Yesterday I woke up at 5:00 am Chicago time and thought I might as well beat the crowds at the Arlington House Youth Hostel and grab an early shower. At 6 in the morning I was already on the Internet registering my first impressions of this exciting city and at 6:30 in the morning I had already left the hostel. It was still quite dark outside and the sun was slowly starting to rise.
I walked through the quiet neighborhood of Lincoln Park until I reached the shore of Lake Michigan, where the cool wind howled off the lake. Runners, cyclists and walkers were already in full force. I walked for about 15 minutes, but when the wind got too strong, I decided to take a bus and head south to a neighborhood called “Old Town” near North Street and N. Wells Street. It’s a neat, well-kept neighborhood of historic homes and the location of the Second City Comedy Club, a venue that has spawned so much comedic talent.
After a brisk morning walk through Old Town, I jumped back on the train and went to see downtown. I got off at the Loop and headed toward the open space of Michigan Avenue and Grant Park. Interestingly, the wind between the buildings.
in the Loop it was much stronger than in the open areas near the Lake Michigan shoreline.
Michigan Avenue and Grant Park are one of the areas where the beauty of Chicago is most striking. Daniel Burnham’s 1909 city plan that preserved a wealth of green space right on the Lake Michigan shoreline was a brilliant move, and visitors and locals alike benefit from the enormous green space between the Loop and the lake. Grant Park’s beginnings actually date back to 1835, when far-sighted citizens, fearing commercial development on the lakefront, pushed to protect the open space. Burnham’s vision of the park as a formal landscape with museums and civic buildings became a reality: today, Grant Park is home to 3 of the city’s most prominent museums: the Field Museum of Natural History, the Shedd Aquarium, and the Adler Planterium.
Buckingham Fountain is the centerpiece of Grant Park, the city’s great “front yard,” and is set within a beautiful landscaped garden, one of the best examples of Beaux-Arts landscape design in the city. . It is an exact replica of the Versailles fountain, just twice as big, and at those measurements it is one of the largest free-standing fountains in the world.
At the north end of Grant Park is the $495 million Millennium Park, Chicago’s most ambitious public enterprise. Unsightly train tracks and parking lots have been turned into an outdoor multimedia entertainment area in recent years. Highlights of Millennium Park include the Frank Gehry-designed Jay Pritzker Pavilion, the most sophisticated outdoor concert hall 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 highly popular sculpture inspired by liquid mercury, designed by British artist Anish Kapoor. On this beautiful sunny morning, the reflections off the city’s skyscrapers had an almost surreal feel.
I still had about an hour and a half before my friend Linda arrived at the Randolph Street station, so I decided to head north on Michigan Avenue toward two of my favorite 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 in a series of landmarks at the south end of the Magnificent Mile.
Tribune Tower’s design 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 entries in the competition proved extremely influential to the development of skyscraper architecture in the 1920s. The winning entry, with a flying buttressed crowning tower, is derived from the design of the French Rouen Cathedral and gives the building its striking silhouette.
The area around the bridge and esplanade of Michigan Avenue looking west along the Chicago River is an absolute mecca for an architecture buff like me. You’ll find a mix of classic skyscrapers, many built in the Art Deco style, as well as more modern skyscrapers built in the last 30 years. This has to be one of the most impressive urban views to exist anywhere.
I continued walking west on Wacker Drive and passed several north-south streets that connect the Loop to areas north of downtown. I wanted to capture another fascinating building: Merchandise Mart, an impressive building on the north bank of the Chicago River between Wells and Orleans Streets, was built in 1931. At that time, when it was built by Marshall Field and Company to replace the HH Ricardson La Marshall Field Wholesale store, was the building with the largest built area in the world and today is the second largest building in the United States after the Pentagon.
A short hop on the 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 Coast Rail line. We’ve known each other since we were 10 years old (almost 30 years old!) and grew up in Austria, and Linda herself moved to the US a few years ago. We hadn’t seen each other for 2 years and this was the time to reconnect.
Linda was a few minutes late and after a heartfelt hello we headed to the Chicago Cultural Center to try and pick up a 3 day transit pass. To our surprise, we were told that the closest place for multi-day transit passes was the Marriot Hotel at 549 North Michigan Avenue, about a 20-minute walk north of where we were. We were a little surprised that it would be so inconvenient for visitors coming to the Loop to purchase transit passes, but we headed out with Linda’s suitcase and were finally able to pick up our coveted 3-day transit pass on the second floor. Marriott Hotel gift shop.
We decide to ditch Linda’s luggage and head north to the youth hostel on the bus. By this time it was close to noon and we were both ravenously hungry. So we sat down at a cozy place called “Pasta Bowl” on Clark Street and I had some really delicious gorgonzola pasta which I devoured completely.
From there we went back to Arlington House, dropped off Linda’s luggage and got some rest as we were both quite tired after this heavy lunch. At 4 pm we hit the road again and headed to the Golden Mile, Chicago’s main shopping area along Michigan Avenue, north of the Chicago River. The place was absolutely packed with people. We picked up a small present for Linda’s daughter at H&M and then headed to the John Hancock Center, the third tallest building in Chicago.
The view from the John Hancock Center was incredible and the sun was about to set. Chicago’s skyline is impressive, crowned by the Sears Tower. After our high-altitude excursion, we took a stroll down Michigan Avenue and headed back to the Lincoln Park area for dinner, where we had a very hearty Mexican Veggie Burrito dinner on Lincoln Avenue.
Exhausted from all this exploring and eating, we returned to Arlington House to sleep in our bunk…