but that subject matter is far beyond the scope of this essay. New York had the Yankees, Giant, Mets and Knicks. Chicago had the Bears, Cubs, White Sox Black Hawks and Bulls. They both had a unique transportation system, the subway in New York and the “EL” in Chicago. They were both located on a body of water. There were many similarities between New York and Chicago. It was also a blow to the pride of the residents of the City of Broad Shoulders. I was living in Chicago when Los Angeles passed Chicago in population, making the term “Second City” less relevant. In fact, outside of Warsaw, Poland, Chicago had the largest Polish population in the world. Both cities had large ethnic populations whose arrival in the areas had driven the growth and progress of both cities. I was fascinated by the size of and the contrast between New York and Chicago.
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