Chicago, Screenz Internet Cafe, Saturday, October 21, 2005, 9:15
am
Hello from Chicago - What a fabulously photogenic
city!
Yesterday I woke up at 5:00 am Chicago time and I figured I might
as well get ahead of the crowd at the Arlington House Youth Hostel
and take an early shower. At 6 am I was already on the Internet,
recording my first impressions
of this exciting city and by 6:30 am I had left the hostel. It was
still pretty dark outside and the sun was just slowly starting to
come up.
Dawn in Lincoln Park
I walked through the quiet Lincoln Park neighbourhood all the way
to the Lake Michigan Shoreline where the cool wind was just howling
off the lake. Joggers, bicyclists and power walkers were already
out in full force. I strolled around for about 15 minutes, but when
the wind got too strong I decided to take a bus and head south to
a neighbourhood called "Old Town", near North Street and
N. Wells Street. It's a tidy, well-kept neighbourhood of historic
homes and the location of the Second City Comedy Club, a place that
has spawned so many comedic talents.
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Old Town |
Second City Improv |
St. Michael's Church |
After a brisk morning walk around Old Town I hopped back on the
el-train and went to check out downtown. I got off in the Loop and
headed out towards the openness of Michigan Avenue and Grant Park.
Interestingly the wind in between the buildings
in the Loop was much stronger than in the open areas just off the
Lake Michigan Shoreline.
Michigan Avenue and Grant Park are one of the areas where Chicago's
beauty is most striking. Daniel Burnham's city plan of 1909 that
preserved a huge amount of green space right on the shoreline of
Lake Michigan was a brilliant decision, and visitors and local residents
alike benefit from the huge green zone between the Loop and the
lake. Grant Park's beginnings actually date all the way back to
1835, when foresighted citizens, fearing commercial lakefront development,
lobbied to protect the open space. Burnham's vision of the park
as a formal landscape with museums and civic buildings became reality:
today Grant Park holds 3 of the city's most distinguished museums:
The Field Museum of Natural History, the Shedd Aquarium and the
Adler Planterium.
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Millenium Fountain |
Grant Park with Aon Building |
The Buckingham Fountain is the centerpiece of Grant Park, the city's
grand "front yard," and it is set within a handsomely
landscaped garden, one of the city's finest examples of a Beaux-Arts-style
landscape design. It is an exact replica of the fountain in Versailles,
just twice as large, and with those measurements it is one of the
largest free-standing fountains in the world.
At the north end of Grant Park is Millenium Park, at an investment
of $495 million Chicago's most ambitious public undertaking. Unsightly
railroad tracks and parking lots were turned into a multi-media
outdoor entertainment area during the last few years. Among Millennium
Park's prominent features are the Frank Gehry-designed Jay Pritzker
Pavilion, the most sophisticated outdoor concert venue of its kind
in the United States; a winding mirror clad bridge over Stetson
Street, designed by world-renowned architect Frank Gehry; and "Cloud
Gate" ("The Bean"), a hugely popular sculpture inspired
by liquid mercury, designed by British artist Anish Kapoor. On this
beautiful sunny morning, the reflections of the city's skyscrapers
had an almost surreal feel to them.
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"Cloud Gate", a.k.a. "The Bean" |
Jay Pritzker Pavillon |
I still had about an hour and a half before my friend Linda would
arrive at the Randolph Street Station, so I decided to head north
on Michigan Avenue towards two of my favourite buildings: the Wrigley
Building and the Chicago Tribune Tower. The Wrigley building serves
as the headquarters of the Wrigley (chewing gum) company and was
built in 1920 by the company's founder, William Wrigley Jr. It was
the first of a series of landmarks at the southern end of the Magnificent
Mile.
The design of the Tribune Tower was the result of an international
competition for "the most beautiful office building in the
world," held in 1922 by the Chicago Tribune newspaper. The
various competition entries proved extremely influential for the
development of skyscraper architecture in the 1920s. The winning
entry, with a crowning tower with flying buttresses, is derived
from the design of the French cathedral of Rouen and gives the building
its striking silhouette.
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Wrigley Building & Chicago Tribune Tower |
Stunning vista across the Chicago River |
The area around the Michigan Avenue Bridge and Esplanade looking
westwards along the Chicago River is an absolute mecca for an architecture
buff like me. You'll find a mixture of classic skyscrapers, many
of them built in Art Deco Style, as well as more modern skyscrapers
built over the last 30 years. This has to be one of the most impressive
urban vistas in existence anywhere.
I continued to walk west on Wacker Drive and walked past a number
of the north-south streets that connect the Loop with the areas
north of downtown. I wanted to capture another fascinating building:
Merchandise Mart, an impressive building at the north bank of the
Chicago river between Wells and Orleans street, was built in 1931.
At that time, when it was constructed by Marshall Field and Company
to replace H.H. Ricardson's Marshall Field Wholesale store, it was
the building with the largest floor area in the world and today
it is the second largest building in the United States after the
Pentagon.
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Merchandise Mart |
Reid Murdoch & Co. Building |
A short hop on the el-train later I got off at Randolph Street
to pick up my friend Linda who was scheduled to arrive at 10:25
am on the South Shore Railway Line. We have known each other since
we are 10 years old (almost 30 years!) and grew up in Austria, and
Linda herself moved to the United States a few years ago. We hadn't
seen each other for 2 years and this was the time to reconnect.
Linda arrived a few minutes late and after a heart-felt greeting
we headed off to the Chicago Cultural Center to try to pick up a
3-day transit pass. Much to our surprise we were told that the closest
location for multi-day transit passes was the Marriot Hotel at 549
North Michigan Avenue, about 20 minutes walking north of where we
were. We were a bit surprised that it would be so inconvenient for
visitors arriving in the Loop to purchase transit passes, but off
we went with Linda's suitcase in tow and we were finally able to
pick up our coveted 3-day transit pass at the 2nd floor gift shop
of the Marriot Hotel.
We decided to get rid of Linda's luggage and headed north towards
the youth hostel on the bus. By that time it was about noon and
we were both voraciously hungry. So we plunked ourselves down at
a cozy spot called the "Pasta Bowl" on Clark Street and
I had a really delicious gorgonzola pasta that I absolutely devoured.
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View from John Hancock Center |
Chicago Water Tower |
From there we went back to the Arlington House, dropped off Linda's
luggage and rested for a bit since we were both pretty tired after
this hefty lunch. At 4 pm we got going again and headed down to
the Golden Mile, Chicago's main shopping area along Michigan Avenue,
north of the Chicago River. The place was absolutely hopping with
people. We picked up a little gift for Linda's daughter at H&M
and then headed up into the John Hancock Centre, Chicago's third
highest building.
The view from the John Hancock Centre was amazing and the sun was
just getting ready to set. Chicago's skyline is impressive, crowned
as it is by the Sears Tower. After our high altitude excursion we
strolled along Michigan Avenue and for dinner we headed back into
the Lincoln Park area where we had a very filling Mexican vegetarian
burrito dinner on Lincoln Avenue.
Exhausted from all this exploring and eating, we went back to
the Arlington House to crash in our bunk bed...
Useful books about Chicago:
Related Articles:
Hello from Chicago - First Impressions
Hello from Chicago - What a fabulously
photogenic city!
Hello from Chicago - Multiple Austrian
connections
Hello from Chicago - A personal tour
of the Chicago Cultural Center
Hello from Chicago - A visit to the
Pullman Historic District
Hello from Chicago - Chinatown and
Second City
Hello from Chicago - The Field Museum
and "Pompeii - Stories from an Eruption"
Here is our brand-new Chicago
Travel Guide
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