Day 29: In the Land of the Smelly Onions

That's what Chicago means! It was a low-lying marshland where only onions would grow. And so when the first white settlers asked the native people what they called this place, that's what they told them! Earning the city one of its many nicknames, The Big Onion. 

One other crop turned out to grow rapidly on this marshy soil: the skyscraper. After the entire city burned down in 1871, when it was entirely made of wood, it was rebuilt using non-flammable materials such as brick, glass and steel. So rapidly that by 1893 the city was ready to host the World's Fair. New Yorkers scoffed, claiming that their city was the biggest and best and really ought to host the Fair, and that Chicagoers were full of hot air (hence "The Windy City") and their city was second-best ("Second City"). But the plan went ahead, giving the city dozens of beautiful Art Deco skyscrapers and its characteristic overhead railway lines, collectively known as "The El".

Chicago's oldest standing skyscraper, The Rookery, is actually only ten floors high

Inside it is a beautiful lobby redecorated (in white and gold) by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1905

I learned all about the early skyscrapers from the "Birth of the Skyscraper" free walking tour with a very knowledgeable and friendly guide, Alexander. But before that I started out my day at the former city library, now the Chicago Cultural Center, as recommended by my hosts, to see the Tiffany glass domes and the art exhibitions.

Exhibition: Eugene Eda's doors for Malcolm X College 

In the central courtyard is a series of ladders and staircases inspired by Piranesi
Unfortunately too dangerous to allow public access!

On the bottom floor of the Cultural Center was an interesting facility: A Protest Banner Lending Library!

It included a bulletin board where you could draw and post your own ideas for protest signs.

When I went out of the centre and headed to the Central Market to pick up some vegan tamales for lunch, I came across some protest signs in action!

The skyscraper tour ended at the fountain in Grant Park, the perfect place for a nap in the shade before continuing to explore the shore of Lake Michigan and Millennium Park. 

Millennium Park features plenty of sculptures, the best known of which is Anish Kapoor's Cloud Gate, better known locally as "The Bean" (so that it will go well with the onions, I guess). 

  

Another sculpture that also has a function is Frank Gehry's Jay Pritzker Pavilion, an open-air concert venue where free concerts are held twice a week on summer nights. 

I returned to Millennium Park later in the evening to hear one of these free concerts, featuring the No BS Brass Band in an odd but effective blend of different musical genres played entirely on brass instruments.

Back in Millennium Park for a free evening concert

The No BS Brass Band

But first I walked along Michigan Avenue past all sorts of other interesting buildings....

Renzo Piano's Modern Building for the Art Institute of Chicago

Another of that guy's towers

The Wrigley Building

Riverboat cruise as seen from the Wrigley Building

The Wrigley Building & Trump Tower

The Chicago Tribune Building

... to the Hancock Centre, which I had been told was more interesting to go up than the Sears Tower (now Willis Tower). There are two ways to do it: pay $20 to go up to the Observation Deck on the 94th floor, or pay $10 to have a beer in the Signature Lounge on the 94th floor. Guess which one I chose?  

The view westward from the 96th floor lounge.
Looks like I have a lot of flat land to cover tomorrow!