Capacity 290

Hadn't noticed that most fall out shelter signs in Chicago also have a numbered capacity. Some signs have clear readable digits while others have faded with time. This sign states that this shelter could hold 290 people.

Dewitt Clinton is an old fashioned k through 8 school at Granville and California in West Ridge. So this fall out shelter currently wouldn't be able to house the number of students enrolled here today. Fall out signs in Chicago with capacity number still legible : 927, 1900, 735, 1515.

Conelrad Adjacent, a blog concerning the atomic age and cold war, has an informative post on fall out shelters. The Reader listed a few known fall out shelters in this article from 1994. ABC news covered the discovery of a cache of nuclear war survival supplies in downtown two years ago. Here is a power point presentation calling for the rebirth of the fall out shelter program. Rogers Park has at least one former fall out shelter on Sherwin Avenue.

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