Chicago, That Toddling Town

"Chicago, Chicago, that toddling town
Chicago, Chicago, I'll show you around, I love it"

                                                              ~ lyrics sung by Frank Sinatra

The Chicago Theater, 175 N. State Street

Frank Sinatra sang about his love for Chicago.  I love it, too.  Let me show you my favorite buildings from among downtown Chicago landmarks erected in the past century, beginning with the Chicago Theater built in 1921.  The first movie palace built in the nation, the Chicago Theater became the prototype for all the others that followed.  Using a French Baroque design, its State Street facade even boasts a miniature Arc de Triomphe above its marquee.  For me, the draw is its bright Chicago neon sign.  


It's a wonder that Sinatra used the word toddling to describe this town when toppling seems a great threat to me.  Foundation and wind worry Chicago architects.  Unlike New York City's Time Square where the bedrock anchoring its skyscrapers is only 18 feet below the surface, Chicago's bedrock lies more than 125 feet below grade.  In between Chicago's bedrock and its surface is a water-saturated mixture of sand and clay that shifts and oozes as it wishes.  As Erik Larson wrote in his book, The Devil In the White City, "there were only two ways to solve Chicago's soil problems:  Build short and avoid the issue, or drive caissons down to bedrock," a very dangerous and expensive technique to use.  


Then, in 1881 John Wellborn Root conceived a solution that would push Chicago's skyline ever higher.  That year Root designed the 10-storied Montauk, a building that was later demolished in 1902.  Root theorized that a concrete pad laid down on the reasonably firm hard-pan strata, overlaid with steel rails running at right angles through the length and the width of the concrete would provide a firm foundation.  This grillage of steel encased in additional concrete created a floating foundation.  Root's idea worked!  And Chicago skyscrapers climbed to even greater heights.

The Merchandise Mart, 222 Merchandise Plaza

The Merchandise Mart just north of the Loop across the Chicago River had the largest interior space of any building in the world when it opened in 1930 with an impressive 4,000,000 square feet.  It was built by Marshall Field as a wholesale store; today it is a design center showcase for furniture and furnishings dealers, apparel and gift wholesalers.  

Merchandise Mart's Hall of Famous Merchants

On the riverwalk outside the Merchandise Mart stand parapets topped with heroic-sized heads of famous Chicago retailers facing the mart's front entrance.  These busts include Frank Woolworth, John Wanamaker, Marshall Field, Julius Rosenwald (founder of Sears Department Stores), Aaron Montgomery Ward, Edward Albert Filene, Robert Elkington Wood and George Huntington Hartford.   David Letterman once jokingly called these busts "the Pez Hall of Fame," referring to the Pez candy dispensers which are topped by a plastic head.

Chicago Board of Trade, 141 W. Jackson Blvd.

No Kansas farm girl can visit Chicago without paying a visit to the Chicago Board of Trade where wheat, corn and other commodities are bought and sold.  Opened in 1930, the Chicago Board of Trade building stands like a period at the end of La Salle Street, home to Chicago's financial district.

Chicago Board of Trade

Its upper-story setbacks and the geometrical designs that embellish its facade are typical of the Art Deco era.  When it was built, its 45-story height was considered so tall that John Storrs, the sculptor who completed Ceres, the Roman goddess of agriculture, for the pinnacle of the building, didn't bother to sculpt the statute's features, thinking no one in the neighboring buildings would ever be high enough to see her face.  

Willis Tower as glimpsed from La Salle Street

Obviously, Storrs never expected the 110-story Sears Tower, renamed the Willis Tower in 2009 for the London-based insurance holding company who leased multiple floors, to move into the neighborhood.  

The Willis (formerly Sears) Tower dominates the Chicago skyline

The tip of the highest antenna on Willis Tower reaches 1,730 feet above the street.  The Willis Tower now stands as the 7th tallest building in the world and is still the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere, even though Dubai's Burj Khalifa in 2010 and others have topped it.  

Willis Tower, 233 Wacker Street

Its design reminds me of a Saturday morning "Math Is Fun!" class I attended with my daughter Jillian who was then in 3rd grade.  We were given an assortment of materials that included paper towel rolls and told to create a structure that would stand taller than my daughter's height.  I remember that we rubber-banded the rolls together in successive layers until we achieved our objective.   Structural engineer Fazlur R. Khan did the same.  He bundled together nine cubes and anchored them to a concrete slab that rests upon 114 steel and concrete caissons embedded in rock 65-feet below the surface.  Two of his nine tubes end at the 50th floor, two more stop at the 66th floor and three more terminate at the 90th floor, leaving the final two to rise to a height of 1,454 feet.   

A street view of Willis Tower

Don't forget that wind is a challenge to Chicago architects!  The Willis Tower sways an average of 6 inches in gentle winds, but it was designed to sway up to 3 feet.  Yikes!  That must feel like a tilt-a-whirl on gusty days so even though I've made the pilgrimage to its Skydeck on previous visits to Chicago, today was windy and I chose not to subject myself to the ride.  The Willis Tower has 4.5 million square feet of floor space, the equivalent of roughly 101 football fields.  It is such an immense office structure that it has its very own U.S. Postal Service zip code. 


Ludwig Miles van der Rohe left his mark upon the Chicago skyline with the completion of his Chicago Federal Center in 1974.  Miles van der Rohe emigrated to the United States in 1937 after Nazi political pressure forced him to resigned from the directorship of Bauhaus, the renowned school of design that operated in Germany from 1919 until 1933.  Fortunately for Chicago, he accepted a position as head of the architecture department at the Illinois Institute of Technology here in the city.  "Less is more" and "God is in the details" were the statements that guided Miles van der Rohe's designs.  

Everett McKinley Dirkson building (left)
Red 54-feet tall Flamingo sculpture by Alexander Calder (center)
John C. Kluczynski building (right)

Mies' Chicago Federal Center is comprised of three buildings, the Everett McKinley Dirkson building, the John C. Kluczynski building and the U.S. Post Office.  All are situated along Dearborn Street.  Mies' international style featured a rectangular shape with an exposed glass ground floor that seems practically transparent.  

The Chicago Federal Center's Plaza viewed from inside the U.S. Post Office

There is minimal ornamentation; remember "less is more."  However, "God is in the details" which you can see as you view how perfectly Mies aligned the junctions of the marble tiles on the outside plaza with the interior tiles on the ground floor, then, carried those lines up the i-beams that form the building's structure.  His work reminds me of matching seams and plaids in a sewing project.

Chicago Metropolitan Correctional Facility, 71 W. Van Buren Street
(Also pictured is the Ceres sculpture at the top of the Chicago Board of Trade on the left.)

Another interesting landmark is the Chicago Metropolitan Correctional Facility, a concrete right-triangle-shaped jail with irregularly perforated with slit windows.  Those windows look like the slits in medieval castles.  Designed by Harry Weese in 1975, prisoner cells line the three interior walls surrounding a center guard station on each floor.  Although there has never been an escape from its rooftop prisoner exercise yard, federal prosecutors are currently worried that one might occur.  In papers filed September 23, 2011, federal prosecutors sought to deny Vicente Zambada Niebla, a reputed member of the Sinaloa Cartel and defendent in one of the highest profile drug prosecutions in the country currently housed at the jail, access to the rooftop yard, fearing that he might attempt an escape.

Harold Washington Library Center, 400 S. State Street

For my final favorite 20th century building from downtown Chicago, let's take a quick look at the post-modern Harold Washington Public Library.  This public library, named for Chicago's first African-American mayor, takes up a whole city block at the south end of the Loop's El.  

Rooftop Gargoyles on the Harold Washington Library Center

Its design imitates neo-classical style in a way that is slightly over the top; note the fantastical gargoyles that adorn each corner of its roof.  

Winter Garden, Harold Washington Library Center

The Winter Garden, a light-filled interior courtyard found on the library's 9th floor, provides a restful reading area.  So perhaps it's only fitting to leave the library and close this 20th century Chicago favorites blog by reading a few lines penned by Carl Sandburg.  

Chicago River viewed from Michigan Avenue Bridge near sunset

Come and show me another city with lifted head singing;

so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.

~ From the poem "Chicago" by Carl Sandburg