It was a 0.5 mile walk northeast, less than 10 minutes from where we were staying in Old Town by the Broken English Taco Bar and Orso's Italian Restaurant.
When we walked into the lobby of the Chicago History Museum, we noticed the floor was painted with a large map of the Chicago area. It reminded me of when we had toured the Boeing plant in Seattle and there was a satellite image of Boeing Factory underfoot. (See 8/5/14 post from our Seattle trip.)
Just like we had done in Seattle, I took a photo of our feet in a ring on the map. In this case we centered around the Great Chicago Fire. John's pair of feet are missing from the photo. He was a bit under the weather that day with cold virus symptoms and had stayed back to catch up on a little rest. Clockwise around the red star representing the site of the Great Chicago Fire, on both sides of the Chicago River, from 3 o'clock, the shoes belong to Margaret, Frank, Sue, Joe, and me at high noon – surefooted proof we were there.
Some places we'd been to or planned to go to were represented on the floor map. We'd had a Chicago Style pizza, we'd heard about dying the river green during our Architectural Cruise, we'd been to the top of the Sears tower, Frank and I had viewed Navy Pier from Lake Michigan, and the next day we were to visit Millennium Park with The Bean and the water spouting towers.
That day for lunch Joe had a Chicago-Style Hot Dog at the museum café. We had been on the Wrigley Field tour the previous day.
The lobby was equally impressive looking out from the second floor balcony. A huge mural on the wall in the background depicted old time Chicago. There was also a street sign mobile.
I especially wanted to capture Hermione street (in the center) for those Harry Potter fans.
A question arises as to how Chicago got its name? The area was initially under the influence of native Americans until the French began to take control of it for the fur trade. Then the French and Indian war was lost to Great Britain. The English maintained control until the American Revolution when they relinquished power within the Great Lake region to "the colonists". The original Indian name, Checagou, has changed in spelling but the source meaning was the Indian name for some smelly leeks that grew along the banks of the Chicago River. So, translated, Chicago means stinky onion. That may be the etymology of its name, but during our visit, we found Chicago to be a very clean, friendly, inoffensive city.
For children to re-enact the spread of the fire, there was a table-top display depicting the extent of the Great Chicago Fire, which blazed from October 8th to 10th, 1871. In the following photo, north is to the right. The fire began at the upper left and jumped the river twice as it spread. The most popular explanation for the start was that Mrs O'Leary's cow kicked over a lantern. Although never proven, this theory caught favor because Mrs O'Leary and her family were Catholic immigrants, a minority not embraced at the time. Due to lack of evidence and because of defamation of the descendants' family name, the family and the cow were later exonerated of blame in 1997. An alternate theory for the start of the fire was that of a meteor shower. Four large fires took place, all on the same day, all on the shores of Lake Michigan. Whatever the source, dry conditions and winds spread the blaze.
Chicago was the birthplace of many inventions and businesses. As we learned on our river cruise, the thick, ubiquitous catalogs of the big mail order businesses or brick and mortar stores – Sears, Montgomery, Ward, JCPenny, et al. – were printed and distributed from Chicago. Common practices and stores in our daily lives today had their beginnings in Chicago. Two examples were Crate and Barrel and the contraceptive pill for women.
I found some displays in the Chicago History Museum to be bluntly honest, with no whitewashing. In particular, the exhibits of traitors and spies, racial and cultural biases, and political scandals were brutally revealed with some graphic images. I took very few photos of these exhibits and actually scurried though them, finding them depressing and somewhat disturbing. We saw the bed that President Lincoln had died in. It was somewhat small and, for those with an appetite for details, he had to be laid in it diagonally so he would fit.
On the other end of the spectrum, however, was a tribute to the photography of Vivian Maiers (1926-2009). She was a humble nanny who roamed the Chicago streets in her off duty hours taking portraits of people that caught her artistic eye. The candid shots of her subjects spoke to me.
Her capture of the quiet coping of this little boy tugged at my heartstrings a bit. Something in the train station must have been way too loud for this little boy, but it looks like he was brave and did not act out. Maybe that interpretation is purely a figment of my imagination but this photo sure told a story to me. It may tell a different story to others. But there is no denying it elicits a response in the viewer.
The hat, the white gloves, the dress style, the clip on earrings and the beads on this woman struck a responsive chord with me for my mom's era.
Eighteen rolls of the film of Vivian Maier had been developed, enlarged, printed the size of a wall paper border, and mounted mid-height on the surrounding walls of the room featuring her portraits. Personally, this exhibit was my favorite takeaway from the museum visit.
We walked home, quite content with what we had seen and learned. That night we ate in, relaxing and feasting on an accumulation of leftovers from our delicious but oversize-portioned meals out from earlier in the week. There may have even been a couple games of Sequence and Splendor in the evening before heading off to bed. John & Sue and Joe & Margaret drifted off to sleep soon as far as I could tell but Frank and I did not. As far as I could surmise, here we were, five days into the trip, and the California two hour time difference was still affecting our sleep patterns.
That delay in entering dreamland was unfortunate for Frank and me. We learned, the raucous way, that the Old Town region of Chicago, with its dense smattering of upscale restaurants and informal friendly bars was a hot spot, a real happening scene – my choice of words is dating me here – for the night life of men and women one-third to one-half our age. The sounds of honking car horns, screeching brakes, yells, cat calls, shrill whistles, jocular insults, and drunken dares pierced the serenity of previous weekday nights. I sure do not remember celebrating Friday nights that loudly and exuberantly when I was in my twenties! When I was in my thirties, I may have been awake at night due to noise, but at that point is was from a baby wailing in the wee hours. I learned later, from an Uber driver, that the liquor license for Old Town ran until 2:00 am on Friday nights, till 3:00 am on Saturday nights. It was amazing though. Boisterous and noisy as it all was, like the off button on a TV, the cacophony turned off when the flow of alcohol did. People went home; we slept. The next night, Saturday, did not bother me. It was a combination of being wise enough to fall asleep sooner and being tired enough this time, that Frank and I were able to doze through it all.
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