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Sears Tower
(stolen photo) |
Monday, August 14…
So there are actually free guided walking
tours of Chicago. We met our guide, Alex, in front of the Sears/Willis Tower
at 10am this morning. The rest of our group included a couple from Israel, another from LA, family
of 4 from Philly, millennial gal from Oregon, another young woman from Peru,
and maybe one other couple. Alex was young (everyone’s young when you’re over
70) - a native Chicagoan who really loves the city and knows a great deal about
it (at least about The Loop, the only section of the El still in use, which was our focus area). We learned that the engineering
definition of skyscraper has little to do with height. (Skyscrapers have
exterior cladding hung on an interior steel frame, as opposed to masonry
construction that supports itself.) We also learned the advantages of "setting in" portions of a tall bldg (Sears Tower a great example). Architecture is intrinsically woven into Chicago's history. I can't remember most of the details, so I'll just share some pics...
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| Wheat & Corn |
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| Picasso |
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| Rookery Bldg: outside... |
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...and in. (atrium design, updated in white
by Frank Lloyd Wright in 1905)
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| Enjoying a Chicago dog at... |
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| Max's - tiny place, super busy. |
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...and down on a train (from
our parking garage). |
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| Looking up at the El platform... |
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| (milk in the cup) |
BlogThoughts… 1. After our lunch we went back to The
Palmer House (historic hotel), where supposedly the first brownie was created,
and purchased 2 of these equally historic confections. Beautifully presented,
with a recipe card attached. No need to keep the recipe, though – mine (Hershey’s)
are way better. An interesting note on the recipe, though – the amounts are all
in weights: 12 oz sugar, for example.
2. One final
note on Chicago buildings. I mentioned in an earlier entry that there’s not
much elevation here. Our guide today reminded us that this is prairie country,
and it’s full of swampland. (That much I’d definitely noted at the
campground!). There’s no bedrock to anchor buildings, so (and this is a very simplistic explanation) they sink
girders into the muck crosswise (+++) until they settle and then fill with
concrete (I think) and build up from that.
3. I’d never
want to live in any big city, but I’d definitely like to visit Chicago again.
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Here's where it begins. I hope
we manage to travel a bit of it. |
The Rookery Building is beautiful. I'll have to look up what it is. 😊 Chicago being the Windy City must give it a bit of an edge over other big cities. Was it blustery when you were there?
ReplyDeleteRoute 66 - my lack of historical reference comes to the surface when all that makes me think of is the movie Cars. 😌