Go with the flow in Downtown Chicago
I am exploring downtown Chicago – the prettiest, wealthiest, most touristy part of the city, where visitors snap photos and report to folks back home that the city is wonderful. And why not? Vacations are for fantasy – for living, for a little while, in a place where days can be dedicated to museums, walking tours and spending money in shops and restaurants, and nights are for the blur of city lights through cab windows and cozy, unfocused gazes at wine glasses and friends, and for romance.
To the visitor, downtown Chicago, known locally as the Loop, is everything one hopes a big city will be – a vibrant, overwhelming monument to human achievement. The newcomer explores avenues on foot and beholds a windswept knot of humanity, high-rise buildings, pizza, bridges, architecture, art, history, theater, sports, parks, shops, department stores, dining and drinking, pizza worth mentioning twice, traffic, steel, glass, concrete and the iconic rise and stretch of elevated rapid transit lines (the “L”).
In the heart of downtown, the Chicago River delivers commerce and leisure pursuits to a metropolis where fortunes and weather are moored to the moods of a vast, formidable lake. Everywhere here, corridors and machinery keep people moving, and that’s what Chicagoans do at 7 a.m. on a Friday; they move from one place to another, ribbons of them, endlessly.
This morning, under shade trees at the riverfront, where excursion boats rest at their moorings, I found chairs facing the water. I am the only person present who cares to sit and take in the scenery. It’s like I own the place. Everyone else is walking or running while checking Fitbits, riding bicycles, driving with one hand on the horn, riding the L or catching a cab or bus. People on foot seem happier, maybe because of the privilege of living here but it’s probably about whatever is on their phone screens.
The air here today, a weekend cold front, is paradise to me: 71 degrees and a 6 mph breeze. I like to think the wind is coming in from Lake Michigan. I think what I wish. I’m on vacation.
My wife, Lisa, is at the Hard Rock Hotel on North Michigan Ave. doing whatever women do in the morning before they are “ready.” She’s a night person; a Southern lady who graces the outside world with her presence by and by. I’m out wandering, a convenient Starbucks cup in hand despite all of the better corner coffee shops in the area. Today, I’m a tourist with no shame.
Chicago, like many great cities, has its own look and feel, rhythm, textures and sounds. If its downtown is a symphony, the conductor is a creature of infinite endurance, ceaselessly waving at the string section and stabbing at the horns. Today, the Chicago River appears gentle, its waves almost playful, but that may be deceiving, for beneath the surface unseen currents influence vessels of entertainment and commerce.
From my seat, I watch excursion boat captains stride their decks, check hardware, polish brass and teak, and pass through wood-framed hatches in gleaming, white bulkheads. They will stop and chat, a little, but they don’t want to. This is their time to prepare for the day’s voyages. It is peaceful here if one can tune out the drone and blare of nearby traffic. Birds sing in trees. It is early morning. I wish I captained one of these boats. My teak and brass would glisten, too. I would hope not to be disturbed by tourists in this best hour of the day.
Guy D. Johnson is a writer and marketing communications professional. Previously an animation studio owner, daily newspaper editor, reporter and photographer, volunteer fireman, railroad bridge gang helper, FM radio station underling and cave guide. He has lived on farmland trusted to the sun and rain; atop a wooded hill; beside great rivers; upon an arid, high plateau; and at the subtropical coast of the Gulf of Mexico. For 20 years, he worked and wrote in New Orleans.