Chicago Weblog

Yes, Old Blue Eyes had it right.  Our last day in Chicago, and we decided to try the famous Heaven On Seven restaurant where supposedly you can get a fine Cajun breakfast.  And perhaps you can, but they don’t open until nine, which is pretty late for a Cajun to be eating breakfast.  So we went next door to the Pittsfield building (1927; Graham, Anderson, Probst and White, architects) and had a nice breakfast there.

Another hop on the bus up to the Chicago History Museum.  CVH thought this would be a good idea, because seeing all the Chicago history items together at the end of our trip, after seeing so many separately over the weekend, would help cement the memories in our minds.  The museum is a very kid-friendly place (read: noisy!), but it really did help bring many of our experiences together.

We saw the notebook that recorded the first self-sustaining atomic reaction, created by Enrico Fermi and associates at the University of Chicago.  The relevant notation is there in the lower left hand corner of page 29.  It reads “We’re cookin!”

CAT-scanning an evening gown

Another interesting exhibit presented the dresses of designer Charles James.  In addition to the pretty dresses on display, they had CAT scans and demonstrations of the engineering behind how the dresses were constructed.  If you’ve ever wondered how movie stars, etc, can sit down in those things, this exhibit has an explanation.

The museum also has a nice gift shop with lots of souvenirs.  Among other things, I bought a little flag of the City of Chicago.

Flag of Chicago

Jeff told us that the two blue bars represent the two branches of the Chicago River, and the four stars represent four important events in Chicago history: the founding of Fort Dearborn, the Great Fire of 1871, the World Columbian Exposition of 1893, and the Century of Progress World’s Fair of 1933.  It is a handsome flag.

But finally it was time to go; we caught the bus to the Red Line subway, the subway to the hotel, collected our bags and took the Orange Line back out to Midway airport.  I was able to sit in the last seat of the last car of the train and watch the city recede into the distance.  CVH says this sort of behavior, which she has observed before, clearly marks me as a “station wagon kid”. When we arrived at the airport, we decided it would be a good idea to look for something for lunch, because it would be a while before we could have dinner.  All of a sudden I realized that I had spent an entire weekend in Chicago without eating a Chicago Dog!  Fortunately, there was a hot dog stand in the airport that made an acceptable Chicago Dog.

Sonny Steelgrave

Monday morning; up and downstairs for breakfast.  While we were eating, CVH said “That looks like a real Chicago scene over there at that table; the black guy, the burly guy, and that one guy who looks like Sonny Steelgrave.”

Before we left for Chicago, we made arrangements with the Chicago Tourism people for a tour with a volunteer Chicagoan.  This morning we met our tour guide, Jeff, at the Chicago Cultural Center, and he gave us a tour of the Loop.

Jeff was a great tour guide.  He’s a fifth generation Chicagoan (his great-great-grandfather was burned out of his house by the great fire of 1871), and is a cornucopia of Chicago history and information.  We started with a tour of the Cultural Center itself, the former Chicago City Library and G.A.R. hall.  Incredible numbers of little mosaic tiles cover the floors and walls and there is a lighted stained glass Tiffany dome atop the big reception hall.  Jeff told us that when the British Crown heard about the devastation of the fire, they sent over thousands of books to replenish the library.  Only thing was, Chicago hadn’t had a city library.  But they weren’t about to be ungracious over such a generous gift, and so decided to go ahead and build one.

Carson Pirie Scott in its heyday

Jeff then proceeded to show us what seemed to be every famous building in downtown Chicago, along with a story for each one.  The Auditorium Building, the Monadnock, the Carson Pirie Scott (soon to be a Target), the Chicago Building, the new Library with its lovely skylit Winter Garden on the top floor, Jahn’s Thompson Center with its giant “how do they air-condition this” lobby, First United Methodist Church (tallest church in the world), the First National Bank of Chicago with its Chagall mosaic mural, the Board of Trade, the Rookery, the Fisher Building, and several others whose names I have not been able to remember.

Inland Steel

We saw the stunning Inland Steel Building, with its curtains of glass.  There are no internal columns blocking the office space in this building; the projecting columns, encased in stainless steel, carry the weight, allowing over ten thousand square feet of open space on each floor.

Chicagou

Jeff took us into the Marquette Building, where a series of reliefs depicts the seventeenth century travels of the Jesuit priest, Jacques Marquette, through the area.  This wonderful 1895 seventeen story skyscraper features Chicago windows, multiple cornices, a sculpted terra-cotta and brick skin, and is the headquarters for the MacArthur foundation.  In the lobby, over one of the elevators, there is a portrait of the Indian chief Chicagou.  Now you know.

One thing that struck me about all these buildings were the number of mosaic tiled floors and walls.  There must have been thousands of mosaickers (or whatever they’re called) who descended on Chicago after the big fire.  At times I felt like I was in ancient Rome, there were some many little tiles around.

As we walked back up Michigan Avenue, Jeff pointed out “The Spearman and The Bowman”, sculptures of two aboriginal Americans which originally flanked a grand staircase to Buckingham Fountain.  However, the Spearman is not holding a spear, and the Bowman is not holding a bow, apparently because the sculptor was a pacifist and did not want to depict such warlike instruments.  We all wondered why he took the commission in the first place.

One of the last buildings that Jeff took us into was the old Studebaker Building.  This building sits right on Michigan Avenue in one of the most desirable streetfronts in the entire city, and yet the interior doesn’t seem to have been touched in ninety years.  The elevators are still the old-fashioned elevator operator kind – where the operator has to open and close the doors by hand and line up the car with the floor by hand when he stops.  Some of you reading this have no idea what I am talking about.  It was really cool.

La Grande Jatte

Well, all that touring took up the morning, and after lunch we headed to the Art Institute.  I must say that for a place that has organized such a wonderful collection of art, the map they give you upon entering is terrible.  We got turned around and confused on several occasions, and I consider myself a pretty good map reader.  I don’t know if they do that on purpose to help foil would-be art thieves, or if you get a better map if you pay the premium entry fee.  In any event, we were able to finally find American Gothic, the haystacks, Nighthawks, the seated Buddha, and La Grande Jatte – most of the big tourist destinations.

That night we took the bus (our CTA pass again) to The Parthenon.  We don’t have a flaming-cheese-and-Opa!-style restaurant in Louisville, so this was a chance to have some good trigona, octopus in wine sauce, dolmades, cheese pie, eggplant spread, fish-roe spread, bean salad, moussaka, pastitsio, roast lamb, and roasted potatoes. We were full.

Basking Lion

Yes, that phrase was invented in Chicago.  We got up and took the red line subway north toward the zoo.  We walked along the North Lake Shore Drive residential area where my grandmother used to live, and may well have walked right past her old apartment building, for all I can remember, and then took the bus on up to Lincoln Park and the zoo.  It was another warm and sunny day. We saw the seal, this lion (who really seemed to be enjoying the mild winter day), and a vulture.  CVH said the vulture was much uglier than the ones at the Louisville bird sanctuary where she volunteers. We went through the zoo’s bird house and saw several more birds. On the way out of the zoo we saw cute giraffes and bears and rhinoceroses; the usual fare.

Ugly Vulture

Just outside the zoo is the Lincoln Park Conservatory, basically a large greenhouse. It was full of plants that I’m sure are quite exotic to Chicagoans, especially in the winter, but to me they were just the stuff we had in our yard in Texas. They had one room of azaleas, and they were all in bloom. Impressive to the locals, perhaps, but I felt as if I had just been on the Houston spring garden tour.

The Belden-Stratford

Just outside the park is this striking hotel/apartment building. They must have an unbelievably strong zoning commission to keep all these old buildings standing when it would obviously be much cheaper to demolish and build anew.

The CTA bus took us back downtown to the John Hancock building, and we went up for a beautiful view.  CVH particularly liked the open air “porch” that was there.  I liked the narrated tour.  This was a good value for the tourist dollar, and I’m glad we chose it instead of the Sears (Willis) tower.  I was struck by how many more tall buildings there are around Chicago now than forty years ago.  Where does all that money come from?  Anyway, you should note that the souvenirs are a little cheaper in the store in the basement of the Hancock than they are in the store at the top.

Once again, all this walking around had made us very hungry, and on the previous advice of a co-worker, we walked across the street to Water Tower Place, a big shopping mall.  It was packed.  Amazing that there are still places in America where people come downtown to shop.  The food court did not disappoint; there was a wide variety of options and we filled up at Foodease.  At Foodease, you pick out a bunch of stuff that is already made up; sort of like eating at a deli or Whole Foods.

After lunch, we wandered through a little of the mall.  We looked at nice luggage bags at the Tumi store, but did not buy one.  We did get a tangrams puzzle at the Marbles store, where they specialize in “thinking” toys and games.  We settled on the tangrams after we each picked out a game that the other figured they would never win.

From Water Tower, another bus ride to Navy Pier.  Packed.  Used the bathroom, and then walked to the beach next door.  It was truly incredible to see women wearing bikinis on the beach in Chicago in March, and not be inappropriately dressed for the weather.

We rode the bus down State Street, that Great Street, back to the hotel, and then again down State Street to Lou Malnati’s for a deep dish pizza.  We had the “Lou” – spinach, mushrooms, and tomatoes.  Bus back up State Street (we’re getting our money’s worth out of our CTA passes) to Froyo’s, a frozen yogurt bar.  I got the tart yogurt with ground up Nestles Crunch bars.  I really like Crunch bars.

Finally, bus back down State Street (and we got the same driver we had on the way up, who greeted us warmly) to the biggest, fanciest Walgreen’s we had ever seen (Walgreen’s, of course, was founded in Chicago).  CVH has often said that if you can’t get it at Walgreen’s, you don’t need it, and this store proved her maxim.  They even have wine tastings there.

Us

This weekend is Matthew Broderick’s fiftieth birthday, and to celebrate we decided to take a long weekend off and visit downtown Chicago.  Well, actually it was just a coincidence, but it worked out nicely.

It’s cheaper to stay in Chicago during the off season (gee, wonder why) and we made these reservations a while back realizing that we might be trudging through mounds and mounds of dirty snow.  But we figured that there are lots of indoor things to do and see in Chicago, so that was OK.  I had been to Chicago many times as a small boy; my mother was a designer and she made regular trips there to the Merchandise Mart.  I often went along and was dropped off at my grandmother’s.  My grandmother was a true Chicagoan: always had a North Lake Shore drive address and you knew it.

We boarded our Southwest flight right on time.  Their service is still good, but they have switched to a new seat design so as to squeeze in an extra row of passengers, and these new seats are uncomfortable.  I was glad that it was a short flight, and that we landed fifteen minutes early.

Although I’d been to O’Hare more times than I could count, this was my first trip into Midway.  The trip was uneventful, however I should point out that the restrooms at Midway are quite small; prepare to wait in line.

Once refreshed, though, we made the short hike to the Orange Line train.  The nice transit authority people there helped us get three day CTA passes.  Not like the east coast, where they would have pointed to the machine and said “well, get one then.”  In fact, almost everybody was pleasant to us on this trip.

The Orange train took us right to the door of our hotel, the Silversmith.  It seems as if ninety percent of pre-war office buildings in Chicago have been converted to condos or hotels, and this one was no different.  The Silversmith is right downtown in the jewelry district (hence the name).  We got a comfy room (though a bit small), and attentive service for $125 a night (plus Chicago’s confiscatory tourist taxes).  The bed provided a lot of back support, something I often have trouble with at hotels.  A great value, and I would recommend the hotel to any of our friends who don’t need the level of amenities of, say, a Hotel W.

The weather was so nice, sunny and in the seventies, that we decided to walk over to Millennium Park first.  Supposedly, the story behind the park is that Mayor Daley (the younger) was visiting the office of his dentist on Michigan Avenue,  sitting in the chair awaiting a teeth cleaning, and was looking out at the relatively undeveloped park area on the other side of the street.  He thought to himself that something could be put there that would draw more people to downtown.  So he had it built.

The Pru (as I remember it)

From the park we could gaze fondly upon the old Prudential building.  I remember being so impressed with it as a small boy when it was the tallest building in Chicago, and by far the tallest building I’d ever seen.

CVH & The Bean

The park now contains a beautiful outdoor theatre, and one of Chicago’s most recognizable landmarks – the Bean.  We took the obligatory tourist photos, and then went to walk over the Frank Gehry pedestrian bridge.  Unfortunately for us, the bridge was closed due to it being Saint Patrick’s Day.  I guess the city officials were afraid that the bridge would be overloaded with too many people trying to see the parade.

And there were definitely too many people trying to see the parade.  You should know that if you visit downtown Chicago on a sunny St Patrick’s Day, you will see literally hundreds of thousands of people, most wearing green, many in various stages of inebriation.  I saw more than one pretty young woman wearing a t-shirt that said “Kiss me, I’m Irish”, but I don’t think they really wanted me to.

The Nichols Bridge

Since we couldn’t walk across the Gehry bridge, we crossed Renzo Piano’s Nichols bridge.  You get a wonderful elevated view of the classic skyscrapers from there.  Note how the Pru is dwarfed today compared to the older picture above.

Bean, with Ward, Willoughby, and Legacy Towers

With the American Institute of Architect’s Guide to Chicago in hand, we enumerated the buildings along Michigan Avenue.  We saw and read about the Montgomery Ward building, the People’s Gas Company building, the Britannica Center (home of the encyclopedia), and the Studebaker Building, where they showed off their carriages before they got into automobiles and which we will return to on Monday.

The giant blue glass tower in the adjacent picture was next door to our little hotel, but you didn’t realize it, because the first six floors are hidden behind the facades of the original buildings.  Quite a clever way to hide a 72 story skyscraper.

The Chicago Window (courtesy J Crocker)

By this time we were getting hungry.  We walked over to Marshall Field’s, now “Macy’s”, although I’m not sure how many old-line Chicagoans have made the shift to the new name yet.  On the inside it still looks much the same as it did fifty years ago, with the tall sky-lit arcades and Tiffany mosaics and beautiful old  elevators.  And you can still eat lunch in the Walnut Room, just as I did fifty years ago and it still looks the same; in fact, we sat next to one of the original “Chicago windows” and looked out at the Reliance Building, one of the first skyscrapers to feature such windows.

Museum of Science & Industry with parking lot (courtesy Chuckman)

After lunch the crowds downtown were really unbelievable, and we decided to try and escape some of the commotion by visiting Hyde Park and the University of Chicago.  Our guidebook suggested taking the Metra train, but we couldn’t find the downtown Metra station.  I asked a CTA fellow about it, but he would only give us directions to the CTA stop (Metra is the successor to the IC and other trains I rode as a kid, and shares neither stock nor management with the CTA).  So we caught the number 10 bus down to Hyde Park and the University of Chicago.  The bus dropped us off right in front of the Museum of Science and Industry, a building constructed for the World Columbian Exposition of 1893.  I remember there used to be a huge parking lot in front of the museum, but they’ve moved it into an underground parking garage.  This makes the entrance and building even more imposing.

But we didn’t visit that museum today; we walked over to the University to see the Robie House, the apogee of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Prairie School style.  CVH was more impressed than I; I’ve never been that much of a Wright fan.  After enjoying this study in horizontality, we visited the Oriental Institute.  This is an exhibition and library area for the University’s archaeological work in the Near and Middle East.  It is full of fascinating artifacts like these:

A large portrait of Ashurnasirpal II

Ashurnasirpal II

CVH liked the ancient Egyptian birds and raptors

Old bird

Really old birds

Once in Hyde Park, we were able to locate the Metra station there and used it for a surprisingly quick trip back downtown, although it does cost a little more than the CTA.  (This is the same train that kept blowing up in the movie “Source Code”.)

The Chicago River

Finally we walked down to the river, and yes, they really do dye it green for St Patrick’s Day.

One of the most distinguishing features of the landscape and topography around here is the multitude of “knobs”.  These are hills of hard rock that were created when the softer surrounding area was eroded away.  They are usually long, narrow hills that rise from one hundred to three hundred feet above the surrounding terrain.  They are great for light hiking, and I have developed quite a fondness for walking up and down them.  In fact, now whenever I see one, I long to get to the top.

So I have been longing for the past year to climb a particularly handsome knob that stands behind the building of one of my clients.  This week, while I was there, waiting for a meeting to begin, I finally asked “Who owns that hill behind the building?”

“Who owns the hill?”

“Yes.  I have a hankering to climb that hill.”

“It’s a park.”

“Park?”

“Yes.  A city park.  There’s a civil war fort at the top.  The path starts right over there by the building next door.”

I couldn’t believe it.  Why had I not opened my mouth before?  After the meeting, I walked next door, and sure enough, there was a historical marker and a few concrete steps that led up to a wide path.  Turns out this path is the very Civil War road that was used to supply the fort at the summit.

When I reached the top I found not just one, but two Civil War forts, one of which is in surprisingly good condition for being 150 years old.  You can also walk beside the very stone fence that Morgan’s raiders used during a skirmish upon this fort.  Very cool.

When I returned to my office I mentioned my lunchtime reconnaissance to a co-worker who said “Yeah, it’s a nice place.  If you like that, you should see the one just past our building.  It has a nice spring at the top”.   My jaw dropped.  Nobody tells me anything!