Old Chicago should be remembered for being something entirely new that despite being a complete failure lead to the creation of places such as the West Edmonton Mall in Canada, Mall of America in Minnesota, and the American Dream Mall in New Jersey that all took the lessons from Old Chicago and turned the concept of mixing shopping and an amusement park into successful businesses.  Old Chicago should be remembered as it was the home of the second modern looping coaster: the Old Chicago Loop.  Old Chicago should be remembered as a place where bands like The Ramones, Chubby Checker, The Four Topps, and more came to play.  Old Chicago should be remembered because while it lasted you could ride coasters every single day of the year even while blizzards raged outside. 



The list of why Old Chicago should be remembered could go on and on but the main reason it should be remembered is that for those few who were lucky enough to visit it there were so many memories made.  For me, the reason that Old Chicago should be remembered is that this is where the story that brought me to write these as of 2023 4500+ pages and more than 15,000 pictures on this website began.



It began for me on a grass air strip placed between a Cessna and a crop duster.  Sitting between those two planes sat the lead car to the Chicago Loop.  At that time I was three years old and my dad took me to a "fly in" for those interested in planes which he was.  Planes were my thing too, that is until I saw the bright yellow car sitting on blocks of wood.  From my first sight planes flushed out of my brain and I was all about the Chicago Loop car.  For the rest of our time at the fly in I was climbing into the car and pulling down the restraints, crawling under it, messing with the restraint release pedal at the back of the car, spinning the wheels, flipping the chain dog, and most importantly sitting in the front row and imagining looping and spiraling through the sky.  Looking through my memories that is earliest one that remains crystal clear so many years later.



When Old Chicago finally opened later that year it was like nothing anyone had seen.  At nights there were spotlights bouncing around in the sky that I could see from my home in nearby Romeoville.  The traffic and crowds when it opened were like nothing anyone had seen.  When I walked through the grand entrance to the mall with my mother the excitement built and by the time we had worked our way to the back of the mall where the Old Chicago Fairgrounds entrance was the immense room filled with rides set me completely awestruck.  The energy and excitement as the Chicago Loop car that I had played with a few months prior looped overhead still gives me goose bumps.  Old Chicago was where I rode my first coaster.  During that time my parents were divorcing and our visits to Old Chicago were the only peaceful moments where my family actually felt like a family during that stressful time.  Old Chicago was the place me and my friends rode off to explore when we got the courage to move beyond riding our bikes around our corner of town.  Seeing Old Chicago's dome off in the distance as we came back from trips into Chicago meant that we were almost home.  Old Chicago felt like home to me, and when it closed and I bounced around between my parents I didn't really have one.



Decades later when with a bunch of digital pictures from amusement park trips on my computer and several weeks worth of time stuck on a couch recuperating from knee surgery Negative-G was born.  During those early days of the internet, with Old Chicago always in my mind, I searched for info on it finding little.  So this corner of Negative-G came to be.  In the time since I have been blessed that others who love Old Chicago as much as I so have found what they were looking for and have shared their memories keeping Old Chicago alive.



On my final visit with my buddies Scott Peterson and Jack Alvarado we found the mall dead and the amusement park shuttered with rides starting to be dismantled.  None of us really said a thing until we passed through Old Chicago's grand entrance on our way out one last time my best friend Scott said:

"Old Chicago can't die"

In memory it never has. 




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Paul B. Drabek