Results tagged “Chicago” from Intelligent Travel Blog

One of a number of popular speakeasy-themed bars sprouting up across the nation, Chicago's The Violet Hour just may be the best. (Don't believe us? just ask these guys.) Toby Maloney--the über-bartender of New York's Milk & Honey fame--has gathered a team of fellow bartenders who see mixing as equal parts science and art.

The elegant bar hides behind an abandoned building exterior; the only piece out of place is a door handle sticking out of the wall, which, once pulled, leads to the Violet Hour's dark waiting room. On my visit, my group and I were initially disappointed at being led to bar seats--we had wanted to sit in the ultra-high-backed chairs grouped around candlelit tables, or better yet, next to the fireplace. But we immediately realized that we had been awarded the best seats in the house. The dimly lit bar gleamed with varieties of booze that I didn't recognize (a bit different from the collection at my local college-town bar). Bottles that looked like they contained potions were lined up as if to say "at your service." I found out later that these were the homemade bitters, syrups, and hand-squeezed juices used in the cocktails.

Lawrence Ferber timed his visit to Rio de Janeiro well, arriving just in time for the announcement that the city won its Olympic bid for 2016. He sends along a dispatch from the weekend's festivities.
 
RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL - Obrigado, Olympics Committee! A geyser-like spray of silver confetti greeted the announcement that Rio won the bid to host the 2016 Olympics, and the glittering cloud engulfed the jubilant crowd of Cariocas who had gathered in front of the Copacabana Beach stage, flanked by giant TV screens, to take in the news and par-tay.

With the famed Copacabana Palace Hotel looming to the left, and the ocean to the right, the celebration was one big samba, with music and local celebrities keeping everyone entertained. But come 1:30 p.m. the televised proceedings from Copenhagen held us rapt. Rio had lost its 2012 Olympics bid (and at least two others before it), but now following a two-year campaign it had beat out second front-runner Madrid (which was booed when the name came up during the announcement), Tokyo, and Chicago. Not quite gingerly but politely enough, many Brazilians, and even some North American visitors, remarked that Chicago would have been a boring choice - "it's South America's time!" nodded one visiting American journalist.

When the news came out yesterday of the death of John Hughes, the world lost not only a popular director, but a huge proponent of the city of Chicago. Despite not being actively involved in filmmaking for the last ten years of his life, he continued to live in the city where he spent most of his career, a place which, he said, "[I]s a working city, where people go to their jobs and raise their kids and live their lives." His classic films like Sixteen Candles, Home Alone, The Breakfast Club, and of course, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, all could be considered postcards to the city. Here's one of my favorite scenes of all time. What's yours?

Read More: Cinematic Road Trip -- Illinois; 48 Hours Chicago; Free Cities Chicago.

In conjunction with his upcoming book, Here Is Where: In Search of America's Great Forgotten History, we're following historian and Legacy Project founder Andrew Carroll as he drives, flies, walks, boats, buses, bikes, and hikes to seek out little-known historic sites in all 50 states. Bookmark all of his posts here.

I typically travel to Chicago about once or twice a year, and on every trip I've walked past and in many cases gone into the Tribune Tower building at 435 North Michigan Avenue. But not once have I ever noticed the outside of the building.

After visiting Pittsburgh (see last week's blog) I sprinted through Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan and arrived in Chicago at about 7:00 p.m. The light was fading by the time I find a parking spot downtown, and I had to leave early the next morning for Hawaii so this was my only chance to photograph the Tower.

I raced up North Michigan Avenue and as the neo-Gothic building came into view, there they are: Embedded in the outside walls are stones, chunks of metal, small marble slabs, shards of jade glass, bricks, petrified wood, and a variety of other materials and architectural flourishes from landmarks across the globe--the Great Wall of China, the Taj Mahal, the Berlin Wall, the pyramids, the dome of St. Peter's, the Kremlin, the Arc de Triomphe, the Forbidden City, and a host of famous temples, mosques, and cathedrals.

Traveler photographer Bob Krist just paid a visit to Chicago, but he wasn't just there to check out the blues. Here, he shares some of his photos from his trip, and offers a few tips on getting great pictures of the skyline.

The Chicago skyline at twilight, as seen from the Adler Planetarium.

Chicago is more than the city of big shoulders; it's a city of great architecture. Capturing its distinct and eclectic skyline is a challenging pleasure for any shooter. Here are some top places to make knockout pictures of the Windy City.   

1. The Adler Planetarium on Museum Campus. Jutting out into Lake Michigan, the Museum Campus offers a panoramic view back towards the city. The Adler Planetarium sits at the end of the peninsula and the steps on the side of the structure give you an unfettered view of the expanse of the entire skyline. It's a morning to early afternoon shot, and it's great again at twilight (right after sunset). Many cameras, even point and shoots, allow you to stitch several pictures together for a panorama, so try shooting several overlapping sections of the view and stitching it together to form a stunning panoramic. You can also do this after fact in Photoshop or any image manipulation program that offers panoramic stitching.
   

Traveler photographer Bob Krist is just back from a visit to Chicago, where he toured some of the classic blues clubs in the city.

One of my favorite things to do when I arrive in a new place is go to the highest point, it helps me get my bearings and lays out the landscape in front of me like a huge buffet table that I'm eager to dig into. But I do admit to the occasional bout of vertigo when it comes to actually looking down. So my stomach feels a little queasy right now just thinking about "The Ledge," the new glass-enclosed feature of the Skydeck in the Sears Tower in Chicago, which opens today to the public. These new glass balconies are suspended 1,353 feet (412 meters) in the air and extend 4 feet (1.22 meters) from the Sears Tower's 103rd-floor Skydeck. According to the Sears Tower:

The inspiration for The Ledge came from hundreds of forehead prints visitors left behind on Skydeck windows every week. From the memorable scene in Ferris Bueller's Day Off to curious children going right up to the window, visitors are constantly trying to catch a glimpse below. Now they have a unique and unobstructed view of the city.

"The Ledge" is made from three layers of half-inch thick laminated glass, and each of the panels weighs 1,500 pounds. Apparently (and thankfully for the cleaning crew) the boxes are retractable, so they're able to be pulled into the building for easy maintenance. Because if this slide show from the AP is any indication, the number of forehead prints they're going to have to deal with will exponentially increase.

What do you think? Would you stand on "The Ledge"?

[Sears Tower Unveils Glass Balconies on Skydeck]

Photo: AP

Hunter Braithwaite visited the Buckminster Fuller exhibit at the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, and says the he "started off thinking that this guy was a genius, then shifted to kook, then settled on a mix of the two." You can determine for yourself by checking out the exhibit, on display through June 21st.

In this season of layoffs, the clichéd "doing more with less" seems inescapable. But did you know that the term wasn't coined by a regional manager somewhere, but by Buckminster Fuller, inventor of the geodesic dome, almost-inventor of the flying car, and founder of the modern day sustainability movement? Now you do.

Here is the back story: Fuller, twice-expelled from Harvard, unemployed, and unable to provide for his family, contemplates suicide on the shore of Lake Michigan. In the end, he decides against it, choosing instead to help as much of humanity as possible while using the smallest amount of resources. Or, to do more with less. If this came as a revelation, and you find yourself in the Chicago area before June 21st, check out Fuller's retrospective "Starting with the Universe" at the Museum of Contemporary Art.  
 
Luckily, the exhibition's curators do not share Fuller's passion for resource conservation. "Starting with the Universe" is a maximalist account of Fuller's life. Mining years of journals, the show is an in-depth narrative of Fuller's personal and professional growth. The walls are silkscreened with quotes, drawings, and enormous portraits of Fuller. There are models of his houses and developments. Unfortunately, the Dymaxion car isn't present. With a length of thirty feet, it wouldn't fit in the museum's freight elevator.

The exhibition charts Fuller's ambition as he moves from single-family homes to planned communities, from domed cities to plans for reallocating international resources. And toward the end of his life, things really took off. He made plans for cities that floated in the ocean. After that, he planned cities that floated in the sky. Some of these blueprints are little more than scribbles on notebook paper, but they raise the universal question, "what could he do had he lived for another decade?" The last room of the exhibition baits the viewer to pick up where Fuller left off. It is the Dymaxion study center, where visitors can browse over 400 volumes by and about Fuller.

So much city, so little time: like lots of air travelers, I'm often forced to shoehorn my sightseeing into a few hours of leisure and a few square blocks. That's when I get homesick for my trusty purple Schwinn, which hardly ever fits in the overhead bin. But I do tote a laptop, and that makes finding a local bike easy. Today RentABikeNow.com launches an online reservation site for cycling rentals at 200 locations nationwide. It's a quick-click solution to the only-one-afternoon-in-a-new-town dilemma--enter your destination, find a convenient location, and book your bike.

Gearhead George Gill of Chicago says he came up with the idea on a recent plane flight and promoted it at last year's Interbike trade show. The site lets cyclists reserve the bike of their choice, from a recumbent to a BMX, for just a few bucks (plus a surcharge that starts at $5). You can specify size and accessories (even, at some shops, a GPS to guide your way), and the dates, from a day to a month. The site pre-sifts available locations to make sure that the shop is open when you need it and responds with a confirmation that includes directions to the rental site and suggestions for area attractions nearby.

There are gaps--search for Cleveland and you'll be matched with a shop 35 miles away in Barberton--but bike-friendly spots like San Diego, Tampa and Chicago are well served and the site is adding locations daily. RentABikeNow has also enlisted shops at rural trailheads for the fat-tire crowd. Log on today, ride tomorrow.

--Chris O'Toole

Photo: Biking along Lake Michigan in Chicago, by meryddian via the Intelligent Travel Flickr pool        

Hello city-lovers! Today's city of choice is Chicago, and it comes at the hands of Traci and Jeff Dybdahl. Jeff is an attorney, Traci a PhD student, and they love exploring their (relatively) new city together.

Still haven't sent in your own city suggestions? Easy enough. Just complete our list of fill-in-the-blank questions then copy and paste the list into an email, fill in your answers, and send your responses to IntelligentTravel@ngs.org. And if you're waiting for us to feature yours, fear not! We're attempting to post them as fast as we can (hint -- it helps if you include the links!).

All through December we'll be showcasing the best of the holiday season in cities around the world. Today it's Christmastime in Chicago, and we've asked local experts for the essential ways to enjoy the winter's best. Visitors and locals alike come together to celebrate the holidays and the New Year, and we encourage you to share your own favorites with us in the comments below.


Sylvia Rollins, Chief Concierge,
Kimpton's Hotel Monaco Chicago

• The Annual Reindog Parade at the Chicago Botanic Gardens. A dog is a Chicagoan's best friend--and it's never more evident than at the Reindog Parade. Dress up your pet in holiday style for the costume contest and canine parade through twelve gardens. Prizes are awarded for best overall costume, best puppy costume, and best owner/dog look-alike.

• The Christmas Day Bagel Ride. Starts at 10 a.m. Thursday, Dec. 25. The locals love biking--and bagels--and all the merrier when joined together. This social and leisurely paced 12-mile bike ride begins at Chicago's Waveland Clock Tower, 3700 North Recreation Drive, and ends at the Bagel Restaurant & Deli located at 3107 North Broadway.

• 25th Annual Christmas Sing-Along and Double Feature. From December 19-24, locals will make the late Gene Siskel proud by watching screenings of White Christmas and It's a Wonderful Life at the the Music Box Theatre, 3733 N. Southport Avenue. Christmas carols with Santa are sung in between the films.

• Celebrate Kwanzaa with "Raven Black" (4 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 28) at Chicago's heralded DuSable Museum of African American History. This fascinating musical production, set during the Great Migration, features the People's Jazz Theatre and music of the African Diaspora.

• The Annual "12 Bars of Christmas" Pub Crawl. Starts at 3 p.m., Saturday, Dec. 6. This walking pub tour comes complete with drink specials and is held at more a dozen bars in Chicago's Wrigleyville (where you'll find plenty of avid Cubs fans).

• Symphony in Lights. Families bring little ones to this spectacle of lights featuring a football field-sized display of 250,000 LED bulbs synchronized to the music of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra. The show is held every hour on the hour between 5 and 9 p.m., through December 31, at the Promenade in suburban Bolingbrook. Carriage rides, ice sculptures, carolers, storytelling and an appearance by Santa Claus occur nightly. 

Better known for its Prairie-style architecture in the heart of Frank Lloyd Wright country, Chicago has long dismissed its endless rows of brick bungalows as humdrum. The basic homes were built for the city's working class--mostly immigrants--in the 1920s as an urban respite, located just four to eight miles from downtown.

But the current issue of the National Trust's magazine, Preservation, reports that after decades of quietly subsisting, the so-called "bungalow belt"--some 80,000 homes strong--has benefited from a new boon of popularity.

More than just a question of historic preservation, reviving the bungalows has become a means of providing affordable housing, creating a green housing stock, and revitalizing Chicago's neighborhoods.

"The initiative started with virtually no knowledge on the public front about what a bungalow was--it was an old house that your grandmother used to live in," says Jim Peters, director of preservation planning at Landmarks Illinois. "Now, a bungalow is a desirable thing to have. People have seen the quality of these buildings, have seen how they can be adapted and upgraded. That wasn't the case 15 years ago."

The bungalows have emerged as a model for the convergence of historic preservation and sustainability, not only because of their eco-friendly restorations, but also because they're an alternative to new construction in the sprawling exurbs.

Six of the bungalow neighborhoods were recently added to the National Register, and the renowned Chicago Architecture Foundation added two bungalow tours to its lengthy roster of offerings.