U-505, and other non alfa but . ..

[JHertzman@domain.elided]

In AD7-1442 Wille R in Scandinavia asks if anybody on the digest knows of or 
can confirm or deny the presence of the German submarine U-505 in a museum in 
Chicago. I can indeed. 

The Museum of Science and Industry is on the lake front, site of the 1893 
World Columbian Exposition (for which the building was originally built) 
which was to have been in 1892 (400th anniversary of some Italian sailor, 
obligatory semi-Alfa content, but they ran late) and is separated from the 
Lake Michigan by The Outer Drive, a major traffic artery which runs through 
fifteen miles of parks on reclaimed land. My favorite bar in the nearby 
university neighborhood has a large traffic sign stolen from the Outer Drive 
at the time of the submarine's installation:

     CAUTION!
SUBMARINE CROSSING

The Museum also has (or had) a Polish yacht, the Dal, of Gdynia (Danzig) 
which had been sailed single-handed across the Atlantic shortly before the 
war. The nearby yacht harbor had, until the end of WW II, a replica of the 
Santa Maria which had been sailed across the Atlantic for the Columbian 
Exposition- built and sailed either by the Italians or the Spaniards, don't 
know which, but during the war the lower part rotted clear away, resulting in 
inevitable parting-out and crushing, which suggests Italian construction 
(possibly with cheap Russian wood?) although I don't really know that 
Pegasos, Seats, and Hispano-Suizzas are are less rust-prone than Alfas, 
Fiats, and Isotta-Fraschinis.

Since Wille R IS in Scandinavia I would be remiss to not mention that at the 
other end of the same park system there was for about the same length of 
time, in the open but under a shelter, a replica Viking ship which had also 
been built and sailed (and/or rowed) across the North Atlantic for the same 
event, apparently to make the point that Leif Erikson (or Leifr Eieriksson) 
had beaten Christopher Columbus by about 500 years. Take THAT, Italophiles. 
Don't know the details on the Viking replica, only what I was told by one of 
two grandparents who made the same crossing at the same time from Sweden in 
less glamourous steerage.

John H.
Raleigh, N.C.
Formerly of Chicago, home of The Outer Drive Hero Driver's Club
and of the founding chapter of The Alfa Romeo Owners' Club

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