A mile of magnificence, and then some

Daniel Burnham was a splendidly-mustachioed American architect and planner, charged with rebuilding the City of Chicago after the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.  To my mind, the best quote ever attributed to Burnham was "make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood" and I think it perfectly characterises Burnham's approach to the 'new' Chicago.

One of the prime ingredients in Burnham's 1909 restoration plan for Chicago was a new commercial centre for the City, that would create retail opportunities away from overcrowded State Street.  With the opening of the Michigan Avenue bridge in 1920, the city was ready to give full expression to Burnham's vision for this busy district.

Regrettably, Daniel Burnham died eight years before The Magnificent Mile sprang to life, but I am fairly confident he would love what it has become.

The Magnificent Mile is the 13-block stretch of Michigan Avenue that runs from the Chicago River in the south to Oak Street in the north.  In that area alone, residents and visitors alike are spoiled with "460 stores, 275 restaurants, 60 hotels and unique entertainments", which includes art galleries and museums.  You can download official maps here to see what I mean.

If you're only in Chicago for a short time, and shopping's not really your thing, you should still walk the Mag Mile to get a feel for exactly what this amazing city has to offer.  We did exactly that on our second morning in Chicago and it was fantastic.  My friend Bolts had flown in from NYC to join us for her maiden visit to Chitown and we were so pleased to have her along.  

After a restorative brunch at super-popular Yolk, we headed back to Michigan Avenue and walked up and down the wide, clean promenades past the shops.  More than once, we remarked how lovely it was to have plenty of space on Michigan Avenue.  Had this been New York, we would have been pushing and jostling with people already.  Such a lovely change of pace for us.

Before long, we were back at the Michigan Avenue bridge and the top of the Magnificent Mile.  We crossed over the frosty Chicago River, which the City would dye green for St Patrick's Day less than a month after our visit.  Hard to believe the ice would have melted in time, no?

As we have already seen, the Magnificent Mile part of Michigan Avenue is dominated by shops, hotels, and restaurants.  But walk across the Michigan Avenue bridge and continue walking south, and you're into The Loop (Chicago's central business district).  You'll quickly note that the architecture becomes decidedly different here.  To the west, you've got big office buildings the occasional high-rise apartment residences.  But to the east, you've got beautiful Lake Michigan and some of the most elegant parklands and cultural institutions you'll see anywhere.

Case in point, we headed into Grant Park, named for decorated Civil War veteran and 18th President of the United States, Ulysses S. Grant.  This park is actually a monster, covering 319 hectares of prime lakefront real estate.  Locally referred to as "Chicago's front yard", Grant Park is put to sensational use throughout the year for a range of public events, music concerts, food festivals, and sports.  

The blustering winds and frosty weather prevented us from exploring Grant Park in its entirety, but we did stop to admire "The Bean", the world-famous sculpture in the Millennium Park section.  The sculpture's actual name is "Cloud Gate" and it was installed in 2006.  Created by Indian-born British artist, Anish Kapoor, The Bean stands 120-feet tall and is comprised of 168 shiny, stainless-steel plates welded together.  During installation, each plate underwent a 5-stage construction process and the end result is that they appear to have been fused together seamlessly.  Even on the cold day that we visited, you can see that the sun shines brilliantly off The Bean's mirrored surface.  Kapoor's vision was always that his sculpture would be publicly accessible but of course, that means The Bean gets pretty dirty.  Annual cleaning costs are estimated between $35,000 and $50,000 which are met through an annual endowment - no public tax dollars are used.

The Bean also overlooks the McCormick Tribune Ice Rink and we watched a bunch of ice skaters navigate their course, with varying degrees of success.  Anyone not brave or coordinated enough to skate should definitely call into the adjacent Park Grill Chicago, where the cocktails are unapologetically strong.

Our art and people appreciation in Grant Park wasn't quite done yet.  We walked past Crown Fountain in Millennium Park, which is one of the most fun places to people watch in summer.  Unfortunately, based on my photos below, Crown Fountain requires a bit more imagination in the winter.

As you can (hopefully) see, the fountains are huge free-standing structures, about 50 feet tall.  They use over 1 million LEDs to display the faces of Chicago residents that change expressions frequently. Between May and October, the faces pout and basically spit water out of their mouths.  The fountains are separated by a large granite slab (covered by the snow in my pictures).  Water spurts out of holes in the slab too, and many children play and splash in the water spouts during the warmer months.

Our final stop on the Grant Park whistle-stop tour was the gorgeous Art Institute of Chicago.  We didn't go inside this time (300,000 works of art being quite beyond us at this point), but I couldn't help but admire the majestic lions standing guard at the entrance.  Reminiscent of the New York Public Library, no?  Fans of "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" will of course recognise this building as one of the destinations that Ferris, Cameron, and Sloane visit in the City when they play hooky from school.   And who knows, if you come inside the Art Institute, you might be just as mesmerised by George Seurat's "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte" as Cameron was.

Whether it's shopping, food, art or architecture that floats your boat, Chicago's Michigan Avenue has it all. On our recent visit in frosty February, we only scratched the surface of the Magnificent Mile and the gorgeous parklands - there is just so much more to see.

The Griswolds Take Manhattan...again!

Mum and Dad came to town and the snow finally fell.  Mum was especially pleased.  Buttoning up our winter coats, we braved the elements and took off exploring, capturing some of the city icons at their best.  How we didn't get blown off The High Line in the Arctic breeze is anyone's guess!

My parents are in New York for a couple of weeks, and I took a few days off to show them around. These are just some early photos of our adventures.
Posted by The ABCs of NYC on Saturday, February 21, 2015

Touring New York's "Cathedral of Commerce"

In 1878, Frank Woolworth invented the concept of the "five and dime" discount store - a place where everything cost either 5 or 10 cents, and all the merchandise was on display.  Shoppers could see and touch what they wanted to buy; they didn't need shop assistants to fetch things for them.  We take this practice for granted these days but back then, Woolworth's retail model was revolutionary.  And his customers loved it so much that by 1911, when Mr Woolworth formally founded his company, he was worth many millions of dollars.

Business was going so well that Woolworth hired a famous architect named Cass Gilbert to design his company's corporate headquarters on Broadway, further requesting that it should be the tallest building in the world.  Gilbert had designed the beautiful US Customs House in New York a few years before, so Woolworth was confident he would design something extra special.  Gilbert got to work and two years later, in 1913, The Woolworth Building was complete.

 It stood proud at 793 feet tall and was, as requested, the tallest building in the world (at that time).  To secure such a record, Woolworth is purported to have kicked in the cash for the building's tower out of his own pocket (more than $13 million!).  But the investment was worth it because at the opening ceremony, the majestic Woolworth Building was declared by many to be New York's "Cathedral of Commerce".

Now back in the early days of skyscrapers, the giant Woolworth Building would have been a tourist drawcard in itself.  People marveled at the neo-Gothic architecture, the gargoyles, and intricate carvings around the main entrance.  But inside, office workers had down time at the indoor swimming pool, the day spa, the observation deck, and the restaurant and retail stores in the lower level.  And the subway even used to run right underneath, so commuting to and from the tallest building in the world was a breeze.

All of these attractions aside, I reckon that even back when the Woolworth Building was first constructed, people must have remembered it for the same reason that we do today: the lobby.  When he designed the lobby, Cass Gilbert totally outdid himself.  It is a beautifully ornate, almost church-like space.  The ceiling has tiny mosaic tiles all over it,  some of which have been coated with gold leaf to give them extra sparkle.  Tiffany won the contract to design the lobby's elevator doors, and they are especially fancy.  There are marble carvings in the cornices - some of them depict leading figures of the time (including Cass Gilbert himself, cradling a plaster model of the building - see below), but other carvings are those of nonsense characters, put there for a bit of fun.

Another fun detail is the inclusion of salamanders in the carvings.  Did you know that according to legend, salamanders are impervious to flames and can actually extinguish fire?  Apparently, lots of buildings all across New York City have salamanders featured in their carvings and metalwork etc to protect the buildings from fire hazards (figuratively, at least).  The Woolworth Building was constructed to stand the test of time - fire safety was foremost in Cass Gilbert's mind and the only wood in the whole place was actually in the banisters in the internal stairwells.  Superstitious though it may be, you can see the salamanders in the gold work of the mailboxes in the Woolworth Building lobby (see him on the bottom left of the photo here?).  Needless to say, I will have to keep my eyes open for more salamanders in other buildings from now on!

You used to be able to wander in off the street and browse the Woolworth Building lobby but not anymore.  These days, access is by guided tour only (you can book them online here), but it's absolutely worth it.  The lobby of the Woolworth Building is just beautiful.  I did a one-hour tour yesterday and our guide (Lisa) was sensational.  She confessed to spending much of her private time at the New-York Historical Society, reviewing the original plans of the building and reading the original correspondence about its construction and development, which they have stored in their archives there.  The trivia Lisa shared with us came from her own exhaustive research, not from anything she parroted from the internet or read off some tired tour script.  It was absolutely wonderful and well worth the $30 ticket price.  I only pasted a couple of photos from the tour because so many of them were blurry, or just didn't do the splendor of the lobby justice.  I would definitely encourage you to add the Woolworth Building to your bucket list of NYC adventures.