A gathering on Clark St. — Multimedia Essay
Andreas, my girlfriend Claudia, and I decided to explore Clark Street heading South from the Near North Side neighborhood. There wasn’t any particular reason for choosing this specific street or even this section of the street (apart from the fact the Red Line dropped us off on Clark St.) so, our starting point and general idea for the route was set. At around 2:10 our train left us in no better of a spot to begin walking, and thus our walk began to write its story.
2:11 — Although I saw the weather app saying it was going to be sunny and hot, that fact did not set in until we stepped out onto the street, already feeling beads of sweat begging to run down my neck. I couldn’t alter the fact that I had a dark shirt and shorts at this point, so I quickly chose to just deal with the heat and save whatever temper tantrum I had from coping with the sun all day for later.
2:20 — We approached an Aston Martin dealer, and I’ve only seen one other such dealer, so my curiosity quickly absorbed me and my growing desire to look at nice cars. Upon putting my face right up to the window, close enough that I could see in the corner of my eye the mist forming on the glass from my breathing, I saw a red, almost glistening, Ferrari that seemed like it would be pretty fast. A little bit behind it there was a second and third car, both of which also looked like they could be a hell of a ride.
2:24 — Just after passing the Aston Martin Dealer and a subsequent Fitness Formula Club, we reached Oak Street. Now there was nothing too special about this intersection, but the street name rang a bell as a street close to/in Gold Coast, so I knew turning East would bring me towards that neighborhood. Seeing this connection brought me a small amount of joy that I’m slowly able to map out the city mentally without pulling my phone out to type.
2:25 — I guess I lied, there was one special thing about a rather bland Clark/Oak intersection. A pride flag. My girlfriend, Claudia, being part of the LGBTQ community, thought it’d be great to take a photo underneath it for this project, so we got a pretty nice shot of her with it. I found this in a way amusing as it perked the thought at how wildly different two people’s points of view can be of the same place. I would have walked past the flag without a second glance, but she noticed it. And in other cases, later on, I found certain things rather interesting that neither Andreas nor Claudia picked up on. Just an interesting thought.
[picture of Claudia with flag]
2:30 — On Clark/Walton we saw a small park with a cute little fountain, and decided to take a look. The park, especially the closer we got to the fountain, had a surprising amount of colorful flowers surrounding the pathways and the fountain itself. On both sides of us, we can see and hear a lot of dogs playing, barking, and doing dog things. While they were all still leashed, it was nice to see the city animals get their exercise in too.
2:32 — While walking through the park, I noticed a rather large temple-like structure by the Northeast corner of the park. Using Historypin, I was able to gather that this is the Medinah Temple and remained rather unchanged from the pictures of it I found from the 1910s. From what I can gather, this building has been a Masonic temple since 1912.
2:43 — With the light turning green to cross Huron St., I spotted a familiar restaurant, Etta. While in a vacuum this place really isn’t much more than a bougey Italian lunch spot (with an absurdly large assortment of wine), I recalled this specific restaurant for the fact that I dropped my brother off here for an interview a few months ago. And while this specific part of River North isn’t by any means luxurious or extravagant, it did feel nice to simply explore a part of Chicago that, while driving, I pretty much had to ignore (due to the limitations of sightseeing while driving). In particular, the smells coming from their kitchen made me distinctly happier I walked past this restaurant this time instead of driving.
3:17 — Walking past Portillos, smelling the mixture of fries and grilled onion, coupled with a very catchy blues song, it wasn’t really a choice on whether we were going in to eat. Portillos always seemed to have a way of charming passersby, even after getting inside. The older jazz, dimmer yellow lights, and wall designs of an old street create a really unique atmosphere that you don’t ever really get elsewhere. With a Maxwell St. Polish in the system, I felt refreshed, and although not really tired to begin with, felt much more willing to keep walking.
3:25 — Now, closer to Kinzie St., I spotted a unique mural on the side of what looked to be a small boutique shop. This was the second mural we found walking along Clark St., and we decided to stop to appreciate the art a little. What we found most interesting was the geometric design of the mural, and along with that most of the murals we saw in this class were more story-telling pieces about the community, while this seemed to be an artist playing around with straight lines to make the wall pop a bit more.
What I also found quite interesting was that, when checking the location on Google Earth after the walk, this mural was nowhere to be spotted. I found this observation pretty interesting as just something as small as that shows how a community, street, or neighborhood, can slowly change over time, piece by piece, or empty wall by empty wall in this case.
3:37 — We stopped at the bridge just before Wacker Dr., both taking in the view and finally getting a much-needed breeze. Standing right next to the Marina Towers, we laughed at the funny-shaped building where half of it is a parking garage. These bridges always rattle like everything is about to fold like a pancake, so while we loved the view, we didn’t want to be flattened and moved to the other side of the bridge pretty quickly. Upon reaching the edge we saw a painter at the bottom of the Riverfront painting the scene and watched for a bit as he stroked away at his easel. Seeing his work to that point made me gain a sense of appreciation for just how much can be taken away from just standing still and observing what’s around you. We walked away after a couple of minutes of watching the river, but this man had been here for what seemed like the better part of the day, catching every little color there was to find of the view.
3:51 — Our walk came to an end at Millenium Park. We approached it from Washington St. and instantly spotted the two large block fountains with faces lit up on them, and went to cool down with the mist coming off of them. As we stood there and tried to continue whatever conversation was happening, we found it incredibly difficult to talk over the pouring water and decided to record the sound of the crashing water just a few feet in front of us. What was particularly nice about this moment was the fact that, although quiet the opposite of a calming silence one can find in a forest or out away from people, closing my eyes and just listening to the (extremely) loud fountain gave me that same feeling.
Just past the fountains, our final destination stood before us: The amphitheater of Millenium Park. It being sunny made it a particularly worthwhile scene, the light refracting in what looked like a thousand different ways across the panels of steel the construction is made up of.
