winter in Chicago pt. 1

Tiffany Dome hidding above your head

If you happen to walk through Macy’s (Marshall Field’s) on State Street in downtown Chicago, look up and see a beautiful Tiffany mosaic hiding in plain sight on the ceiling. Very few people ever notice it.  This is reported to be the world’s largest Tiffany mosaic.  This store is a sentimental favorite for Chicagoans. It’s also included on my smaller walking tours.

Tiffany Dome

The last stop on Chicago Red Cap Walking Tour’s Historic Building’s tour is under this beautiful Tiffany dome inside a Beaux Arts building finished in 1897 that was Chicago’s former main library and now is a cultural center. The former library is at Michigan and Washington and is generally open 7 days a week. Free art exhibits, concerts, plays and lectures add to Chicago’s cultural life.

chicago school architecture- the marquette building

marquette building

marquette building lobby

 The Marquette building ( finished 1895) by Holabird and Roche is a great example of the  Chicago School of architecture. Here, architects were creating a unique style of American architecture, revealing  in the buildings exterior, the new engineering technique of supporting a buildings total weight by an interior steel skeleton.  Lobby photo by Chicago Red Cap Tour guest E. Renner.

Chicago post-modern architecture

The beautiful lobby inside the 190 s. lasalle buiding designed by Philip Johnson. Comfortable chairs 

allow you to savor the gold leaf on the cathedral like ceiling, the Moorish accents, and deep red alicante marble pillars inspired by the Rookery building across the street. Photo by tour guest, E. Renner.

“architecture is frozen music” -Goethe

 

 

look up. Artists at work

As you head north on Michigan Ave. gaze up at this building. You will see some unexpected  exotic decoration. This is 505 N. Michigan, the InterContinental Chicago hotel, formerly the Medinah Athletic Club. Johnny Weismuller used to practice in the pool on the 14th floor. The reliefs carved into the limestone facade add to the mid-eastern style of the building.

Hidden Chicago is a few steps away

 

What is it that most people visiting downtown Chicago miss that they should see? Lobbies. We all walk right by and ignore them. Locals and visitors appreciate our beautiful dramatic buildings but  negelect to step inside and be amazed by greater beauty. 

The Board of Trade Building, The Marquettte Building, 135 S. LaSalle, The Rookery Building, 190 S. LaSalle, and the Monadnock lobbies  are all worth seeing.

Take a walk on the interesting side with me at Chicago Red Cap Walking Tours or with one of my competitors and see some of our hidden treasures.

 

The lobby of the Rookery Building

One cent buys a lot

To kick start a year of celebrating Abe Lincoln, General admission to the Chicago History Museum  will be one penny from Thursday Feb. 12 through Sunday Feb 15, 2009.  

http://www.chicagohistory.org/

I can see Spring from my Segway

I spent a great deal of time last summer on a Segway leading groups of excited people through Chicago’s Grant Park. Almost everybody on my tours had a great time with very few falls. The people that were the most reluctant to get on the Segway for the first time were often the hardest people to get off the Segway at the end of a tour.  Many different kinds of people came on the tours. Either Segways attract nice people or being on the Segway brings out the joy in most people. Chicagoans, Midwesterners, Californians, Canadians, Mexicans, Europeans, Indians, Asians, Australians, physicists, surgeons, paramedics, housewives, engineers, college and high school students, and retirees all made my summer alot of fun. A Segway ride is different than being on a bike or scooter because it gives you a unique  kind of freedom as it takes you through sunlight and shade, storms and dusk.

I thought the tour season ended in Nov. with the first snow but a few days ago I took a 4 person tour group out on Segways on a cold cold day with lots of clean white snow in the park. We had to stop for hot coffee and chocolate to warm up and I learned never turn off a Segway when it’s -1 below zero (sometimes they don’t power on again) but being on the Segway that day was a little like being in summer again. In  six weeks or so the Segway season begins again.