...and not a drop to drink

For the time being, you can add "public water fountains" to the list of things you don't see anymore. Or rather, you see them, but you can't use them, because the store or mall or hospital or office building has turned them off, due to COVID fears.

Another one for the list? How about "newsboys"? Yes, young men wearing those slouch hats that made them all look like Donnie Wahlberg used to stand around peddling newspapers to a nation that did not get its news from tv, radio, or the internet. It was tough work, selling papers for a couple of pennies each to make a few cents a day back when times were tough.

One of those men was Joseph Rosenberg (1848–1891) who hawked papers in Chicago in the pre-Lincoln days. It gets hot in Chicago in the summer, and a day of slinging the Chicago Times was sure to leave a young man dry as a bone. But merchants and business owners in young Rosenberg's neighborhood did not take kindly to a young waif coming in for free gulps of water, so he went thirsty all day (there were no YETIs back then!)

But he did so with a vow in his heart that when he became wealthy, he would provide a public water fountain where newsboys (and, presumably, anyone else with a hankering for a sip of water) could slake their thirst.

And so he did. He went to San Francisco and made that fortune, and on his passing at the age of 43, his will included a bequest for a fountain in Chicago “to provide the thirsty with a drink.”  He left $10,000 (worth about $300,003.30 in 2021 dollars) for an ornamental drinking fountain, to be built on a prominent corner somewhere on the South Side of Chicago. The Chicago Park Commissioners were happy to accept the gift, and made a monument and fountain on the southwest end of Grant Park near Rosenberg's childhood neighborhood on South Michigan Avenue.

To this day, the fountain still bubbles, but the water is no longer potable. Not only that, but you can't drink it, either.  It resembles a miniature of a classical Greek temple. There is an eleven-foot-tall bronze statue of Hebe, daughter of Zeus and Hera.  Hebe was the goddess of youth and cupbearer to the gods. She was the symbol of rejuvenation, which is all young Rosenberg wanted, a little slug of water, but no!

The times being censorious back then, the sculptor had to alter his plan to show Hebe in the nude so as not to get water guzzlers and parkgoers all worked up. That's why she appears in draped clothing, with a cup in one hand and a pitcher in the other.

SO, next time you find yourself in Chi, be sure to check out the Rosenberg fountain, but be sure to bring along your own water bottle.