About a year ago I wrote about the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair; the fair’s Director of Works, Daniel Burnham; the serial killer Dr. H.H. Holmes; and the book about the whole ordeal, Erik Larson’s, The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic and Madness at the Fair that Changed America.

It’s an incredible story and excellent book. If you won’t read the whole book, you should at least check out my post on it:

Murder, Magic and Madness at the Fair that Changed America

A couple of weeks ago BoingBoing posted about the UCLA Urban Simulation Team working to digitally recreate the fair grounds known as “The White City.” The Fair’s size, scope, and impact on American history is difficult to understate. However, if you were to visit Chicago, you won’t find much of anything remaining from the Fair. Most of it was either intentionally removed, or burned to the ground.

The 3D renderings of the Fair look like a video game from 1997, but it’s forgivable. The point is that it’s really cool to have the ability to travel through a city that no longer exists.

Tools like this are a great way to breath life into long dead, but still significant era’s and locations.

I hope they continue to add detail to these renderings, as well as recreate “The Hotel of Horrors” that Holmes built to catch and kill his victims, and the Fair’s neighbor Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show.

Have a look at UCLA Urban Simulation Team, they are doing some really nifty things with the 1893 Fair along with other historical, and current locations.

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