The Personalities and Ruins of Chicago
After class on Tuesday, September 27th, I took a journey and explored different parts of Chicago I haven’t seen yet. Whenever I take the brown line down to Harold Washington Library, the train passes by parts of Chicago I haven’t seen. So Tuesday I decided I wanted to see those parts I am unfamiliar with. I started my walk at 2 o’clock and turned left onto West Jackson Street out of the Barnes and Nobles in the Loop campus. The weather outside was chilly. The sky was mostly cloudy with small cracks of the bright blue sky seeping out. There was a crisp, cold breeze passing throughout my walk. Many people were dressed in winter coats with gloves. As I walked down Jackson I saw a lot of students and people dressed in business professional clothes. Many of the people dressed in business professional clothes were strolling around a small carry-on sized suitcase. All of them looked as though they were in a rush to catch a flight or train at the pace of their walk. I noticed the pavements of the sidewalk as the sidewalks never seemed to be leveled. Right as I walked out the building I saw a student trip over the sidewalk because one of the squares on the sidewalk was lifted a little higher than the other ones.
Once I reached the corner of S Dearborn Street and W Jackson, I noticed the sidewalk was made out of different material. The perimeter of the building was lined with a tile or stone as the sidewalk. The building was the Everett M. Dirksen U.S. Courthouse. Just by looking at the architecture of the building it seemed to be newer, by the clean sharp lines and minimalist look. Turning onto S. Dearborn Street, The building around it seemed to follow the trend of a cleaner futuristic look. Passing by the US Post Office it had the same tile or stone pavement instead of the concrete used around the city. There was a big red sculpture that kind of broke up the ordinary, simple atmosphere of the buildings. While reading The Solitary Stroller and The City by Solnit this quote really stuck out to me,“People and places become one another- a character may only be identified as an atmosphere or a principle, a place may take on a full-fledged personality.” Reading this quote made me really observe the space and see how the place seemed like it had a boring personality. The architecture showed the ambiance and personality of the area. Looking it up after my walk, it is called the Flamingo, created by an American artist Alexander Calder. The sculpture is composed of steel and painted a color called “calder red” to offset the black and steel surroundings of nearby office buildings.
Passing by the Flamingo I turned right onto East Adams Street until I hit Michigan Avenue at 2:15. While I was walking on Adams Street, there was a group of five elder Korean ladies walking behind me. They were chatting about how full they were after their meal from a restaurant that they didn’t say. It was one of the first times I have encountered Koreans on the streets of Chicago and it felt refreshing. Ever since I’ve moved to Chicago the only time I would hear someone speak Korean would be me calling my parents and talking with them over the phone, or going to a Korean restaurant. It might’ve been the chilly breeze that passed, but it was soothing to listen to them speak. Since I am not in an environment where there are many Koreans, I feel as though I am slowly becoming unfamiliar with the language. Turning onto Michigan Ave, the group of women weren’t behind me anymore, but there were a lot of people advertising things. I walked past a man handing out brochures of their company called Streetwise. Other people were advertising the Bible and their religion. Everyone ignored most of these and walked past including me.
I continued to walk past Michigan Avenue, but I noticed that all the newspaper stands that I walked by were all empty and mostly broken. The windows of the stands were broken or random things would be shoved into it like it was used as a trash can. Seeing all of them abandoned shows the modernization and evolution of technology. With having phones and the internet it isn’t necessary to have these newspaper stands. It would be more efficient and faster for the news to post stories on the internet, that way anyone can see within seconds of it being published. Soon enough there won’t be any newspaper stands on the corner of every street. This quote really stuck out to me when I saw the newspaper stands, “The persistence of a ruin can also be instructive. Why hasn’t someone torn that old payphone down and hauled it away? Because of its historic significance? Or simply as a function of neglect?” The newspaper stand is another great example regarding the ruins. If it is not being used why hasn’t it been torn down? Another thing I noticed walking around, was that a lot of the sculptures had a pop of color and usually it would be a red-orange color. The fox news building there was an overhead ceiling that was red and the Nutella building had red umbrellas.
At the intersection of Michigan Ave and Wacker Dr at 2:35 I walked down west on the riverwalk. The riverwalk was vacant with only a couple people walking through. There weren’t any boats going down the river as well, which foreshadows how empty the streets of Chicago will be during the freezing winters. Throughout my walk I also noticed that there weren’t big masses of pigeons crowding the streets. I did see one bird on the riverwalk on the cold floor upside down dead. There was no movement of the bird besides the feathers blowing with the wind. Walking past some of the restaurants and cafes on the riverwalk there were only around two tables with people. The cold weather is affecting the business of these restaurants. The pathways were very clean with no trash and no leaves even though there were trees lined up on the riverwalk. Once ten minutes passed I decided to take a different route. Walking down the riverwalk it started to become very repetitive. Walking along the pathways you’d see the skyscrapers lined along the river mostly with the same architecture, a couple restaurants by the river, and the bridges you’d walk under. I climbed a couple steps onto West Wacker Rd back onto ground-level. I noticed many of the built-in fences and benches weren’t sleek and modern. They had many curved edges with detailed designs compared to the sleek straight lines of the building.
At 2:52 I turned right onto North Clark Street and entered River North. They closed off a section of Clark Street for restaurants to set up an outdoor patio. There were a lot of string lights and heat lamps set up, but the street was vacant. The roads I passed by looked redone. There were no cracks and the paint of the crosswalk lines were still vibrant. The building had more character as not all of the building had sharp lines. I noticed that every restaurant building kept its ambiance outside to make it more eye-catching. More high-end restaurants kept a smoother, shiny, and sleeker structure by keeping everything monochromatic. While, the pubs kept their two tone, old-fashioned, woody ambiance outside of their restaurant, making it stand out from the modern buildings. By this point, it had been an hour and a half and I walked around Chicago for 2 miles. The cold weather started to make my toes, nose, and fingers numb. My cheeks started to get rosie and my nose was runny. I didn’t want to catch a cold so I decided it was time to head back to Fullerton. I turned onto East Huron Street until I hit Michigan Avenue. Once I was on Michigan Avenue I was more familiar with the area. From there I found my way to the red line to Chicago and rode the “L” back to Fullerton.
