Farewell

Sadly, all ad hoc things must come to an end. This blog closes as I collect my belongings and head back to school, yet I hope my stories of pickled mammoths, rainbow cones, and epic movie scenes will continue to be read, revisited, and most of all, tried out by you. And if you’ve never been to Chicago, I hope you’ll visit the city. Where else could hockey players and Walt Whitman share the stage?

Working at World Business Chicago this summer has been an enriching experience. As I uploaded the organization’s archive of press releases to the new website, I had the honor of witnessing WBC’s history unfold in reverse chronological order. From their most recent successes with Chicago Career Tech and MillerCoors, to the string of accolades from magazines like Site Selection and Fast Company, to that pioneer press release about WBC’s inception—all affirmed my belief in and passion for this organization. We’re a fundamentally optimistic bunch, since our job is to promote. It’s that spirit that makes me feel as if I’m leaving not just co-workers, but family.

I wanted to make this short and sweet—like a limerick, or Sour Patch Kids—because I hate goodbyes. Now put down the laptop, or smartphone, or (gently) desktop, and go explore Chicago.

…Right after reading this atrocious limerick:

There was an intern in Chicago
Who knew IL had more than Blago.
She chose WBC,
Blogged on sights that she’d see,
Yeah, it felt just like winning the lotto.

Landscape, Cityscape

“…[A]s to scenery (giving my own thought and feeling), while I know the standard claim is that Yosemite, Niagara Falls, the upper Yellowstone and the like, afford the greatest natural shows, I am not so sure but the Prairies and the Plains, while less stunning at first sight, last longer, fill the esthetic sense fuller, precede all the rest, and make North America’s characteristic landscape…Indeed through the whole of this journey, with all its shows and varieties, what most impress’d me, and will longest remain with me, are these same prairies. Day after day, and night after night, to my eyes, to all my senses—the esthetic one most of all—they silently and broadly unfolded. Even their simplest statistics are sublime.”

-          Walt Whitman, “America’s Characteristic Landscape,” from Specimen Days

When nineteenth-century poet Walt Whitman observed the prairies that cover Illinois and the West, he understood their true beauty after seeing their mountainous opposite. Growing up in the Prairie State, I never even realized Illinois was flat. Grasslands and sheets of corn were not anomalies, but the quilt on which my life had stretched its arms. Only when I moved to hilly Connecticut did I begin to realize, appreciate, and miss the flatness of Illinois and her open fields, where the sky threatens to swallow the land. Like a Whitman fresh from Yellowstone, I returned to the prairie with a recharged love for the fields that unfolded around me and re-folded to tuck me in.

Chicago’s skyscrapers are not flat, but the wonder of the city is its proximity to nature. I’ve had to travel home several times this summer—for appointments, weddings—and all I need to do is board a bus to Rockford that runs seven days a week, once every hour at peak times. As we head West on I-90, some invisible palm must come from the sky and slowly pat the playdough of buildings until there are no longer lumps, but a continuing smoothness in all directions. Even before the landscape opens up, the bus passes a herons’ rookery, and deer bounce beside the highway. Then, fields.

This past weekend alone, I saw two young toads, a pair of lemon-yellow goldfinches, and a bald eagle in my wooded backyard. It can be a welcome relief to hear cardinals’ chirps replace the whir of sirens. Come nighttime, we often sit on the deck and hear twigs crack under the weight of some unknown creature: A raccoon? A fox? The illusory mountain lion?

My nature respites at home sometimes seem a world apart from my urban summer residence. But there’s a danger in thinking of nature as only some remote, separate getaway, for it can be found within a city as well. Metallic Millennium Park paradoxically evokes the prairie with the expanse of its Great Lawn and the pockets of sky visible through the criss-cross ceiling. Millennium Park literally evokes the prairie if you visit Lurie Garden behind it, where over 5 acres of grasslands create a plains oasis in the heart of the city. It’s a world of contrast, in which the height of the skyscrapers does not diminish, but rather, magnifies the beauty of the Meadow Sage beneath it.

The Chicago Park District lists a number of Nature Areas on its website, including gardens for the eyes and nose, wetlands and lagoons, and bird sanctuaries for the inner ornithologist in everyone. The Chicago Wilderness alliance devotes itself to protecting the area’s natural treasures, all the while connecting people with nature and working toward correcting climate change. And, if you can reach a high enough vantage point, you’ll learn of all the green roofs throughout Chicago. In this city, nature doesn’t disappear; it’s right here.

Interested in reading more? Check out William Cronon’s Nature’s Metropolis, or Of Prairie, Woods, & Water, edited by Joel Greenberg.

Thanks to juggernautco for the photograph.

In the Field

She may be 42,000 years old, but she still has all her skin, some hair, and both nostrils at the end of her trunk. Her name is Lyuba, and she’s the best-preserved woolly mammoth specimen known to man. I first met her in a Connecticut airport, where her story kept me company through the pages of National Geographic as I waited for my plane to arrive. The Russian reindeer herder who stumbled upon her in May 2007 named her after his wife (Lyuba means “love” in Russian). Experts believe that during the Pleistocene, Lyuba fell into a river and choked on sediment—a tragic death that proved fortunate for science, since the clay she swallowed pickled her body and the following permafrost completed the mummification process. Nature may be cruel, but natural history’s an optimist.

I met her again last week when I took a trip to Chicago’s Field Museum. In the time since our first “encounter,” I had changed more than she had; paleontologists did their careful poking, prodding, and CT scanning, but still Lyuba persevered, her gait looking more like a baby elephant’s sprightly trot than a death pose. Now, encased in glass instead of permafrost, she sits as the crown jewel of the museum’s Mammoths and Mastodons display. This special exhibit begins with a video that creatively re-imagines Chicago’s history by opening with a still frame of the present day and rewinding to the age of the mammoths. After the video, visitors can explore the family tree of Proboscidea or try to lift the weight of a mammoth’s lunch. Each component of the exhibit wowed me, but every ten minutes, I traced my steps back to Lyuba. I know she’s not smiling, but I can’t help but misread her curled lips. Explain it away as decomposition, or the sediment’s forcing open of her mouth, or the human impulse to anthropomorphize—there’s still a certain happiness to this newborn who came to a swift end but survived to tell the story forty millennia later.

A self-proclaimed natural history nerd, I could go on forever about Lyuba, or about The Field Museum’s North American Birds display, or the taxidermic magic of its Nature Walk—but really, you should go see for yourself. And The Field Museum’s only one of many options in the city. The free Lincoln Park Zoo, the flashy Shedd Aquarium, and the famous Art Institute of Chicago (also free on Thursday nights, thanks to Target) all offer experiences for adults, children, and youth to share together.

Plus, the museums in Chicago don’t wait behind closed doors for people to come see their collections. They actively engage the community in order to educate. Take the recent initiative started by the Museum of Science & Industry and the Illinois Institute of Technology, which will teach middle school teachers about science so they can be equipped to share that information in the classroom. It’s the only partnership of its kind in the country, showing the willingness of Chicago’s museums to draw people in and to go out and educate the city.

Be swift. Lyuba’s only on display until September 6. Given her track record, she might last forever, but the chance to see her won’t.

Thanks to Alaina B. for the Lyuba photo.

Imagine That

Last Sunday, my mother made a trip to the city, giving me the rare treat of riding in a car. While driving down LaSalle toward my apartment, we encountered the first of several closed roads, and I looked past the orange caution signs as we waited to turn at a red light. I could make out the gray outline of a charred and mangled sports car and surmised that the reason for our detour had been an accident. My mother, noticing the dust hanging in the air and the debris that lay beyond the car’s sphere of impact, countered that this was no mere accident: there had been an explosion. One of those eerie catastrophe moments followed—when you’re supposed to keep driving, but you can’t stop looking, like moths drawn to a light.

“Oh, never mind,” said my mom. She noticed another sign above the one that blocked the road, reading: “Movie Set.” Winding our way to South Dearborn, we passed various other scenes (and luckily, they were just scenes) of destruction: a buckled street jutting into the air, various vehicles lying on their backs, supine and helpless. I suddenly remembered that filming for Transformers 3 would soon begin downtown.

I must admit, I found the first Transformers movie to be cheesy, and I haven’t seen the second. I prefer Shia LaBeouf goofy and squealing in Even Stevens, not serious and trying to woo Megan Fox as he talks to giant cars. Even so, I can’t deny there’s something epic about the premise and still shots of the movie, and I wonder: is there something epic about Chicago? Does it create a scenery that begs to be captured in monumental big-screen battles? A better example than Transformers might be The Dark Knight, in which Chicago transforms into Gotham, city of vigilantes battling jokers battling public servicemen-turned-nihilists. Chicago’s colossal buildings and the dramatic cityscape create the perfect setting for Christopher Nolan’s underworld of intrigue to come to life. Christian Bale just looks sleeker in his Lamborghini Murcielago if he’s cruising down Lake Street under the metal trellis of the ‘L’; Heath Ledger’s twisted machinations are more believable if you know they’re taking place in the old stomping grounds of Al Capone.

No, that doesn’t mean I feel surrounded by mobsters in Chi-town (click here for a great article that rethinks the “Bang Bang” stereotype). It means that the aesthetic of the city unhinges the imagination, whether it be in a movie about robotic super-cars or my own daydreams (not to be disclosed here!). You never know when you’ll stumble upon a movie set or—who knows?—maybe the Batmobile itself.

Photo provided by ifmuth.

Taking the Cake

I have a sweet spot for desserts modeled after natural wonders. The fudgy goodness of molten lava cake makes volcanoes seem downright affable. And as a child, I developed my fascination with the stalagmites in Wisconsin’s Cave of the Mounds based on my experience with crystal rock candy sticks. My favorite phenomenological confection might be the Chicago-born Rainbow Cone, whose slices—not scoops—of ice cream make it look like an actual half-arch of a rainbow. In 1926, South Side resident Joseph Sapp didn’t care to see if there was gold at the end of the rainbow. He wanted the rainbow itself. Several trials and experiments later, Sapp found the perfect formula and transformed his childlike indecision about ice cream flavors into one of the most famous of Chicago treats: an impressive balancing act of chocolate, strawberry, Palmer House, pistachio, and orange sherbet ice cream flavors (in ascending order) atop one cone. The only drawback is in deciding which slice to try first. I prefer all at once, with one fell lick.

Taste of Chicago, July 2010: the Rainbow Cone stand is by far the most crowded booth at the food fest and I’m on a tight schedule. I’ll come back tomorrow and see if it’s clear. I inform my boyfriend of the plan.

Boyfriend: “You do realize that the Loop Rainbow Cone shop is right below where you work.”

“What?”

“Like, in the same building. Right beneath you.”

“What.”

Bliss.

Chicago may not be the city that never sleeps, but it will always be the city with good eats. Chi-town practically brims with food options. At last week’s Taste of Chicago, over fifty vendors from local restaurants filled Grant Park for ten days to offer “tastes” of their menus to the crowds (and they’ve done this every year for the past three decades). In fact, food is so big here that its practitioners achieve stardom: famous chefs like Charlie Trotter, Top Chef Chicago champion Stephanie Izard, and molecular gastronomist Grant Achatz all chose Chicago as their culinary playground.

The most recent celebrity chef spot I’ve tried was Xoco by Rick Bayless, the maestro of Mexican cuisine and a Top Chef Master. I like him, because he gave me the perfect sandwich—no big deal, right? Located in River North’s restaurantopolis, Xoco serves gourmet Mexican street food, taking tortas (Mexican sandwiches), caldos (soups), and the infamous churro (cinnamon heaven, rolled) to new heights. I ordered the Cubana, a torta topped with smoked Maple Creek pork loin, bacon, black beans, avocado, artisan Jack cheese, and chipotle mustard, all griddled to perfection. “Melt in your mouth” might be food writing’s most hackneyed phrase, but I feel as if I’m doing a disservice to the sandwich by avoiding it. Suffice it to say that the ingredients fused so seamlessly that I couldn’t tell where the beans stopped and the mustard began, but the synchronization screamed: EAT. Thank goodness this isn’t Rick’s only restaurant in town. (For more, click here.)

I’m realizing that if I elaborate on every meal I’ve had in Chicago, there’ll be enough fodder for a new blog entire. Take it from the girl who chose to spend her spring break at a food-focused market research firm in Chicago rather than on a beach—this city is an epicure’s sweetest, never-want-to-wake-up-from-this-est dream, with a cherry on top. Or perhaps something better: the greatest meal she’s ever had.

Frozen Hibiscus Leaf Tea with Whipped Cream from Iyanze

Make Your Mark

World Business Chicago—my home for the summer—recently published a report entitled “Make Your Mark” that uncovers the top ten reasons why college graduates choose Chicago as their work and play destination. As a soon-to-be college grad myself, I thought I would give my own take on each of the study’s points:

#1 Access top employers

Perhaps this image of Willis Tower, chock-full of all the big names in the city, gives the best visual for describing Chicago’s wealth of top employers. Walking through downtown gives me a dual sensation: excitement over the freshness of seeing uniquely Chicago businesses, as well as comfort in recognizing familiar brands—Motorola, Boeing, and Walgreens to name a few. Part of my work as a WBC intern entails researching the opportunities that exist for recent grads in the city, and I promise that whether you’re seeking a boutique firm or the big boys, you’ll find the best of both here.

#2 Pursue any career

It’s easy for college students to get stuck in a well of damaging regional determinism. You want to work for a magazine? Head to New York. Acting your thing? LA’s your city. We’re fed the message that certain careers dictate certain locations, but I believe Chicago allows you to break that mold. Banks exist outside of Wall Street. The Wall Street Journal recently called Chicago’s theatre scene “better than Broadway.” The city’s non-profit community overflows with options, and, as seen from the BIO International Convention that took place here in May and the presence of tech demigods like Google and Microsoft, Silicon Valley will have to fight for its title as America’s tech hub.

#3 Build your resume

Thanks to my internship at WBC, I’ll be able to list my involvement with the globally recognized Shanghai Expo, content management of WBC’s website, and a blogging adventure on my résumé. I’m not just a cog in the machine here, but an integral part of the organization; they care about what they can do for me as much as what I can do for them. When you experience Chicago, you get great experience!

#4 Establish networks

Cities = People = Potential Connections. And due to Chicago’s famous Midwestern friendliness, you’ll make more contacts here than in the average city because people will be more willing to talk to you on the bus, at lunch, or even on the street. Plus, you’ll find scores of networking events and opportunities exclusively for young professionals. It’s a city with a twist on traditional networking.

#5 Feed your intellect

I’m kind of a bookworm. Chicago lets me feed that addiction. When I need a break from the sounds of the city, I can go to Harold Washington—a leviathan of a library located two blocks from my apartment—and read books in the stellar ninth-floor atrium, or thumb through rare Chicago-themed manuscripts. The world-famous University of Chicago and Northwestern University offer a number of grad school options for those continuing their education, and other colleges citywide add a young flair to the intellectual pulse. As an alternative to Starbucks, I can stop at Café Descartes (“I Drink, Therefore I am”) on Michigan Ave. and stare at the pictures of Kant and Hegel on the wall with an oatmeal latte in hand. Whether you’re studying human resources or hermeneutics, there’s probably a schooling option here for you.

#6 Earn more

I can’t vouch for this one from experience since I have yet to graduate and enter the salaried workforce, but the statistics can speak for themselves:

#7 Spend less

For a peek at the discounts and deals in Chi-town, check out my previous post. (The answer to the fill-in-the-blank: Chicago.)

#8 Explore innovative culture

I sometimes wish Chicago architect and planner Daniel Burnham were still alive so I could kiss him. Every time I walk downtown, I’m taken aback by the city’s layout and architecture. I’ll often stroll down Wacker just for the buildings: to experience the European stateliness of the Wrigley Building overlooking the river, the neo-gothic aura of the Tribune Tower (looking like something straight off of my campus), or the sleek contemporary finish of the Trump Tower. Chicago’s a looker, but architecture is only the beginning. Art and culture, ever-changing here, can be found in famous museums like the Art Institute of Chicago, or even in the panoply of public art exhibits throughout the city (Chicago as a “looker” gets literal with the current three-story eyeball display in Pritzker Park).

#9 Find your place

I haven’t even grazed the surface of the neighborhood diversity in Chicago, and there’s some comfort in knowing that I’ll never be able to exhaust it. The names of the neighborhoods alone—Ukrainian Village, Hermosa, and Logan Square—cue you in to all the experiences one could have throughout the city. For my own part, I can tell you about my home in the South Loop: the quiet and quaint Printers Row. All the old publishing houses used to line my street, and you can still see their faded advertisements on the bricks of exposed buildings. Within a half-mile radius, I have access to several bookstores, an adorable flower shop, pubs, restaurants, convenience stores, and bars. The brick clock tower of Dearborn Station—formerly a train stop, now home to several businesses—stands at the end of the street as a lighthouse to guide me home (a walk that only takes twenty minutes from my job!). Printers Row is the coziest place I’ve found in the city yet, and right next to everything I need. I’ve certainly found my place here.

#10 Make your mark

When my friend from South Dakota travels to southern Mexico, he tells people he’s from Chicago, and they smile knowingly. Chicago’s unmistakable international presence can be seen in the numbers. There are over 300 Chicago-based companies in China, over 200 German-owned companies in greater Chicago, and we even have our own British-style school. I feel as if I’m taking part in something bigger than myself when I’m in this city.

My name is Whitney in the White City, and I approve this list.

A Great Deal

I’m in college. College students love deals. Therefore, I love deals. I didn’t have to take a logic course to solve that one.

Now your turn: College students love deals. Chicago is the land of great deals. Therefore, college students love ______________.

In all seriousness, I’ve found life in The City of Broad Shoulders more affordable than I expected. Overall cost of living is less in Chicago than in New York, San Francisco, Boston, Los Angeles, D.C., or Philadelphia, but all the big-city perks still stand. Though popular belief may insist otherwise, it is possible to live on a budget amidst the bustle of a major city.

In November 2008, the folks at the daily-deal website Groupon chose Chicago as their guinea pig market for offering group discounts on local products and services. The coupons range from the essential (such as dental exams and haircuts) to the extravagant (skydiving and home-delivered lobsters). Today, Chicago hosts Groupon’s 300+ employee headquarters, and the company’s good-deal philosophy is a case-in-point of the bargains offered citywide. Restaurants, bars, and museums routinely slash their prices, drawing enthusiastic crowds that take advantage of the offers. A blog entry about Chicago’s discount culture will be insufficient by definition because these opportunities are seemingly endless, with new ones always appearing and old ones newly being uncovered.

In addition to deals, the city affords many free opportunities. Free of charge. Without cost. Gratis. Last week, I attended the Grant Park Music Festival’s opening night in their series of complimentary classical concerts. (For some reason, the word “complimentary” doesn’t have enough punch to convey my excitement. These concerts are FREE!) Located in the stunning silver Jay Pritzker Pavilion of Millennium Park, the series showcases the Grant Park Symphony Orchestra and world-class guest musicians. I went to the park straight from work, and already, people filled the seats an hour in advance. Families with fold-out chairs, picnic baskets, and blankets dotted the green lawn of the Park as they waited for Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” to begin. The birds flying through the open space in front of the stage seemed to enjoy the music, too, since the seagulls soared to slow songs, and the sparrows chased each other playfully when the tempo quickened. Another free show.

On-the-house activities on my agenda for the upcoming week include movies in the parks, dancing lessons downtown, and a Rob Thomas concert.  I’m not saying that Chicago attractions never cost money. Plenty do. Some people live to spend, and Chicago has endless opportunities for such an occasion, be it at a ritzy night club, a designer store, or an apartment made for the stars. I’m just glad I can go to Bar Louie on Tuesday nights and enjoy a burger for a dollar amongst the other 20-somethings. Seek deals, and you shall find.

A Fair Spirit

The walls of the halls of my apartment building are beautiful but beige—painted well, but nondescript. As with any apartment complex, the real decorating takes place inside the tenants’ doors. But on a recent trip to the garbage chute, I found an exception on my own floor: at the far end of the hall hangs a poster reading, “World’s Fair Chicago—A Century of Progress—1833-1933.” Planes and blimps fly through the city as a woman stands on the globe with her arms raised vertically; Chicago’s skyscrapers, Oz-like in the background, shine gold, pink, and green. I’m not sure whether the apartment manager placed the poster there, or if an occupant of one of the adjacent rooms flouted authority and nailed it to the wall. Either way, someone believed it deserved a spot on that blank space.

Chicagoans know, and actively remember, their history. It’s difficult to live in the city and not run into some mentioning of this 1933 World’s Fair, or, even more commonly, an earlier World’s Fair known as the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893. Chicago—above any of the other mushrooming cities of the nineteenth century— earned the honor as host of the 400-year commemoration of Columbus’s arrival in the Americas; as a result, the South Side transformed into a neoclassical “White City” that showcased what the world had to offer. The fair continues to capture the imagination, seen in books like Erik Larson’s  best-selling The Devil in the White City, or Navy Pier’s ever-crowded Ferris Wheel, whose prototype debuted at the 1893 Exposition.

As I write this entry, another World’s Fair is taking place across the Pacific. At the Shanghai Expo, potentially the largest event in world history, seventeen million visitors have poured through the Expo gates, and not even a third of the time has elapsed. In keeping with its Fair spirit, Chicago will make itself known at the Expo by serving as a city sponsor, and once again, making history as a global community. While interning at World Business Chicago, I have had the privilege of assisting with event planning for Chicago’s visit to the fairgrounds in September. The level of detail required throughout the planning process speaks to the scale of this affair; only in a city with the resources of Chicago would I have had the chance to be a part of this momentous event, and I’m confident that Chicago Days in Shanghai will be a smash at the USA Pavilion.

But the fair spirit of Chicago is not restricted to history or to Shanghai: the city keeps the tradition alive by hosting an array of festivals and fairs by the week. Earlier this month, I attended the Printers Row Lit Fest, where South Dearborn St. transformed into a flurry of book vendors, children’s entertainers, and writing workshops led by published authors. (The history booths, coincidentally, overflowed with World’s Fair paraphernalia.)  Several blocks away, the largest free blues festival in the world took place simultaneously, and happening soon will be Lollapalooza, Takin’ it to the Streets: Urban International Festival, Chicago Summerfest—the list goes on. Remembering the World’s Fairs of the past, Chicago makes its fairs and festivals a staple of the present.

Critics sometimes accuse my generation of historical ignorance, citing our absorption with Blackberries and cyberspace as barriers to engagement with our forebears. I think there’s something about Chicago’s pride in its past that prevents that forgetfulness from happening. I may have done some web surfing today, but I used it to find the name of that Glen C. Sheffer poster in my hallway: “Spirit of Chicago.”

Rallying Around Chicago

I’ve never considered myself a sports person. I was the girl who broke the lucky team bat at my championship softball tournament in middle school; the one who permanently injured her arm by stepping over a hurdle; the player whose foot kept crossing the center line in the volleyball game until she gave the opposing team enough points to win. Since my mishaps in athletics, I have restricted my sports-watching to games featuring players I knew personally, too disillusioned to follow professional or community teams. Even so, I couldn’t help but be infected by the enthusiasm that erupted in Chicago after the Blackhawks won the 2010 Stanley Cup. I had never seen a city and so many disparate people gather as one to commemorate a team’s victory.

Two days after the big match, the city organized a parade and rally to celebrate Chicago’s win. Michigan Avenue turned into a sea of red as supporters ran to the streets in their jerseys, many of them carrying homemade imitation Stanley Cups, which must have taken entire packages of tin foil to create. As we waited for the procession to reach us, strangers started dancing with one another to the beat of the Blackhawks’ theme song, performed extemporaneously by clusters of fans. 350,000 were expected to attend the parade and subsequent rally, but in a burst of Chicago pride, two million supporters came out for the celebration.

Several nights after the festivities, I could look out my apartment window and still see the windows of business high-rises lit to form Stanley Cups. The sustained excitement over the Blackhawks’ win reminded me of the perks of working in a city where corporate and culture united. The day of the rally, my supervisor had not only permitted me, but in fact, had urged me to attend the parade. By working in Chicago, I could play as hard as I worked. Perhaps I would begin to follow sports after all.

Photograph provided by andrewneher. To view, click here.