The Devil in the White City (Pgs. 75 to 122)

Summary: In this portion of my reading, Daniel is New York bound. He says that he likes beautiful scenery, but that on his trip, he failed to find any; until he reached the praire.  Burnham explains the sheer size of the task of designing the fair. Due to the fair's geographic location, Burnham already knows that the fair will contain hundred of buildings and structures, some of which would be immense. The biggest constraint was time. They don't have much allotted time to complete all that work, and they have had a whole year to think. Holmes had a new idea, which was to turn his building into a hotel for visitors. Strangely enough, he wanted the hotel to appeal to and 'lure' a certain kind of 'clientele' to convince for a large fire insurance policy. When he was done using the building, he intended to burn it and collect the insurance and also destroy the rest of the materials.

Quote:

"He and John Root had considered designing the whole exposition themselves, and indeed their peers jealously expected they would do so" (Larson 77).

Reaction:

I picked this quote, firstly, because I like its sentence structure. That comma before the "and" makes it flow nicely. Secondly, designing the whole exposition themselves would not be an easy feat. One of Burnham's biggest concerns, however, was the architects that he needed to design the Fair's Major buildings, so this necesity would be negated. Ultimately, Burnham as a railroad constructor, and John Root whom drew some plans, must be extremely experienced to even contemplate such a task. We see this in everyday life, for instance, when your in a class in which a student is particularly skilled at, when a hard problem or question is posed, most of the class is jealously turned to such student.