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Our last full day in Chicago was spent mostly on the streets of the Loop, seeking out and admiring some of the city’s most important and architecturally significant buildings and skyscrapers.

For $5 we were allowed to join a Chicago Architecture Foundation tour of the world’s tallest commercial building with load-bearing masonry walls – the Monadnock on West Jackson Boulevard.  With such a high density of fascinating structures to look at, the architectural layman like me would probably overlook the Monadnock.  Which would be a mistake because, as we learned from our guide, it has a fascinating history and some beautiful, unusual features.

It was actually built in two sections, by two different architectural firms; the north half was completed in 1891 by John Root and Daniel Burnham and the southern half was constructed two years later by design firm Holabird & Roche.

The two halves of the building are similar in scale and color, but quite different in style. The north half is often called a fountainhead of modern architecture because of its total absence of exterior ornament. Root evidently felt that all that was needed here was graceful form for the structure itself. The south half of the building, on the other hand, is a masterful early application of classical architectural principles to the design of a tall building.

A major thirteen year restoration project by the building’s owner William S. Donnell was launched in 1979, with the aim of taking the Monadnock back to its original condition stripped of intervening modernisations like carpeting and fluorescent lights.

This also included finding businesses to occupy the ground floor similar to those that would have existed in the 19th Century.  The result makes walking through the street-level corridor feel like being on a period movie set.  There’s a barber shop with black and white tiled floors, a shoe hospital where patrons site on high leather-clad chairs and have their boots shined, a milliners, and an old-fashioned ice-cream parlor operated by servers wearing white paper folded hats.

We had lunch in Cavanaugh’s Bar and another sensational cup of coffee from Intelligentsia which is styled like an Italian espresso bar with marble table tops.

The nearby Chicago Board of Trade is the world’s oldest futures and options exchange and was established in 1848, although it has existed in its current LaSalle Street canyon home since 1930.  It’s a huge, imposing building surmounted by a sculpture of Ceres, the Roman goddess of of agriculture, grain crops and fertility.  Guarding the entrance above the doors is a huge clock flanked on one side by an Egyptian holding grain and on the other by a Native American holding corn.

Inside is a temple to sumptuous Art Deco flair; meticulously preserved following a $20 million restoration that was started in 2005.  The three storey lobby is lined in black and white polished marble and the walls undulate upwards like clouds trimmed with nickel.

Equally beautiful is the interior of another Burnham & Root masterpiece, The Rookery.  It was completed in 1888 and is acknowledged as the oldest standing high-rise in Chicago.  The central light-filled two-storey atrium has been restored to the state it was in in 1905 when Frank Lloyd Wright renovated the lobby by incorporating a lot of white marble and decorative Persian-style details; concealing the original wrought-iron surfaces and opening up the lighting design.

From the Financial District we took the Loop to that great behemoth squatting on the bank of the Chicago River,  Merchandise Mart.  The building, which was built in 1930 and houses thousands of wholesale vendors, describes itself as the ‘epicenter for high design and luxury goods’.  Until the Pentagon was built in 1943 it was the largest building in the world in terms of floorspace and even had its own ZIP code up until 2008.

We walked slowly from the Near North Side along the river back towards Michigan Avenue Bridge.  In 1915 this section of the Chicago waterway was the site of the tragic SS Eastland disaster which is now considered the largest loss of life catastrophe from a single shipwreck on the Great Lakes.  Chartered to take Western Electric employees to a picnic in Michigan City, the ship was tied to the dock at full capacity on the morning of 24th July.  She began to list and, despite efforts by the crew to right her, rolled over killing almost 850 passengers and crew.

The weather was still unbelievably mild and we were passed by lots of people out running in shorts and T-shirts.  JM bought a fridge magnet and a Chicago Tribune mug from the shop in the newspaper building’s ground floor.

We continued our tour by walking out to the slightly shabby-round-the-edges Navy Pier.  Ahead of the Pier’s centennial in 2016, a competition has just launched to find a team to redesign the outdoor spaces.  The most wacky of all the concepts is probably one by !melk that incorporates a huge free-standing shard called the glacier which bursts out of the water at the head of the pier.

For dinner we agreed to give the Chicago icon another chance and walked from our hotel to Gino’s East on E. Superior Street.  This time around we had more success.  I had one of those crazy American salads over-loaded with sticky cranberries and walnuts and helped JM out by eating the crusts of his deep dish pizza.  We actually saw someone pass out at the table next to us in what we assume was a pizza-induced food coma, while his companion wasted no time in finishing off his leftovers.

And that, I think, is the end of the Chicago chapter or our US holiday adventure.  I was going to try and write up a bit of the New Orleans portion as well but I think I’m almost going square-eyed.
 
 
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I return to Monday in Chicago.  The weather had taken an unusually mild turn and every news bulletin was full of wonder at the contrast from the year before when a dozen people died in a blizzard and cars were buried beneath snow drifts.

We had planned for the clement change and decided to spend some of the day outside exploring the neighbourhood of Oak Park, home to the largest collection of Frank Lloyd Wright designed houses and buildings in the world with 25 structures built between 1889 and 1913.

It was [here] that Wright developed and perfected his signature Prairie Style architecture, emphasizing the use of interior light and open spaces in low, earth-hugging buildings. His designs changed the course of 20th century architecture.

I’m not an architecture buff and wasn’t really that familiar with Wright’s style before visiting Chicago – I think I’m right in saying he designed no buildings at all in Europe – but I was surprised by how different and exotic some of the houses looked.  One of the most startling was the Nathan G. Moore House which was originally completed in 1895 in the Tudor Revival style at the request of the architect’s client.

We also saw Wright’s own home and studio which he built with a $5,000 loan from his employer Louis Sullivan in 1889.  Although we weren’t able to see inside, a lovely lady from the Frank Lloyd Wright Preservation Trust (which began its thirteen year restoration of the property in 1974), offered to give us a tour of the exterior after JM bought a fridge magnet.

Wright used his home as an architectural laboratory, experimenting with design concepts that contain the seeds of his architectural philosophy. Here he raised six children with his first wife, Catherine Tobin.  In the Studio, Wright and his associates developed a new American architecture: the Prairie style, and designed 125 structures.

We had a late sushi lunch in Oak Park and headed back to the station under unbelievably blue skies and glorious sunshine.  The ride back into town, which took just under an hour, afforded another amazing view of Chicago’s skyscraper skyline.

Having seen it from the ground we now wanted the aerial perspective.  We had made a half-hearted attempt on Saturday night to get to the bar at the top of the John Hancock Center round the corner from our hotel but there had been a queue for the elevators so we quickly abandoned our attempt.  On a Monday afternoon however, the coast was clear, and we sailed in and up the ninety six floors to the panoramic views of The Signature Lounge.

It was almost embarrassingly empty and we were spoiled for choice of perfect tables.  When the John Hancock Center topped out in 1968 it was the tallest building in the world outside of New York.  On a clear day, from the Observatory, you can see for over eighty miles across 4 states –Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin and Illinois.

The view of the city and along the shoreline of Lake Michigan was astonishing.  From our corner spot we could see the Ferris wheel on Navy Pier and right across to the possibly even more famous Sears (now Willis) Tower in the financial district.

We must have spent hours there, soaking in the spectacle and watching as the light gradually faded and the sun transformed the sky into a hot orange electric blaze.  As the city lights started to twinkle the bar quickly filled with people straining to take photographs of the dizzyingly distant streets below.  Even the toilets had spectacular backdrops.

For dinner we opted to try out the much-recommended Pizzeria Uno on East Ohio Street, which claims to be the inventor of Chicago style deep-dish pizzas.  Now a successful chain, this North Side venue is the original establishment dating back to 1943 when Ike Sewell transformed what was once a snack into a cheesy American institution.

Our waitress was rather strange, and before we had even taken our seats she was telling us the wait time would be forty five minutes and that we would only need a small dish between us.  We had been well warned about the length of time it takes to make an authentic deep dish pizza and ordered some defrosted vegetables to pass the time.

In the end we were a little underwhelmed by the experience.  My salad was fine but JM’s individual pie was dry.  The groups that filled the tables round about us had obviously chosen more wisely; sharing large pans of juicy looking dough.

Back at the hotel we made a swift pit stop to change into our smart clothes and headed back down to the Coq d’Or bar for a couple of nightcaps and spot of rich-people watching.  Scandalously, I think we might have actually witnessed some high-end professional soliciting taking place.
 
 
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I don’t have very much time to write this morning as, for the next six hours, we are being turfed onto Toronto’s snow-covered streets.  We returned from our trip last weekend to the news that our building is up for sale.

It shouldn’t affect our tenancy but it does mean that for much of the weekend our house will be full of estate agents.  It’s unfortunate timing as we really are now having a cold snap – the snowfall outside is almost horizontal and the wind chill is making it feel like -29°.

But back to Chicago.  Day two dawned bright and sunny but seriously nippy.  We left our hotel and headed for Oak Street Beach on the shore of Lake Michigan.  This was a surreal experience for two reasons; firstly because – to me at least – the juxtaposition of sand and skyscrapers is always a strange and slightly shocking surprise and secondly because, given the intensely blue, cloudless sky and the postcard-perfect golden hue of the beach, it was almost impossible to believe that we could really be feeling so cold.

One of the draws of Chicago are the buildings, and we continued our architectural education with a walk along Astor Street which is home to several historically notable properties.  This district was officially designated a Chicago landmark in 1975 .  Charnley-Persky House at 1365 N. Astor Street has, according to the Society of Architectural Historians,  ‘long been recognized internationally as a pivotal work of modern architecture’.  It was the product of collaboration between architect Louis Sullivan and his protegé Frank Lloyd Wright.

From the Gold Coast we took the ‘L’ into Lincoln Park.  Here we found the Biograph Theater outside of which bank robber John Dillinger was fatally shot as he left a screening of Manhattan Melodrama.  We stopped for lunch and what might have been one of the best cups of coffee I’ve ever tasted at Bourgeois Pig Café on Fullerton Parkway.

We spent the rest of the afternoon in the Art Institute.  We only had a couple of hours before the gallery closed at five o’clock but we managed to complete a whirlwind tour that covered Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks, George Seurat’s A Sunday on La Grande Jatte, Grant Wood’s American Gothic, several Degas ballet scenes and some of Monet’s great London fog paintings.

We were ejected from the gallery knowing we hadn’t really done the collection justice but happy to have at least had a glimpse.  On the recommendation of the man behind the Hot Tix discount theatre booth we had bought tickets for a show at the Royal George Theater in Old Town so we made our way there and found a bar for a pre-performance drink.

The Doyle and Debbie Show was absolutely hilarious.  I’m running out of time before we get kicked so I’ll cheat and quote the official flyer: ‘…sublime parody, simultaneously lampooning and idolizing country music’s tradition of iconic duos and their subsequent battle of the sexes’.  We are still humming the tunes.

We had dinner at The Black Duck where we started our meal with the excitingly dubbed ‘Angels on Horseback’ – hot scallops wrapped in bacon.

Someone has just tried to come into our house even though the first booking isn’t for another half an hour! SO, signing off now but I will try and write more later when the invaders have departed.
 
 
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I am, at last, getting round to my wee blog.  JM and I returned on Sunday evening from an eight day wonder trip to Chicago and New Orleans.  What an adventure! And what a contrast.  I’m not sure we could have picked two more different North American cities.  But I think we ended up falling in love with them both.

The holiday got off to a great start with Porter who fly out of Billy Bishop Airport, which occupies a little island in Toronto Harbour near Cousin David’s apartment.  It’s super easy to get to (one streetcar ride for us), you get to take the world’s shortest scheduled ferry run (121m) and there’s free wifi and coffee.

We sailed through Customs at Midway in record time and were riding the Orange Line straight to the heart of Chicago.  This is an extremely cool way to arrive in the city for the first time.  The ‘L’ – or elevated line – consists of a number of arteries pulsing into the central Loop, which circles downtown Chicago, suspended above the streets.

Sometimes the buildings are so close you could easily reach out and touch them.  It gives you an astonishing sense of the city from a perspective you never normally get from buses or streetcars.  There is also a very talkative voice announcer who says things like, ‘soliciting and gambling are prohibited on CTA vehicles’.

Thanks to Cousin Kim and her friends and family Hilton deal we were able to stay in the very swanky Drake Hotel just off the Magnificent Mile.  And this is where we headed after dumping our bags and gawping at the outrageous flower displays.  We were not far from the famous Water Tower, the second oldest in the United States and one of the only buildings to survive the Great Fire of 1871.

The whole way down Michigan Avenue we were stopping to look at skyscrapers, but two of the most dramatic have to be Tribune Tower and the Wrigley Building directly opposite it.  Embedded in the lower walls of the latter are pieces of other world famous buildings brought back by Chicago Tribune correspondents; we saw parts of the Berlin Wall, the Taj Mahal, Notre-Dame and the Palace of Westminster.

Immune to the marrow-numbing winds and flaunting herself to the elements alongside the Tribune was the rather fabulous, twenty six foot statue of Marilyn Monroe.   Legs spread across Pioneer Court, overlooking the Chicago River, the sculpture was created by Seward Johnson and unveiled in July last year.

While the Tribune has described her as a ‘bare-legged, exposed-panties icon’, the Mail, perhaps unsurprisingly, referred to the artwork as a ‘public eyesore’; but one that at least has the decency to provide a public service by protecting tourists from the rain. I love her, rain or shine, and apparently we were lucky to get a peak up her skirt at all because she is due to be dismantled in the Spring.

The next, equally exciting over-sized piece of modern art we encountered on our wander was Anish Kapoor’s great big silvery bean in Millennium Park.  Wikipedia tells me it’s actually called Cloud Gate and is made up of 168 stainless steel plates welded together; its highly polished, seamless  surface reflects and distorts the city skyline and turns onlookers into squidgy, wobbly versions of themselves.

It was absolutely freezing but we must have spent a good hour walking round the strange, corner-less form taking photos.  There was an ice rink in the square below that was crammed with adults and children weaving round in endless loops and occasionally falling over.

After much hunting we eventually tracked down the original branch of the Billy Goat Tavern, which actively markets itself as a dive and advises patrons to enter at their own risk.  It has been visited by George Bush, Bill Clinton, Bill Murray, Frank Sinatra and Harrison Ford.  And now us.

I can’t believe it’s bedtime and I haven’t even finished writing about day one.
 
 
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