Thursday, July 29, 2021

Neil Steinberg's Day off

 

St. Regis Tower viewed from Maggie Daley Park's Cancer Survivors' Garden

     Left to my own devices, I'd rather be working. And between the column and the book and the blog, God knows there's plenty of work to do. So when my wife suggested we chuck our obligations Wednesday and go downtown for a "vacation day," to ensure we wouldn't make noise and bother our oldest while he's downstairs taking the New York State Bar Exam, I went along, batting away qualms.
     Such as the moment, early in the morning, when I was at my desk, pulling reference art for the artist illustrating my book to base drawings upon. "Why am I going anywhere when I need to get this done?" I thought, grimly. I shook that off.
     We boarded the 7:56 Metra downtown. "Smiling faces under those masks!" the conductor urged. "Let's have those masks on please." People complied. Arriving downtown, we walked across the Loop. Normally we'd have gone to the Art Institute—it's been a year and a half since we've been inside. But it's closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays, due to COVID crisis scheduling, so we picked up tickets for the 10 a.m. Chicago Architecture Center river tour on the Emerald Lady. I'll admit that my enjoyment of the tour was tempered by already knowing just about everything the docent said, and more. I had to retrain myself to keep from shouting out what I thought were salient details she sidestepped. But Edie loved it, and it was fun to spend 90 minutes on the river on a gorgeous warm summer day, first up the north branch to the Freedom Center, then down to River City, and back along the main branch, out to the lock. She didn't make a single factual error, and that might have riled me too, because I was primed and waiting for the joy of correcting others. 

     After, we headed to Ming Hin for a dim sum lunch, then crossed Randolph and wandered Millennium Park. Neither of us had actually been in Maggie Daley Park—we always pull up at the Bean—and it was fun to explore the place, with its clunky climbing walls and Cancer Survivors' Garden, which has a great view of Jeanne Gang's St. Regis, née Vista, Tower. There are a series of metal plaques offering advice to those facing cancer, including the dubious proposition that you can beat it if you really set your mind to the task, and that a good doctor will be a man. But I still managed to enjoy the place, despite, or perhaps because, of that.
     We swung over to the Chicago Yacht Club and walked down the lakefront, passing Segway tours and women in hijabs learning to kayak. We ended up relaxing in the lobby of the newly open Palmer House, enjoying a cold beverage and sharing a brownie, which the Palmer House claims to have invented and may very well have. There definitely were more people downtown, and it's good to be among them and see the city opening up, if only briefly before the next crisis arrives.



16 comments:

  1. After 35 years in and around Chicago I moved to St Louis two years ago. I was surprised to learn how much there is to do in St Louis - world class symphony, great theater, the zoo, botanical garden, St Louis Art Museum, an amazing History Museum, wooded hills loaded with wineries, a remarkable park system, sports stadiums, Cahokia Mounds, Fairmont Park, the Muny Opera, and on and on. But riding a bike along the Mississippi pales in comparison to riding along Lake Michigan, and the skyscrapers are few and far between in Mound City. Your article mirrored adventures I've had countless times in the city and made me a little wistful and a lot jealous. Chicago is a remarkable place and I miss it terribly - but, the next time I go to one of the many free cultural institutions in St Louis, zoom into a free parking place, then zoom back to my house without cursing traffic, the wistfulness and jealousy will be tempered. Thanks for the great article and a reminder of what a wonderful downtown Chicago has. Oh - St Louis now has it's own Jeanne Gang building overlooking Forest Park. Not as grand as her work in Chicago, but on a scale that befits St. Louis' spot in the pecking order of great midwestern cities.

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  2. I've taken a river tour 4 or 5 times, but the last couple of docents failed to repeat the old joke about Chicago sending polluted water down the river to St. Louis, which puts it in cans and sends it back to Chicago as Budweiser. I assume there were complaints from St. Louis or Belgium. Lawyers are no fun -- I know from very personal experience.

    john

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    1. Coincidentally, I’ll be taking a tour tomorrow, so I’ll let you know if the joke is made.

      Neil, I’m so sorry to hear that you’re “that guy" on tours. 🧐

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    2. What do you mean? I didn't say a word. A guy's allowed to think, isn't he?

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    3. No doubt the suspense has been killing everyone, but no joke about the river water. Didn’t really speak directly about the river. As it turned out, it wasn’t a CAC tour, just a Wendella one. My daughter bought the tickets, so I wasn’t sure going in. Regardless, it was a gorgeous day and a scenic voyage.

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  3. Neil, I'm a CAC docent (and speaking for myself, not the CAC). In fairness to your docent Corinne, there are only so many seconds we can devote to any particular building because we only want to talk about things that you can see without looking behind. I'd bet any of us could talk twice as much than we do about any buildings we include.

    "She didn't make a single factual error, and that might have riled me too, because I was primed and waiting for the joy of correcting others." -- the absence of factual errors doesn't surprise me! -- the docent training (and constant refreshing) is meticulous.

    Thanks for taking the tour, and writing about it.

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    1. I once had a Seadog cruise from work, so I didn't pay for it & the guide made one mistake after another, while on the river.
      He even said Union Station was built by the Union Pacific, which is not only wrong but absurd, as there are Union Stations in many other cities the Union Pacific never went to.
      It was actually built by the Chicago Union Station Co., [CUSCO], which was made up of the Pennsylvania, Burlington, Michigan Central & the Milwaukee Road.
      The UP trains that entered Chicago used Northwestern Station, which never should've been built, because the original plans for the Northwestern was to enter Union Station at the second floor level at Adams St., but the Northwestern, which was perpetually close to bankruptcy, couldn't afford the extra cost of demolishing their building, buying the land & extending the tracks to Union Station.

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  4. Sounds like a typical day for us when we come to visit our son.
    Before our first visit, everyone told us to make sure we take the architectural boat tour. We've gone three times so far. Same thing, we sort of know the area now but each guide has their own style which keeps things interesting.
    Looking forward to our next trip in October.

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  5. Worked as a tour guide on the Wendella boats for several summers (you were on my boat once), and was quickly corrected at the beginning of my tenure: it's "lock." There's only one.

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    1. Fixed, though I'm confused. Don't they have to have a pair? One to go through, then the water height is adjusted, and the other opens. Two locks.

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    2. Nope… one lock. When its water is at river level, boats exit to and enter from the river. They close the gate on the river side. Then they crack open the gate on the lake side; the water fills in, raising the level to lake level. The gate opens wide and boats go out, and in. They close the gate on the lake side. Then they crack the gate on the river side and let the water out. Repeat.

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    3. You go in. You go up or down. You go out. That's a lock.
      A few years ago, we were on a barge trip on a canal in France (highly recommended way to spend a week, by the way). On the first day we went thru 16 separate locks.

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  6. What, not a mention of the Eastland so close to the anniversary of the disaster? Here’s a question: is the building that housed the Sun-Times before the paper moved to the site of today’s Trump Tower still standing?

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    1. Because I wrote a comprehensive piece on the centennial in 2015, and sometimes repost that. You're a newcomer, so might not know the lay of the land: I try not to rewrite the same material. Yes, 211 W. Wacker is still there. If you're wondering why your remark about the canals in England wasn't posted, it didn't meet the blog's standards, failing due to being inexplicit.

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  7. In a couple more weeks, it'll be nearly three decades since I moved to Cleveland, after having been born and raised in Chicago and living there for half my life. Including 17 years as an adult. I miss live jazz and the Cub games. I miss the 'L' and the pizza. I miss South Evanston. I miss Rogers Park. I don't miss the expense, the traffic, trying to park, apartment living, gentrification, and too many other hassles.

    When I left in '92, Millennium Park was still nothing more than a vast parking garage. Downtown has grown and changed and expanded so much, both outward and upward, that I barely recognize it when I see images of it, or when I make an increasingly rare visit. Haven't been back since the night the Cubs won the pennant. I'll always have that.

    When I was driving the U-haul box truck south on the Ryan, past "New Comiskey"...I glanced in the rear-view mirror, saw the "Sears Tower" and the rest of the famous skyline against the hazy August sky, and realized, with a sudden jolt to the heart, that my Chicago days were truly over, at 45. After 36 years in the city and suburbs, I would never be living in my birthplace again.

    Paraphrasing Neil Diamond: "Cleveland's fine but it ain't home, Chicago's home but it ain't mine no more."

    Twenty-nine summers ago. Sometimes, it feels like a day.

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  8. "women in hijabs learning to kayak"

    The most American image I've heard in a long time...

    Thanks Neil.

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