Hello From Chicago

A personal tour of Chicago by Susanne Pacher;

Be sure to click on the title and download the complete book.

I walked through the quiet Lincoln Park neighbourhood all the way to the Lake Michigan Shoreline where the cool wind was just howling off the lake. Joggers, bicyclists and power walkers were already out in full force. I strolled around for about 15 minutes, but when the wind got too strong I decided to take a bus and head south to a neighbourhood called "Old Town", near North Street and N. Wells Street. It's a tidy, well-kept neighbourhood of historic homes and the location of the Second City Comedy Club, a place that has spawned so many comedic talents.

After a brisk morning walk around Old Town I hopped back on the el-train and went to check out downtown. I got off in the Loop and headed out towards the openness of Michigan Avenue and Grant Park. Interestingly the wind in between the buildings in the Loop was much stronger than in the open areas just off the Lake Michigan Shoreline.

Michigan Avenue and Grant Park are one of the areas where Chicago's beauty is most striking. Daniel Burnham's city plan of 1909 that preserved a huge amount of green space right on the shoreline of Lake Michigan was a brilliant decision, and visitors and local residents alike benefit from the huge green zone between the Loop and the lake. Grant Park's beginnings actually date all the way back to 1835, when foresighted citizens, fearing commercial lakefront development, lobbied to protect the open space.

Burnham's vision of the park as a formal landscape with museums and civic buildings became reality: today Grant Park holds 3 of the city's most distinguished museums: The Field Museum of Natural History, the Shedd Aquarium and the Adler Planterium.The Buckingham Fountain is the centerpiece of Grant Park, the city's grand "front yard," and it is set within a handsomely landscaped garden, one of the city's finest examples of a Beaux-Arts-style landscape design. It is an exact replica of the fountain in Versailles, just twice as large, and with those measurements it is one of the largest free-standing fountains in the world.

The book has lots more pictures and great stories.