December 20, 1976

“Chicago will never be the same,” Frank Sinatra reportedly said when he heard the news that the 74-year-old son of Bridgeport had died of a heart attack at his doctor’s office. Chicagoans could hardly dispute the truth of that observation, whatever they thought of the mayor and the patronage-driven machine he’d helped build. The man and the city he presided over during his 21-year autocratic reign were inseparable in the public imagination, and many couldn’t see Chicago moving on without him.