CHICAGO
CHICAGO
CITY BY THE RIVER BY THE LAKE
By PETER THOMAS BUSCH
I
became determined not to use a motor vehicle again until returning home and so much so far that worked out. The flight went smoothly stuck in the middle of a row of three on the right side of the plane.
I had done my homework to discover that the arrival terminal has an internal airport train to the subway train to the city. But the airport train to the city had stopped running due to a mechanical breakdown. So, I needed to catch a city bus – but the buses were only going to the next terminal, arranged by the airport authority and all, and then only the train to the terminal was down while the train to the city was still operating, just not here but down and through this terminal to the next terminal either Terminal 1, Terminal 2 or Terminal 3, to wherever the airport bus took me.
I eventually found the airport corridor leading to the entrance to the airport city train station. And I bought a three day transit pass for $20 from the kiosk at the carousel fare gates. I had wanted to buy a seven day pass for $28 but the kiosk was not quite working properly. I went, anyway.
Welcome to Chicago.
Architect Daniel Burnham had another plan for this Midwest city in the south west corner of Lake Michigan. Industry along the lakeshore had drawn people from the American South looking for jobs in Chicago after the American Civil War and the Great Migration north of former slaves leaving the cotton fields for the steel foundries, factories and meat packing plants of the north. People looking for real jobs to support a family were willing to leave the history of the American South behind.
Chicago had a chance to start over again just as the former slaves did after a great fire drove people to the north and to the south of the city looking for shelter. The city was left a barren vacant lot for redrafting after the wood tenements incinerated in the fire storm.
The great city plan would reclaim the lakefront from the railways and industry, thereby transforming private company land into public use, and creating a shoreline now 29 miles long with an expansive boulevard. The city was given wide streets and tall buildings, some of the tallest buildings in the world, and the first and the tallest skyscrapers ever, from the day civil engineers learned to build them that tall.
The Greet Depression took a lot out of those plans for Chicago, but like any great city, the streets and the people changed with the times and the city survived in that way, part of the landscape and part of the interactions people made with the streets in any given circumstances as history was repeatedly left behind for an uncertain future.
Veterans returning from World War II also took their families and left their homes for northern cities, including Chicago.
The plains and the lake and the river were left open for the public to enjoy while behind Michigan Avenue the buildings grew just as tall and majestic as anywhere else in America – blotting out the sun and the clouds and the sky, but not so much as shelter from the rain as from the wind and winter cold.
The downtown business district circumvents the Chicago River. Rather than fight that river and the harsh weather of the Midwest, the city was dug inside and around and over the river loop. Twenty steel bridges of all sorts of engineering enable the streets to continue from the lake outward to the lands far beyond the concrete, glass and steel.
The city also built a transit loop as a reflection of that river loop atop of a steel platform allowing trains to travel 1.79 miles around the business district, joining other transit lines out of the city including to the ghetto loop at Englewood. The trains clamour by overhead every few minutes – a bit loud and distracting for a first time visitor but after a few days the sound made by wheels against the rails becomes part of the charm of a place of industry and commerce and gangsters.
The Prohibition Era left an indelible mark on Chicago – everyone world wide will always know of the organized crime running illegal alcohol sales. The gangster hideouts are few and far between now, having fallen to the gentrification of former gangster neighbourhoods, but the gun shots can still be heard underneath the rumble above of trains on elevated steel trestles, built over one hundred years ago, and in the stillness of nights on the south side where the homicide rate increases, not quite one a day but almost every day with multiple homicides on many nights as the year progresses.
Chicago is relatively safe for tourists to celebrate among the affluence of the white and black class structure. Some of the most celebrated Americans are from Chicago.
Chicago is in this place for a reason only God knows. United States President Abraham Lincoln was nominated in Chicago before becoming United States President and leading the country into a bloody civil war against the secessionist and slave owners of the South, a battle so dearly fought for that America would become transformed when everything was all said and done and the dead were buried, including Lincoln.
The Democrats had a go at it too over one hundred years later when the Inner Cities of America were burning and the civil rights activists and anti-Vietnam War protestors took to the Chicago streets at the Democratic National Convention just a few months after civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr and democratic presidential hopeful Bobby Kennedy were assassinated. John Lewis and Jesse Jackson were with King at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. Lewis and Jackson would continue on without the great civil rights leader and push for civil rights reforms and black dignity in Washington.
Bobby Rush formed the Black Panthers Illinois Chapter, but he too eventually turned to democracy, representing the South Side district in the United States House of Representatives since 1992.
Chicago has many parts. The history of violence and the politics of discontent has become just a caricature of a city rich in culture and mystique. Chicago is also a sports town with two professional baseball stadiums, a professional football stadium in the downtown, and an arena for hockey and basketball. Chicago is also a place rich in liberal arts.
Everyone had been nice so far. On arriving in the downtown from the O’Hara Airport I had a few hours before check-in time. I came across the Cloud Gate at Millennium Park, and then explored the trails and open spaces of the Museum District in Grant Park. I decided to take in the Art Institute of Chicago the next day, that day being day two.
The Art Institute was built in 1893 when Grant Park was still underwater and the railroad ran along the shoreline. The number of buildings housing art expanded as the collection expanded over the years with the most recent opening in 2009. The 300,000 piece collection, second in size in the United States only to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, has several pieces of profound significance to the art world, beginning with the marble bust of Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius. The collection generally attempts a historical look at art and the transitions from one art movement to the next – not overtly didactic, but subtly asking attendees how art went from Greek influencing Roman art to electronic media creating the superficial pop art of Andy Warhol.
This gallery is big, but the art pieces are not cluttering the walls. Instead, patrons get the feeling of space like the lake front and river canals defining the downtown, which allows time to reflect on the importance of the art that the artist and the gallery are attempting to convey.
I spent the day in the gallery, partly because I would likely not be returning to Chicago, but also never really noticing that the day had gone by because the art transitioned so subtly from one exhibit room to another that I never lost interest.
Several artists from Chicago were featured, some of whom I was surprised were from Chicago, such as Georgia O’Keeffe who studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, Daniel French, the sculpture for the Abraham Lincoln Memorial, and featured Chicago artist Charles White with drawings and paintings of people from Chicago.
The Art Institute has also acquired a number of pieces of profound significance to world art history, such as Renoir’s still life, Monet’s Water Lilies, and Ruben’s use of bright color on dark subjects, and also a Botticelli. A number of pieces by Rodin, including life size sculptures, Picasso’s Old Guitarist and works by Matisse kind of finish you off if you weren’t impressed already.
The gallery rooms are numbered in a somewhat orderly fashion with a few rooms out of sequence. The buildings are also cubed in that one part may have one level while another part may have two levels but seem unconnected to yet another part that also has two levels. Once you understand that, then most rooms have an attendant who are very courteous and polite and can direct you to the art piece you cannot find.
Outside, a few steps away, the wind off the lake will spray mist from Buckingham Fountain onto spectators if the middle spout is operating, although park attendants can turn the spout on and off.
At the end of the day, heading back to the hotel, I stopped in the park at Bucks Grill, a park concession with tables and chairs, for a Chicago style hotdog that had no need for extra relish or mustard and certainly not ketchup condiments because the hand food comes with lots of fresh salad, onions and red peppers.
I was still thinking about the $75 cost of the hard cover gallery exhibit book and no less expensive soft cover available when I came across a Lincoln statue near the amphitheatre in Millennium Park: a smaller version of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC, but bigger than the one in the Art Institute.
I transferred at the Loop. Entering the transit system at the Loop seems intimidating at first, but if you go the wrong way, just get off at the next station and head back to the Loop where you can transfer to the correct train. You might have to go out onto the street level again and walk a block to the correct station before going back down into the transit system – a bit confusing because ground trains are also the subway trains, but okay as long as you get on the right colour of the rainbow.
The PA on the train announces the stops and transfer stations. There are also lots of Chicago Transit Authority attendants in the stations and also in control offices at most of the main fare gates who are receptive to questions.
Commuters have been complaining about long line-ups on the platforms during rush hour but riding in the summer in the middle of the day is not a problem.
A bit of transit culture involves some riders listening to loud music, etc., but not to worry because the trains have CCTV cameras and each train has a conductor who will enter the cars if there is a problem.
A cool wind blows in the parks off the lake.
Taking in the Art Institute early on is a good idea because the visit impresses on you that Chicago has a lot to offer.
Millennium Park draws you into the lake and the museum district but a walk about uncovers a lot more history such as the 20 steel bridges that cross the Chicago river, which included five types of bridge mechanisms: (1) floating (2) swinging (3) vertical lifting (4) rolling lift bascule and (5) fixed trunnion bascules. Of course the bridges were not always made of steel and most of the bridges have had to be replaced more than once over time.
The Picasso sculpture is at 50 West Washington Street at Dearborn, in a large square across from City Hall. The city invites a certain amount of walking but the Picasso invites contemplation and relaxing and for kids to climb all over one another and the Picasso.
A river walk takes you down into the river canal where a number of terraces and patio cafes have been built for people to sit and relax in the sun at river level. The river watermark is not at street level but about 30 feet below the city. You can see the river boat cruises and kayakers in the water in a very busy river, but many people also stroll and relax and watch other people boat about in the river.
If you want to go to Navy Pier or the Magnificent Mile, you should probably take transit to the general location and then get out on the sidewalk to begin the visit. The streets there are very busy with cars and I cannot even imagine what parking is like near one of these main pedestrian areas.
Near the Magnificent Mile is the Holy Name Cathedral Parish at 730 Wabash – which is worth the stop for a moment of contemplation in a small but ornate cathedral. Pope John Paul II visited the Catholic Church once upon a time.
The Magnificent Mile is a high end shopping district skirted by skyscrapers. You can compete with the many other shoppers and tourists for walking space on the grand sidewalks and then turn around and come back on the other side of the boulevard and rejoin the competition. You do not have to shop to enjoy the Magnificent Mile. The skyscrapers on either side and at either end of the boulevard and the wide sidewalks give the shopping stroll an uplifting feel.
The Navy Pier like the Magnificent Mile seems far away on the city map but the destinations are not that far at all. These attractions might be too far to walk from the Loop, but they would take just a short bus ride. Navy Pier is more of a family and kids park. The Pier also has a wide promenade for taking a stroll. I stopped for lunch at the Billy Goat Tavern for a double cheeseburger.
The city got busier and busier as the Friday business day came to an end with concerts at Millennium Park and some private wine and cheese type functions in the terraces made for such a purpose. If you hear children screaming, those screams are of joy and fun from children frolicking in a fountain on the other side of the Cloud Gate.
People seemed to enjoy the unusual energy of the serene atmosphere created just a few feet from the clamber of the elevated train of a busy city by the river along the lake.
The Blue Line train lumbers along like an electric wagon train, but passengers get to the destination sure enough. The trains have conductors who I am certain have to slow the train down at points so as to prevent a derailment as the cars bump and shake so much at times as to almost literally throw you out of your seat. Other lines have more modern cars that run relatively smoothly.
If you take the Blue Line to Oak Park, you will have to walk quite a distance to get to the Historic Districts. If you take the Green Line, you also get to Oak Park, but you get dropped right inside the Hemmingway District.
Writer Ernest Hemmingway was born and spent his younger years growing up in Oak Park. Hemmingway’s birthplace home has been preserved in the district he grew up in before moving on to travel the world and write about what he saw and experienced.
The Hemmingway District has a village atmosphere with several sidewalk and court yard terraces for restaurants. Italian, Greek and Moravian food is available – not so unreasonably priced considering the area. I paid $25 and began struggling with thoughts about the fairness of a $35 meal of linguine in white clam sauce I had along a strip mall in Forest Park the night before.
A number of shops also line the streets if you like that sort of thing, shopping and walking and window shopping for small ornate items and other gifts.
Frank Lloyd Wright was designing his first prairie homes about the time Hemmingway was born just a few blocks away.
The city conserved the area in an historic district immediately adjacent to the Hemmingway District. Frank Lloyd Wright’s home and studio and many of the houses and buildings designed by Wright have been preserved, including the first house he was privately commissioned to design. Wright earned a living in this area for several years, influencing the design of structures as well as the atmosphere of the neighbourhood by making the lawns and gardens just as important as the structures.
The area also has several small churches of various Christian denominations.
I had only thought of spending an hour visiting the Hemmingway home and the Frank Lloyd Wright studio but the atmosphere of the village was so inviting, with sidewalk terraces, courtyards and shops, that I stayed for a few hours after having lunch before deciding to end the rest of the day there instead of visiting the neighbourhood at the University of Chicago.
I did take the Green Line into the downtown to do some shopping. You have to keep the lid on spending, because although Chicago is not the most expensive city, the currency exchange rate makes a lot of purchases less reasonable than at home. Most restaurant meals rang out at about $25 for an entrée and one beer, without desert or coffee, just water thank you. Like anywhere else, if you add an extra alcohol beverage one after another, the final price goes up dramatically. The price of a bottle of American beer ranged from $4 in Hyde Park to $6.50 at a popular restaurant in the downtown near Millennium Park. Of course, you still have to add the exchange rate, sales tax and the gratuity to these prices. I was able to keep the final food cost down because the room came with breakfast and then I would have a late lunch most of the time around 2 pm or later, which also replaced a third meal of the day. Chicago has so much to offer that you can keep your mind occupied on something else other than that third meal.
The heat wave kind of keeps natural survival instincts on replenishing the body’s water supply as opposed to being hungry and finding nourishment.
The Chicago deep pan pizza started at about $11 for an individual size portion and went up to about $20 for a regular small size deep pan pizza. A lot goes into that deep pan, which is about an inch and a half deep, so I can understand the pricing structure since homemade pizza can easily reach some of that cost.
Chicago does have a two tiered pricing structure on some items. At the airport I could not get the 7 day transit pass, only the three day pass, but when I went to get a second three day pass at the Forest Park station I had to pay an extra $5 for a hard plastic card instead of the no charge paper ticket for the same three day pass.
A city pass offers a discount if you want to go to more than one museum. The Grant Park Museum District has the art gallery, a natural history museum with a large dinosaur skeleton brought back from South Dakota, and an aquarium, as well as an outdoor amphitheatre and several public meeting places, such as the Cloud Gate, the Fountains and Buckingham Fountain. The city pass offers a discount for seeing more than one paid attraction, but the venues also gives people from Chicago an extra discount.
On the other side of the spending ledger, street kiosks and park venders sell a Chicago style hotdog for $5 and a can of beer for $5, which on some days would carry you forward until the next meal either in the late afternoon or early evening. An entrée of sweet and sour pork in Chinatown cost about $10.
Ferrara Pan Candy Company factory was in the neighbourhood near my room. I visited the small shop that sells sampler boxes and bags of candy for $1. I kind of think it was too cheep, but maybe because there was no retail middle man, since I bought a bag of sours for $1 which would have cost me $5 CDN or 500 Scene Points at a movie theatre, and five sampler boxes for a $1.
The transit pass was also reasonable since I had unlimited travel for three days for $20. I took full advantage of the pass, getting on and off the system several times during the day without incident, especially when my legs were too tired form walking.
The Hemingway soft cover book for $16 were priced right, as were the oversized postcards for $2 at his birthplace home. The Frank Lloyd Wright trivet for $25 seemed a reasonable purchase at the studio shop.
Chicago has a few other quirks, such as no Nexus Pass entry at O’Hara. The airports now also have photo check-in for customs declarations, in Chicago and Vancouver. You can save on the price of the flight by not checking baggage. One carry-on in the overhead compartment and one personal item under the seat can be enough for a short trip. You can also skip the in-flight meal. Airports require a two hour check in for international flights, which allows you enough time to grab a meal at the many small restaurants and pubs at the O’Hara terminals. I paid $9 for a 24 oz smoothie after making the difficult decision not to have a beer before the flight home.
This quirkiness becomes self evident in the heart of the downtown where the king of the deal built a tower that dominates the skyline. The modern building is a sharp blue contrast against the historic gothic stone architecture. You cannot demolish the Trump Tower, but you might be able to remove the name, which seems to be the most glaring problem on the Chicago River other than the circular above ground parkade that shows about five levels of cars below about the many floors of rooms and offices or what ever else that building is used for.
City hall just needs to pass a by-law that would require the landlord to remove the Trump name from the Trump Tower in the same ostentatious manner as the sign was installed.
The next day, from Frank Lloyd Wright’s studio at Oak Park the day before, I headed to the campus of the University of Chicago where the Wright designed Frederick C. Robie house was built. The exterior of the prairie architecture home is firmly rooted in the landscape whereas the interiors are large simple and brightly lit for living, just as the open prairie skies and surface of the lake are reflected in the overall design of the city. Wright did not invent prairie style architecture as a uniquely American architecture, but he perfected the ideas in this design that became recognized around the world.
Near the university campus, Jackson Park was the site of the World Colombian Exposition in 1893, celebrating the 400th Anniversary of the arrival of Christopher Columbus to the New World in 1492. American Exceptionalism became the theme experienced by 27 million visitors during the six months of the fair, including the one day attendance of 751,026 on Oct 9, 1883. Tesla introduced his alternating current to the world at the exposition, an idea that would be overtaken by the gasoline engine.
The ideas behind the natural history Field Museum began at this World’s Fair in Jackson Park, but the museum was moved to the current location in 1921.
Chicago was forever changed.
If you take the Green Line to Garfield Station, you are still a few blocks away from the University Campus and quite a bit away from Robie House. But if you take a bus from the station, make sure you do not miss the Fountain of Time outside Washington Park near one of the university boulevards.
Across from Robie House is a modern interpretation of the prairie style architecture. Robie House is being restored to the original interior design after many transformations at the whim of the university board of governors.
Frank Lloyd Wright’s home in Oak Park is much better at least from the outside and the surrounding neighbourhood, you know, if you had to choose which one of the two to visit.
From the university campus, I headed through Hyde Park and the Kenwood neighbourhoods after walking on the multi-use lake trail, along the lakeside with grass picnic areas and concrete steps set down like large sections of a Roman outdoor amphitheatre.
You can rent bikes off of street kiosks in the area, and I would do that instead of trying to walk about. The architecture in the neighbourhood shows the slow pace of progress through various phases of the South Side with residential towers side by side in different architectural styles, whereas today new neighbourhoods might experience several condominium towers being built simultaneously within a few years of each other, creating a new modern neighbourhood (not more housing projects).
I saw some drug dealing in a little grassy traffic island on the way to lunch. Hyde Park seems safe enough during the day though, with the neighbourhood gradually on the upswing with Chicago bungalows having been restored beside still vacant dilapidated ones. I had lunch at Norman’s Bistro on the corner of 43rd street.
While I was in the area I walked down 43rd toward the Expressway where there is run down Fuller Park with boarded up street fronts and crumbling sidewalks held together with grass growing through the cracks. I would not call the area on either side of the expressway a neighbourhood, although after visiting the homeless in the Seattle Jungle, underneath the concrete viaducts, Fuller Park is one better. The area had been originally settled by Irish immigrants in the 1800s, but 30 percent of the community area was lost to the expressway that was constructed through the middle of the neighbourhood that was always a poor working class neighbourhood with outdoor toilets as late as 1950 when the expressway came through.
The now small community has 40% unemployment and no hope of reforming into a substantial neighbourhood divided not only by the expressway and the elevated transit lines, but also on racial lines with obvious segregation where black stops and white starts – a noticeable segregation of communities divided by more than rich and poor and the expressway. Race seems the only reason not to amalgamate all these social fragments into one community.
The expressway is ten lanes or is that 14 lanes through the suburbs into the city core. The Shoreline Drive follows the lakeshore leaving a small band of park for the multi-use lake trail and a number of small parks and a few narrow beaches in the South Side.
The transit lines outside the city have long elevated outdoor stations so each train can pull about ten cars or more every 10-15 minutes.
The Blue Line slowly lumbers down the middle of the expressway in the divide between going and oncoming traffic lanes from O’Hara to Downtown Chicago. The Blue Line then redirects back into the suburbs slightly further south east along side the expressway. Once in a while the trains will stop for signal traffic and also for mysterious mechanical issues that the conductor fixes by going into a magic box in the floor of the train car.
The conductors have other functions as well, such as looking out the window and checking the platform on arrival at a station before heading toward the next station, and general passenger security, watching out to make sure Dorothy and Toto make their way on board okay.
Picasso’s two different women in the heart of the city – one facing north and one facing south is the sculpture he chose to give Chicago so it must have significance to the city. The neighbourhoods to the South just have not gotten a break.
Englewood on the southwest side of Chicago is one of two neighbourhoods on the top of the crime incident list with the worst areas between 71st street and 79th street. Unemployment, followed by dropping property values, after South Works Steel closed, essentially shuttered the community’s commercial activities with long streets down 71st, 72nd, 75th streets and 79th lined with all boarded up retail buildings and fast food franchises.
The two story tenements of brick and mortar seem secure, but there is very little business activity or community center since the 29,000 residents have less than zero disposable income.
The City set aside an industrial centre for trucking after the expressway divided this community, and the Union Stock Yards closed in 1971 after the meat packing industry gradually decentralized.
I rented a bike from one of the many kiosks in the downtown and outlining areas, spending $15 for a three hour ride, and $3 there after for each additional 30 minutes. If you cannot cycle back to your starting point, you can leave the bike at a destination kiosk and take public transit back to the hotel.
I had started at Millennium Park, but I was tempted to leave the bike at a kiosk in Hyde Park-Kenwood, as well as in Englewood, although I would not recommend Englewood as a destination to drive the car around let alone stop the bike and walk about.
Most of near Chicago seems safe during the day except for Englewood and Fuller Park, and many more parts are definitely not safe at night, especially areas beyond the transit lines to the South, such as Riverside. Some of the urban parks such as Washington Park, Jackson Park and Lincoln Park to the north are large parks with a number of trails that would create havens for crimes of opportunity after night fall.
I started at Millennium Park at 10:30 am. Renting a bike only took a few steps and a major credit card before the bike lock released. I headed through the park toward the lakeshore where I had seen the multi-use path on my first day spending a few hours having breakfast and walking through the lake park museum district – a large swath of land set aside between the city/Michigan Avenue and the lake.
The prairie stretches right to the lake with the only mountains being the ones made out of concrete glass and steel.
South was the direction though with a nice breeze off the lake during a heat wave.
Along the shore I saw a few small sandy beaches and those Roman style concrete steps for hanging out on being mostly left empty – not just a staircase but a grand step for maybe 100-200 people.
The shoreline, like the city, seems to have been built for a much larger population that suddenly stopped growing maybe two or three times over the generations, which is reflected by the different architectural styles side by side one another, including several post-modern buildings being built and a few already standing, such as Roosevelt University near Michigan Avenue.
The Riverwalk along the river canal below the city streets is just one activity oriented around the river – another one of which is turning around and looking at post card perfect images of bits and pieces of the skyline, usually above one of the 20 steel bridges crossing the Chicago river loop.
Anyway, heading south along the lakeshore, apparently Chicago does not get started until the afternoon, because hardly anyone anywhere was on the lakeshore on the way South. But on the return trip headed north by mid-afternoon, everybody who wasn’t there in the morning had apparently had their coffee and claimed a piece of the lakeshore for the late afternoon sun.
On the way home the city skyline glimmers in the distance with broken blocks of concrete from the reclamation project 100 years ago left on the park edge and in the lake water like Roman ruins.
Julia C Lathrop was the first housing project in Chicago in 1937. Unemployed architects from the Great Depression lived there on the North Side, and then World War II veterans, and eventually many of the housing projects were taken over by gangs, not just in Chicago but elsewhere in cities across America.
I rented a bike again at Millennium Park, and this time I headed north along the lake trail into he North Side. I thought that getting away from the 14 lane expressway (it seems to be getting wider as more lanes get added each day I explore Chicago) would be a good idea, but the eight lane shoreline drive follows the lakefront trail northward with often only a few feet of lawn between the bikes and the cars. Now the way I learned math was that 14 plus 8 made 22, unless you’re in Chicago where 22 still does not seem enough. On my way out of town to O’Hara, the afternoon commute had already started at 4 pm with the cars bumper to bumper from wherever the expressway first appeared along side the Blue Line all the way out to the last community before the airport.
Chicago built out the North and all around the Near North of the city including the Near South near north and along the lakeshore with the end points of transit lines indicating just how far the city wants the development to sprawl. The neighbourhoods in utter disrepair and run over by violent gangs in the 1970 have now been gentrified without the massive redevelopment that displaced existing populations.
Chicago also has regional ground trains and a traffic jam to the South.
When Picasso chose the sculpture for city square the surroundings suburbs were near uninhabitable for all but the gangs carrying on the culture of crime and violence from the Prohibition Era. Communities had been bombed out from neglect. Just as the perception of the sculpture changes as you walk around the square, and the light banks off the base like a sun dial leaving a sliver of light as hope for the city, Chicago has been gradually reclaiming neighbourhoods from the gangs and the drug dealers and the pimps and prostitutes in the suburban slums.
The North Side is safe enough during the day, even near Lincoln Park.
I stopped at Murphy’s back of Section 10 just outside the stands for a beer at Wriggly Field. The baseball stadium is surrounded by apartments and a larger town built around the marque sports stage like a university district.
On my way back down south, I cycled by one of the few gangster buildings not yet demolished. The Biograph Theatre where the FBI caught up to Depression Era bank robber John Dillinger still exists. I passed through a slightly eerie moment near the spot his body lay on the sidewalk, having been shot from behind as he exited the movie theatre.
I checked out of my room and then checked my bag downtown. I spent the early afternoon in the natural historical museum. The Field Museum was originally part of the Columbian World Fair in 1893. The city cleared out the exhibition grounds in Jackson Park, and in 1921 relocated the natural historical museum to Grant Park, after the lakeshore had been reclaimed from industry for public use.
The Field Museum is a great place to take kids who just have to catch a glance of the large dinosaur skeleton discovered in the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation in South Dakota. The Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton was 90 per cent recovered. The museum has other dinosaur skeletons as well as a good natural history lesson for the kids.
