Chicago 2

Sunday in the City

Chicago is constantly becoming. The old elevated trains and 60 old iron drawbridges are remnants from a time gone by...

HOG Butcher for the World,
Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;
Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the Big Shoulders:
They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I
have seen your painted women under the gas lamps
luring the farm boys.
And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it
is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to
kill again.
And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the
faces of women and children I have seen the marks
of wanton hunger.
And having answered so I turn once more to those who
sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer
and say to them:
Come and show me another city with lifted head singing
so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.
Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on
job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the
little soft cities;
Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning
as a savage pitted against the wilderness,
Bareheaded,
Shoveling,
Wrecking,
Planning,
Building, breaking, rebuilding,
Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with
white teeth,
Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young
man laughs,
Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has
never lost a battle,
Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse.
and under his ribs the heart of the people,
Laughing!
Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of
Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog
Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with
Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.

- Carl Sandburg

If you get a chance, read "The Devil in the White City" about the 1893 Chicago World's Fair and a classic American Psycho Killer of that time period. The 1893 fair had a Ferris wheel that could carry 2,215 at a time. The wheel had a diameter of 250 feet and had 36 cars carrying 60 riders in each car. It was powered by a 1,000 horsepower steam engine.



They had originally thought to build a taller Eiffel Tower. Most of the buildings burned down shortly after the fair. Dr. H.H. Holmes designed a hotel for the explicit purpose of murdering and cremating the young women who came to Chicago to find work....his final tally will never be known and might well be unsurpassed...

The elevated train line runs in a circle around innermost Chicago...the expression "In the Loop" apparently originated here.

We take the "West" tour today though Chinatown, Little Italy and the Greek areas. It also runs though what everyone, including the residents, used to call "Jewtown". It was a more brutal, less politically correct, era...

Lunch in Little Italy is good, but it must have had a lot of salt. I bought about a gallon of water on the walk back to catch the 4:30 train back to Joliet.

We've seen a lot of these curved buildings in NYC...

The fountain area in Millennium Park is full of children. The tower is built of glass blocks and illuminated from within by a moving face.

This is a mirror in the Chicago art museum.

More pictures from the 96th floor of the John Hancock building.

The train on Sunday has lots of kids in bathing suits heading for the Lake Michigan beaches.