Chicagoland II

We’re done with Chicago as of this morning. It was nice, and we’ll go back. If you go, and you only have one thing to do, take a tour with the Chicago Architecture Foundation. They have many, and they aren’t cheap, but they’re the best money you’ll spend in the city. We took the boat tour, and it wasn’t touristy — our guide, an architecture student, gave loads of facts on buildings, background on the politics of getting them built, and called out buildings he didn’t like (one was “brown, the colour of pooh”). The following is a random selection of stuff from the past four days, some from the boat, some not.

The people in the Corn Cob towers (aka Marina City) get to look out their windows at Mies van der Rohe’s IBM building all day long, a fine and wonderful thing to do.

I think we’ve posted about these all-in-one newspaper boxes here before — they weren’t all organized in the same way — some had slots for the major dailies, the alt-weeklys, and some other crap — but I’m not sure how it was decided who got to be in the big box. They looked neat, and they only had one ad on the back, and all the ones I saw were PSA type things like this one. These were only in the downtown core/LOOP area — outside of here it was the usual grouping of individual boxes for each paper, like Toronto.
Should also note that even here, along Magnificent Mile, the heart of free-market capitalism, there was a conspicious absence of advertisements. I could see the city with no interference. For a long time we didn’t know where to throw out our trash until we realized the garbage cans in Chicago look like garbage cans, and don’t have any ads on them — in the LOOP or on the south side or out in Wicker Park. Just nice, solid, round iron garbage cans. Crazy.

Chicago has 27 miles of nearly uninterrupted lakeside parks. This beach to the north had perfectly manicured sand (they send machines out to clean all the beaches). I went up there yesterday as part of a continuing mission to swim in all the Great Lakes, but the beach was closed because of bacteria, and the lifeguards had to keep yelling at people to get out of the water. They called people “Sir” and “Ma’m” as is the custom in America. When you can’t go in the water, laying on a beach is about as pleasant as laying in a parking lot.

We went for an epic walk on Friday, from Wicker Park (former home of the Smashing Pumpkins — a former Parkdale-ish place that’s undergone quick gentrification the past few years) zig-zagging back downtown over about 6 hours. The neighbourhoods are nice, but it should be noted that most parts of Chicago aren’t jaw dropping. It’s low-rise, too many parking lots, wide streets…the usual North American things like drive-thru’s placed where they shouldn’t be. What is nice is all kinds of bike signs, directing people where to go in logical, meaningful ways. Still trying to figure out what Toronto bike-route is which. The numbers we have are confusing. Chicago is so massive though going on general feelings like “Southeast to Downtown” probably works better.

Riding the CTA is fun. Some parts are elevated, some underground. Everything radiates from the LOOP, making crosstown rail travel difficult but if you’re heading along the lines, it works. Very loud though, like Montreal’s Metro. The stations aren’t always very pretty, and smelt like pee a lot more than Toronto (which never smells like pee, really).

The elevated platforms are nice though. You get a nice view of the neighbourhood, and into the windows of upper floor apartments. The outdoor stations are rickety and wooden, and smell like the pressure treated wood of Nova Scotia wharfs.

The layering of the city and infrastructure in Chicago is much more extensive. From the Addison Station you can look right onto Wrigley Field. What impressed me most about watching Cubs games on TV is that the city was visible over the outfield fence. Those buildings with the bleachers on top back right onto the El. It was late, and I was a little wobbely when I took this. I think I will become a Cubs fan, mostly because their stadium is perfectly urban, but also because that new Blue Jays logo is stupid and unsupportable.

More city layers.

Again on Magnificent Mile. These trees have lots of room to grow, and those information pillars the only ad-like thing around. One side was a real ad, while this side was a gay PSAish ad.

Even out in the Ukranian Village, the trees have lots of room to grow and get water. Bush was in town on Friday, when I took this picture. There were military helicopters patrolling the city in Apocalypse Now formation overhead. The people in the village didn’t seem to mind though, and we were the only people looking up. In Chicago, in general, people are very friendly, and make eye contact relentlessly. Some even say hello – even when it was nearly 1am and I was walking alone on nearly deserted streets.
We’ve since moved on, deeper into the American Midwest, to Madison, Wisconsin (Blue State, but just barely) — birthplace of Thornton Wilder. Everything here is quintessentially American, in the good way, the way I wish the whole thing was. Still, there wasn’t a sound here when after Italy won the cup, and we suddenly really missed Toronto.