The 50th Anniversary of "The Battle of Michigan Avenue" in the Sloop

General Logan Statue in Grant Park 

Today marks the 50th anniversary of "The Battle of Michigan Avenue" during the 1968 Democratic National Convention.  For some of us who weren't around back then, it's hard to understand all the dynamics at play, but seeing these pictures and videos from around the Sloop helps a little bit.

It's hard to imagine a scene like this in our neighborhood.  This video from CBS Sunday Morning provides a good summary:



And here is blurb from the AP back then (via Washington Post):

Some 3,000 anti-war demonstrators fought a bloody, open battle with an equal contingent of police and Illinois National Guardsmen Wednesday night in an assault on the downtown headquarters of the Democratic National Convention.

There were mass arrests and some 300 injuries as police clubbed at the demonstrators, who have massed in Chicago by the thousands to protest against administration war policies.

Rocks and bottles were thrown, car windows broken, trash cans overturned and set afire, and heads were beaten in a five-block stretch along fashionable South Michigan Avenue, main street of Chicago’s showcase front yard.

Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey was in his 25th-floor suite of the Conrad Hilton, which fronts on Michigan Avenue, awaiting an appearance before the convention at the International Amphitheatre, five miles south. A Humphrey aide said tear gas could be smelled in his room as police battled demonstrators in the hotel ground floor lobby.

Was anyone around the Sloop during this time?  Any feelings/thoughts you can provide?