If you walked into a Chicago bar in the late 1970s and said a woman from the North Side was about to topple the most powerful political machine in America, people wouldn't just laugh. They’d probably buy you another drink because you were clearly out of your mind.
But then the snow started falling. And it didn't stop.
The story of Jane Byrne, Chicago's 50th mayor, is usually told as a simple David-and-Goliath tale. An underdog woman vs. the "Evil Cabal" of City Hall. In reality, it was way more complicated, kinda messy, and honestly, a bit tragic. She wasn't just a reformer; she was a protégé of Richard J. Daley himself. She didn't just "beat" the machine; she tried to become its new boss.
Most people remember her for moving into Cabrini-Green or starting the Taste of Chicago. But if you want to understand why Chicago looks the way it does today—for better or worse—you have to look at the four chaotic years when "Calamity Jane" ran the show.
The Blizzard That Broke the Machine
Jane Byrne didn't win because of a brilliant policy platform. She won because of the Blizzard of 1979.
In January of that year, nearly 30 inches of snow buried the city. The incumbent mayor, Michael Bilandic, was a "Machine" guy who took over after Richard J. Daley died. He was supposed to be the steady hand. Instead, he was a disaster.
Buses were stuck. L-trains stopped running in Black neighborhoods so they could service the white suburbs. Trash wasn't picked up for weeks. People were literally digging their cars out with spoons.
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Byrne, who had been fired by Bilandic a couple of years earlier for calling out a "greased" taxi-fare hike, saw her opening. She filmed campaign commercials standing in waist-deep snow, looking directly into the camera and telling Chicagoans they were being lied to. It worked.
She won the primary by a sliver—just about 16,000 votes. But in Chicago, winning the Democratic primary is basically the whole game. She went on to win the general election with 82% of the vote. That is still the largest margin in the city's history.
Living in Cabrini-Green: Bold Move or PR Stunt?
By 1981, the "honeymoon" was long over. The city was bleeding money, and the Cabrini-Green public housing project was a literal war zone. In just three months, 11 people were murdered and 37 were shot within the complex.
Byrne did something no mayor had ever done before. She moved in.
On March 31, 1981, she and her husband, Jay McMullen, packed their bags and moved into a fourth-floor apartment at 1160 North Sedgwick. They brought 16 bodyguards and installed bulletproof glass.
What Actually Happened Inside?
- City services suddenly appeared. Potholes were filled, trash was picked up, and the elevators—which had been broken for years—were miraculously fixed.
- The violence paused. For the three weeks she lived there, the shootings mostly stopped.
- The "Hand Shower" incident. Byrne famously wrote in a diary published by the Chicago Sun-Times about using a hand shower attached to a bathtub faucet because the plumbing was so bad.
Critics called it a gimmick. Residents of Cabrini-Green were split; some loved the attention, while others felt like they were being used as props. When she moved out after just three weeks, the guards left, the trash started piling up again, and the violence returned. It showed that a mayor could fix a neighborhood with enough willpower—but also that they usually didn't want to.
Why Jane Byrne Still Matters
You can't talk about Chicago's "global city" status without mentioning Byrne. Before her, the city was a "lunch bucket" town. It was all about manufacturing and staying within your own neighborhood.
Byrne wanted to make Chicago a destination. She basically invented the modern Chicago festival scene. She launched ChicagoFest, which eventually turned into the Taste of Chicago. She fought to revitalize Navy Pier and the downtown theater district.
She was also a pioneer for the LGBT community in a way that was pretty radical for the early 80s. She ended police raids on gay bars and declared the city's first "Gay Pride Parade Day" in 1981. This wasn't just "progressive" for the time; it was a huge political risk in a city still dominated by conservative ethnic wards.
The Downfall: Why She Lost in 1983
If she was so "bold," why did she only last one term?
Basically, Byrne tried to play both sides and ended up with neither. She ran as a reformer but then made deals with the very "cabal" of aldermen (like Ed Burke and Ed Vrdolyak) she had previously trashed.
She also alienated the Black voters who had put her in office. She replaced Black members of the School Board and the Chicago Housing Authority with white appointees, a move that felt like a betrayal to the South Side.
This set the stage for the 1983 election. It was a three-way brawl between Byrne, Richard M. Daley (the "Boss's" son), and Harold Washington. Byrne and Daley split the white vote, and Washington became the city's first Black mayor.
Actionable Insights from the Byrne Era
Understanding Jane Byrne’s tenure gives you a "cheat sheet" for how Chicago politics works today. If you're looking at the current political landscape, here are three things to keep in mind:
- Snow is still political. Any Chicago mayor knows that if the plows don't show up, their career is over. It’s the "Byrne Lesson."
- The "Two Chicagos" Problem. Byrne’s attempt to fix Cabrini-Green was the first major public admission that the city was deeply segregated and unequal. We're still arguing about the same issues today.
- Festivals are Power. The reason every neighborhood now has a street fest is because Byrne proved that "fun" could be a distraction from "bad" policy or a struggling economy.
Jane Byrne passed away in 2014, but her name is literally everywhere now—most notably on the Jane Byrne Interchange, that messy tangle of highways downtown. It’s a fitting tribute: complicated, frequently congested, and central to everything that makes Chicago move.
Next Steps for Research:
If you want to see the visual history of her tenure, check out the Chicago History Museum's digital archives for photos of her time at Cabrini-Green. You can also read her 1992 memoir, My Chicago, which gives her (admittedly biased) perspective on the "Evil Cabal" and her rise to power.