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.
