Beisbol Pt. VII: A Day on the Town

Our Kind of Town: The Wrigley building and Chicago River. . .

This was our third family vacation to Chicago since 2003; I'd been back on my own in 2006 for a Prototype Modeler's meet. It's safe to say that, given my own relative lack of worldliness regarding the great cities of the planet, I'd have to rate Chicago as my favorite city to visit.

What a place! Everything about it is alive. What's not to love (apart from the traffic)? The parks of the Burnham plan. . .the stunning setting on Lake Michigan. . .the imposing canyon of buildings lining the Chicago River. . .the dazzling array of architecture styles. . the dense network of railroads. . the El and its iron ring around the downtown core. . .its museums. . .two great major league baseball teams. . .the relative ease of getting around on public transportation. . .and its two great food staples: deep-dish pizza and fully-loaded hotdogs.


Easy public transportation: The Red Line CTA near Roosevelt Road. . .


I. gets a first glimpse of downtown at Cicero on the BNSF/Metra dinky. . .

Three dudes on a trip to the city. . .

Amtrak and Metra in the bowels of Chicago Union Station. .

The Great Hall of the Burnham-designed CUT of 1925. . .

We had a day just to knock around town, and this time, decided to drive. E. wanted to spend his life's savings on Chicago Cubs souvenirs, so we inched our way into Wrigleyville around 11am and visited a couple of the many stores preyin--er, catering to tourists who just can't get enough Cubs stuff, where he got a Soriano t-shirt, a light jacket, a couple of caps, a pennant, and a couple of wall plaques for his future Cubs-themed bedroom.

.

E. at Ground Zero of his Cubs-centric universe. . .

Soon it was lunchtime and we headed towards the City in search of a hotdog, stumbling across Clark St. Dog at the corner of Clark and Halsted. It's not to say the hot dogs weren't good--they were--but the real highlight of the place was the horrible service, recalling the "Cheeseboiger, Cheeseboiger" skit from the early days of Saturday Night Live. Employees attempted to multi-task several orders without the language skills or mental ability to do so. Most memorable was the guy next to me who'd been waiting several minutes for his order to be filled, only to be given the wrong food. "Is it too much," he fairly screamed, " to get a Goddamned Cheeseburger!" afterwhich he stormed out of the place. When I finally secured our lunch--two hotdogs, a corndog, and a grilled cheese sandwich, the fella sitting next to us congratulated us for getting our foot.

Then it was through downtown to Field Museum, on the waterfront, where half the population was attempting to park at Soldier Field for the free day at the museum. Admission was free, but parking was still $16. The Field is a big, big place, with 21 million items in the collection, including the most complete Tyrannosarus Rex, Sue, and an extensive collection of dinosaurs and preserved North American bugs, plants, birds and animals.

.

A beautiful summer afternoon, and the boys head to the Field Museum. . .

The museum is housed in the Classical Revival building designed by Daniel Burnham for the 1883 World's Columbian Exposition, and the collection moved to its current location in 1921. The museum is a mix of up-to-date and interactive exhibits and some displays of stuffed and mounted animals (some now extinct) over 100 years old which remind one of what museums were like a century ago. Dealing with the crowds left me in a pissy mood, which thankfully didn't inhibit the boys from really digging what they saw. We were all booted out at 5pm after a mere three hours, having only really checked out only around 20% of the displays. We'd definately some back again next time.

.

The boys and "Sue" the big Tyrannosaurs. . .

The next hour was "Blair time," and I hauled the family to the backside of an old factory at Racine St. west of the loop to photograph Metra trains on the former Milwaukee Road/Pennsylvania line passing under one of the few Pennsy Railroad "position light" signal bridges left in the area. It had clouded up and the light was flat, but I photographed a half-dozen trains in that hour. No spectacular shots, despite the great urban background.

Metra train into the city shoves into Union Station at Racine Street, milepost 1.5.

Thence, off to Chinatown where the urge to eat something other than pizza and hot dogs led us south past the notorious Cook County Hospital, the inspiration for the television series ER and a place known for its, er, active emergency room filled with stabbing and gunshot victims. It's the indigent hospital of choice in the city. We took Cermak Road (named for Chicago major Anton Cermak, the first of the "Chicago Machine" mayors, assassinated in Miami in 1931 standing beside President Franklin Roosevelt; as he lay dying, he supposedly said to him ""I'm glad it was me instead of you.") back intos China Town, wandering among the restaurants looking for one with an English-language menu on the front window. I violated my own rule for Chinese restaurants (i.e., Never eat at a Chinese place called "Great Wall") by going to. . .the Great Wall. We ordered a family dinner that could've fed a half-dozen, easily. We were amazed the boys ate a little of everything, including soup, whose ingredients remained a mystery to them until after they'd finished. We were quite proud by their willingness to try something different. The boys charmed the folks running the place as well who were impressed a family from Texas would wind up in their joint. I. however, wasn't happy to discover that he was born in the year of the Rat!

.

Big family-style dinner at the Great Wall in Chinatown. . .

We'd hoped to watch fireworks on the lake from the jetty near Shedd aquarium, but weren't disappointed when none materialized, as we still had a beautiful view of the city on the lake. We drove back out to Naperville, and arrived after midnight. It'd been a full day in our favorite city on earth.

CTA stops in the loop. . .

A visual dessert after dinner: the Chicago skyline. . .