Elemental Chicago
How do you describe Chicago? And I do mean, how do you describe Chicago? Terroir is going to have a crack at it now, but we’d like to know how you saw this complex city. I’m sure many of you have been there.
How does the woman with her buggy (sorry, stroller) think of Chicago, or the guy on the bike? Here (below) is how many tourists see it.
As we explored, we (or one of us, anyway) began to think of this city in terms of fire, water and air – three of the four classical Greek elements used to explain the complexity of the world. The fourth element – earth – is of course underpinning the whole thing, but to us in Chicago, the four elements which appeared to best explain the city are fire, water, air and, underpinning the whole thing, railways.
Amazingly, we managed to arrive in Chicago by train, using Amtrak’s Southwest Chief service from Los Angeles (we got on at Albuquerque).
Locomotive 158 (right) is a big beast but still struggled with some of the steeper gradients.
Amtrak LA to Chicago is a historic line but with a modern service: if you have time to spare and don’t mind sleeping in some pretty luxurious recliner seats, then it’s cheaper than flying. Sleeper accommodation is pricey but includes all meals, free scenery and use of the observation car. Worth every penny.
Excited by the idea of arriving in Grand Central Station, that legendary piece of Chicago history and architecture, we hoped for a memorable initiation into the ‘Windy City’. Not so. ‘Legibility’ was poor. How do we get out of this damned rabbit warren? We stumbled into the recently renovated Great Hall and nearly missed it due to a bizarre installation blocking our way and rendering that amazing centre piece, with its lines of wooden benches, all but invisible. Outside the ‘temporary main entrance’, on Clinton Street, the traffic roared past, annihilating any sense of a triumphant arrival. Heigh ho.
Above: left - the way in to Grand Central seemed simple, but the way out (right) was much trickier.
Below: we passed some lovely detailing - sometimes more than once. That stairway to heaven was very misleading.
We will return to railways in a later blog, but let us now turn to fire.
Everyone told us about Chicago’s architecture, so our first visit was to the much-hyped Chicago Architecture Center, located close to the Chicago River. Good location, wide range of tours, interesting displays, funky shop (box set of small wooden blocks to build your own park – so tempting), clean loos but - no café. We’d booked an architectural walking tour which was excellent but decided against the Center’s own river boat tour on grounds of cost, duration (long) and competition from other providers. We did, eventually, book a trip with the competition and had an excellent tour which better suited our pockets and timetable. Such is business.
We were told, as I’m sure many of you know, that fire was key to the development of modern Chicago.
Due to its Lake Michigan location, the area was always important. The indigenous population enjoyed the bounty of its rivers and forests and developed extensive trade routes, exploiting water transport, and good portage routes to drag boats from one waterway to another. The future site of Chicago City would be located at a particularly advantageous portage point.
Sadly most internet histories of Chicago start with the destruction or exploitation of this indignous culture, merely noting the legacy of mispronounced names (probably mangled by both French and then Anglophone speakers) and some modern roads and railways built on the routes of the original trails. We did, however, particularly enjoy this website (https://interactive.wbez.org/curiouscity/chicago-native-americans/) which provided a much longer perspective.
As the Europeans started to arrive on the continent, many traders and missionaries passed through this area, but Chicago’s first permanent settler is usually cited as Jean-Baptiste-Point Du Sable who is reported to have set up a thriving trading post towards the end of the 18th century (although he seems to have moved away by 1800). Fort Dearborn was established soon after, was destroyed in the (US/British) war of 1812 but reconstructed in 1816.
Illinois became a state in 1818 and Chicago was incorporated as a (very small) town in 1833. Then somebody thought of constructing a canal between Lake Michigan and the Illinois River, and boom, Chicago was on the map! The town became a city in 1837; the population had multiplied 12 fold in just four years.
Right: ‘Urbs in Horto’ - a fascinating and revealing glimpse of Chicago history
So, back to fire and architecture. Inevitably, the Chicago building boom made great use of timber, presumably still a readily available and local resource. Just as in the London of 1666, so in the Chicago of 1871, when a fire did break out, there was very little to stop it. Exacerbating circumstances in Chicago are said to include drought, exhausted fire fighters who had been working the night before (yes, there had already been other fires), a steady south west wind, a collapse of water pumping apparatus and mis-directed fire equipment. Apparently over 17,000 buildings were destroyed in an area of nearly four square miles, leaving nearly 100,000 people homeless and damage valued at $200 million dollars. And an enormous area of prime building land.
Above: an arresting image from the Chicago Architecture Center. The caption reads ‘Surviving Structures offered lessons on wooden, ballon frame builldings’
As with London, so Chicago rebuilt. We were told that, at first the rebuild was in wood but this quick, if perhaps short-sighted, method of construction was rapidly overtaken by the opportunities offered by new designs, new and more fire proof materials, new building heights for better financial return and, one presumes, a better resourced fire-fighting operation.
Above: the Chicago Architectural Center’s summary of Chicago’s, post fire, architectural residetial development
As in London, some stunning new architecture was created (Christopher Wren was particularly busy, of course) and, as with London, land values were such that many blocks have been developed and re-developed on numerous occasions.
Some might regard St Paul’s Cathedral as the phoenix rising from the ashes of the Fire of London. In Chicago, two hundred years’ later, it is probably fair to say that the phoenix’s legacy is still architectural. But with hugely different technologies, economics, and social structures, the ashes of Chicago have stimulated a secular, residential and commercial response, creating buildings of great height and great density and of spectacular designs. Visually powerful indeed, but the only inhabitants of Chicago that we met, live way out of town in the suburbs!
