Day 1 - Chicago

A $75 rebate coupon on AirTran Airways, received last year, due to flight delays, was the catalyst to a great weekend spent in Chicago. Saurabh (my childhood friend and co-worker) and I decided to take the Friday off, to take one of our architectural sojourns to this city; we both have wanted to visit for a while.
Day 1 - (Friday, 28th July 06')
Our flight took off on time from La Guardia Airport, where the airport designers within us, noticed the lack of hold room space and waiting areas for passengers. I had just been ranting to Saurabh, on the flight, about how I usually manage to get a free ticket/ airline rebate on most trips and as if to affirm that, we walked into two ladies giving out free one-way air tickets and bags to random passengers. Since we were on vacation, we stopped by, filled out the necessary paperwork and after making sure our next trip is half-off, walked to the CTA Orange Line. Here I got my first taste of what henceforth will be referred as ‘Chicago nicety’ – A woman leaving the subway system, randomly handed over a one-day pass to me and said it is valid until tomorrow. I couldn’t help but think that I had never seen this happen in NYC, a doubt clarified later by Karthik, who had done the same in NYC, while visiting. (Karthik attended MP’s coaching classes with us, in the 10th grade, in Mumbai and we’ve never stayed in touch, since. A year ago I discovered his online existence through his blog and finally, now when I was to visit Chicago, we decided to meet up, as he’s recently moved there. We were going to be meeting after 12 years; not an everyday phenomenon, in either of our lives, so this was going to be fun.) All the same, this was a random stroke of luck and niceness combined, that became a precursor for a few other niceties I was subjected to in Chi town. Nicety no. 2 followed suit, when at the CTA station, the station manager allowed everyone to get through the turnstiles for free, as the ticket-machines were broken. Again, something I’ve never seen in NYC.
The CTA would take us to our stop, Van Buren and State, from where we were to take the Bus No. 6 to our hotel. Our hotel, the Ramada Inn Lake Shore, was on the Lake Michigan waterfront and was to have views of downtown Chicago in the distance, on a clear day.
The bus driver, a woman, was nice enough (overuse of term already?) to take the time to answer all our touristy queries and stunned us at one point, where she yelled out to everyone in the bus, asking if someone knew a shorter route to our hotel. Saurabh and I, were two pleasantly stunned but slightly shocked tourists, when we alighted the bus, after profuse ‘thank-you’s’ to the passengers. This town definitely means it, when they say; “We’re glad you are here!”; Mayor Richard Daly’s campaign line, pasted all over the city.
An early check-in into the hotel and a few “We’ve-landed-in-your-town” phone calls later, Saurabh and I were ready to research our maps and draw out the plan for the day. Karthik was to meet us in the evening for dinner and Suchi, we were meeting tomorrow. (Suchi and I went to undergraduate architecture school together, in Mumbai and have a lot of fond memories to look back on. We’ve also been pretty good at staying in touch with each other and often meet up in NYC when she visits. This was my first trip to her city, so I was looking forward to catching up with her in her own Chi town.)
The plan for the day was to head out into downtown, by the hotel shuttle, try to get the CAF (Chicago Architectural Foundation’s) Architectural River Cruise and then walk around exploring the architectural experiments within The Millennium Park. Our shuttle driver, was nice (there goes that word again) enough, to go out of his way, literally, to drop us at the base of the Wacker bridge, right where the cruise sets off from. Turns out, the cruise was booked until Saturday evening, which left us with the Sunday morning option. There are several types of cruises along the Chicago River, but this particular one by the CAF, is the best ‘architectural’ cruise, the other’s being more ‘touristy’. Saurabh and I, the fastidious architects that we are, hence were naturally more inclined to go with this one.
I had been told by various people that Chicago is a very clean city; someone once even went to the extent of saying that “You often wonder in the mornings, if elves came out and swept the city clean by night.” So its stark cleanliness is the first thing I noticed when we walked around. The Chicago urban fabric seemed to be a weave of Los Angele’s spacious sprawled spaces and NYC’s denser, grid city blocks. Main roads were spotless, at all times being minimum 3 ½ lane wide in either direction; city blocks seemed larger than Manhattan blocks, yet downtown felt more city-like than just a chunk, as in LA or some other cities in the US. The Elevated Loop (called ‘The El’ in short) is a characteristic feature of the city. I remember wondering, while watching Spiderman, how awesome it would be to have an elevated train running through Manhattan’s high rises and discovered in this trip, that Chicago actually enjoys that. As a commuter, the elevated trains are a pleasure because of the dynamic views they offer, but of course the noise and invasion of privacy caused by them, can be an issue of concern to offices along its edge. At any given point of time, in most areas of downtown Chicago, the train can be heard in the distance, an urban sound I was getting accustomed to, just as in NYC one gets used to fire-engine sirens.
A quick bite for lunch and we were walking towards the Millennium Park. En route we passed through the Chicago theatre district; a sort of mini-Broadway, lined by theatres and performance halls. Here is also where we first came across the ‘cow’; a classic Chicago sculpture, to be found in various parts of the city. My wise crack to Saurabh; ‘They have a cow on the street like we have a bull back home’ was received with a disinterested look. The cow is the O’Leary cow, which had apparently caused the Great Chicago Fire, in October 1871. Quoted from http://www.thechicagofire.com/:
“One dark night, when people were in bed,
Mrs. O’Leary lit a lantern in her shed,
The cow kicked it over, winked its eye and said,
There’ll be a hot time in the old town tonight.”
Next to the cow, was a temporary set-up of a guy with a banner, that read; ‘Help me train for the World Rock Paper Scissors Championship in Toronto.’ Interesting, I said to myself, and almost volunteered practice help to the aspiring champion, but figured we had an agenda, and moved on towards the Millennium Park. Up ahead, was Frank Gehry’s Jay Pritzker bandshell; a sort of a cultural misfit in titanium, that perched itself on a grass mound and radiated tentacles all around it, to create a semi-enclosed seating space for the audience. Come sit in me, the light trellis roars to its viewers, hear me play and watch me engulf you and the performance, to transcend you to a surreal urban experience. Look away from within me, to view the spectacular city skyline, all around you.
I have seen quite a few of Gehry’s works and I must say, this was the worst one, so far. Gehry, is a brand phenomenon; his work is barely ever contextual or site-specific; in fact die-hard Gehry fans will even go on to say, that it’s generic quality, is what makes his work, internationally commendable. The Chicago bandshell, is an example of his stamp on the city; a stamp as Saurabh exhorted, possibly fully drawn and designed by an intern in his office. We were reminded of the last time we saw Gehry’s Disney Concert Hall in downtown LA, and how differently it reacted to its spaces, both internal and external; in my mind a true Gehry masterpiece. The aesthetics of this proscenium, were sort of distorted, like a badly skewed Maya model, where the designer couldn’t control the ‘nurbs’ and extruded facades anyways. Saurabh noticed that part of the imperfection in the facades of the stage, were due to snow-collection that may have indented the surfaces.
The proscenium design alienated us, but the audience arena, with its framed, broken mosaic views of the skyline and semi-spatial qualities, welcomed us. I didn’t want to touch the stage, but I wanted to be one with the lawn under the trellis; such were the polarities this structure aroused in me. I said to Saurabh, “We always end up seeing works done by the wrong ‘Frank’.” (For the non-architectural readers, Frank Gehry and Frank Lloyd Wright are two famous architects; the former is a post-modernist ‘blob’ brand phenomenon, while the latter is considered to be one of the ‘Masters’ of Architecture. Among his most famous works are the house he built on a waterfall near Pittsburgh, appropriately called as 'Falling Waters'; a trip I ve yet to make.)
A short walk from Gehry’s sculpture is Anish Kapoor’s 110 ton elliptically arched, highly reflective, spotlessly polished, steel sculpture. This masterpiece, made it to my ‘list of favourite sculptures’, the moment I set my eyes on it. A site-specific work of art, this steel cloud, reflects the Chicago skyline and the Millennium Park on its curvaceous façade, while interacting with the crowd, letting them intersperse its spaces and make funny faces into the steel exterior. It was easily the most popular sculpture in the park.
Tall funny men on stilts walked around, entertaining little kids and 'grown-up kids' alike and not asking for tips; another thing I wasn’t used to. Chicago seemed to be more family-oriented in its urban outlook; most spaces seemed to be flocked by people with children and I didn’t remember seeing as many family-oriented spaces in NYC. Possibly speaks for the demographics and affordability of both cities, where young couples with children apparently still seemed to live in the city as versus in the case of Manhattan, which is gradually working towards eradicating its middle-class. Saurabh was put through the usual exercise, of taking my pictures against various backdrops and one while holding hands with tall-man-on-stilts.
We then walked towards the Lurie Gardens; another aspect of the park, landscaped with various seasonal flowers. On display, was an outdoor exhibition of various landscaped areas in the world, which ranged from Central Park in NYC to mini indoor landscaped spaces in Tokyo. People sat with their feet in narrow water canals that ran parallel in the gardens, to relieve themselves from the heat wave looming over the city. We couldn’t help but think, how beautiful an element, water is, in such outdoor landscapes; it’s a pity that it isn’t half as much appreciated in this form, when used in India.
We crossed over to walk to the Art Institute, where the next ‘Chicago nicety’ occurred. The security guard, a friendly woman asked us if we were going in to see the regular exhibits. (This random-people-talking-to-us was taking a little getting-used-to.) We nodded and in return she informed us that in the next 45 minutes, the museum entry was going to be free, so we should wait if we wanted to escape the fee. The reason this goes down as a nicety, is because I’ve never heard of a similar occurrence at the MOMA in NYC, where they have Target-free Friday’s. I told Saurabh, that if I get used to such niceties, I may be in for a rude shock when we go back home.
So with 45 minutes to kill, we walked back to the park to see the last sculpture, the Crown Fountain; a water sculpture involving two 50 ft high glass towers activated by changing video images and lights and water cascading from them. Both towers line the ends of a shallow pool, where children and adults wandered around in their swimwear, squealing every time water spouted from the towers. Each tower projected video images of different people, (only their faces), which we thought was a brilliant idea that could be put to commercial use, for occasions such as birthdays, wedding proposals, announcements etc. A rickety stall set up near the sculpture, encouraged passers-by to walk over and make a move on the many chess boards, kept on the table. Chicago seemed to not have reservations of what goes on in it's streets, in that aspect it seemed to be a city of the people.
At 5 pm we were back at the Art Institute, for our free entry into the museum and the next 2 hours were spent looking at a very large collection of artwork, especially paintings and architecture-related exhibits. Works of maestro’s such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Monet, Van Gogh, Mondrian, Cezanne lined the walls. The museum has an impressive collection and we were glad we didn’t skip it on this trip.
At 6:30 pm, Karthik was to meet us at the Gehry sculpture, which had a jazz concert starting at 6 pm. In keeping with our ‘outdoor-concert’ theme of this summer, we thought we’d catch the concert and also experience the functionality of the ghastly designed sculpture. We weren’t disappointed, as the space worked very well as a public outdoor concert space and once lit, the stage area seemed to emanate character, along with soulful jazz to the audience.
On meeting Karthik, 'catch-up' conversation followed and after sometime at the concert, we decided to walk across the Millennium bridge and take a cab to the Navy Pier. The Millennium bridge is a winding, extended arm of the titanium clad, poorly detailed, Gehry sculpture that connects the park to the other side of the street. While on the bridge, I noted the light-play on a building façade; the letters ‘CFD’ (Chicago Financial District or Chicago for Dummies, I wasn’t sure) made with the lights of various offices within the building. Karthik imparted to us a little bit of Chicago trivia here, which to me was the ultimate ‘Chicago nicety’. He said as a law, the city dims its lights at night, for certain durations of the year, so as not to confuse migratory birds or affect their flight patterns. This consideration on behalf of the city, towards birds, let alone all the niceness I had already experienced towards people, made me a fan of Chicagoans for sure.
The Navy Pier is a waterfront element of the city and an essential to-do, on a Chicago tourist’s list, which offers spectacular views of the lake and the city skyline. So we decided to spend the rest of our evening there and hopefully grab some good fresh-water seafood while at it. Turns out Navy Pier is a lost brother of Pier 33 in San Francisco; a purely manufactured artificial pier, with ferry lights and cruise boats; restaurants lining one side of it and the lake on the other. A huge Ferris wheel stood out, that seemed very inviting, except that my company wasn’t keen enough to join in. We walked all along the pier, where various cruise boats took off from and reached the Beer garden (that has apparently made the Navy Pier a destination spot) where an alive, beer-consuming crowd grooved to a live band performing contemporary rock music. Dinner was had at Riva’s Café, on an outdoor patio, overlooking the river and the city skyline. Tilapia with Couscous was my choice (and a good one, as I realized later) for the meal, to replenish myself with enough proteins for tomorrow morning’s run.
After dinner, we got a cab back to the hotel and I realized that NYC is not the only city in the US, where you can hail a cab. In fact, Chicago has more cab company options, all offering similar rates, to take people around, not a bad idea for NYC to learn from. The cab ride was a beautiful lakefront drive, all along Lake Shore, from the Navy Pier in the North to our hotel in the South. All along, as I stared at the Chicago skyline, I realized, it appears like the vertical bars from a graphic equalizer; musical notes, sort of frozen at various summits, to create this random razzmatazz skyline. In the distance stood the Sears’ tower, this country's tallest man-made claim, in its jet black magnificence and next to it gleamed the fragile, crescent moon; my picture perfect end to a beautiful day spent in this city.