PAXboy,
I think you'll find that, as with so many airports, the city came to the runways rather than
the runways crammed in to such a residential area and the perimeter road right there?
There's a picture of MDW in 1929 on
this page. Note the absence of pretty much everything...
I heard the 13/31 screw up as well. My thought was that it's a good thing the aircraft didn't land on 13C... it may well have hit the White Castle on that corner and the grease fire would still be burning.
I didn't notice whether anyone else pointed it out, but PAXboy's comment reminds me that it's 33 years to the day since the United 737
crash a mile-and-a-half short of 31L at MDW that killed 45...