45 Years Ago Today: Apollo 11 Astronauts Get Ticker Tape Parade In Chicago
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Forty-five years ago, Chicago threw a huge ticker-tape parade for the Apollo 11 astronauts, who were just back to Earth from the first moon landing.
WBBM Newsradio's Regine Schlesinger reports, on Aug. 13, 1969, jubilant Chicagoans packed LaSalle Street to celebrate the historic achievement of Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins.
Marilyn Quiroz and her co-workers in an insurance office overlooking the parade route opened the windows to throw out confetti and ticker tape. She recorded the parade with her 8mm video camera.
"We were just hanging out the windows, with my 8mm Kodak camera, and I climbed up the lightpole right out in front of the office, and when they drove by, I started taking pictures," she said.
Quiroz remembers seeing Armstrong – the first man to set foot on the surface of the moon – sitting in the lead car of the parade.
"He was so handsome. I didn't care about the other guys," she said.
Her son, Alfonso, recently came across a trunk of all their films in the basement of their South Side home.
"I was amazed to see how clear a lot of the images were," he said.