Welcome Conventioneers

[ed note - a very slightly NSFW repost from the 2006 Iowahawk archives. Happy 50th, Maury Kahn's Night Life Chicago!]

Your No-Cover, No-Minimum Guide to the Seamier Side of 1959 Chicago
With Your Cordial Host Dave Burge

For the last century America's favorite place to convene has been my city of Chicago, and that continues unabated today. Now, ask someone in the meeting biz what makes Chicago the world's top convention destination, and they'll probably point out the city's central location, its top notch hotels, its huge convention facilities like McCormick Place. Of course, this is all bullshit, because as everybody knows -- including your dad, your grandpa, and your great grandpa -- Chicago has always known how to scare up some discreet and naughty fun for visitors. Whether it's dinner or drinks or the chrome pole circuit, or even cracking hippie skulls with nightsticks, Chicago has always gone that extra mile to make your stay here fun and enjoyable.

Consider the week of April 3, 1959. Chicago was teeming with conventioneers ranging from the American Welding Society, National Automatic Merchandising Association, Music Operators of America, National Association of Waste Material Dealers, Life & Casualty Insurance Conference, International Council of Shopping Centers, National Association of Tobacco Distributors, and (I am not making this up), the "National Military-Industrial Conference" at the Palmer House April 5-8.

Now imagine all those thousands of fun-loving insurance and tobacco and waste material and military-industrialist men in Chicago, away from the wives, looking for a good time. They had no further to look than Maury Kahn's terrific "Night Life" Chicago entertainment guide, the April 3 edition of which occupies an honored nook in the Iowahawk museum. Now, through the magic of scanner technology, I am able to share this treasure with the general public.