Point of View
The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes…”
–Marcel Proust
How many times had I bounded down the stairs, clutching a half-empty Starbucks cup late for an interview? Or for a concert at Millennium Park? Or an ill-fated match.com date, rushing to pose expectantly alongside a Lion guarding the Art Institute?
As a resident of an inner ring suburb, I am tethered to the city by the blue and green lines. When my kids were small, riding in the front car was cheap entertainment. It was a the ultimate rolleroaster, without the dips. We could have even skipped the destination.
Riding the Lake Street L from Oak Park, I would zip past the empty lots of the west side, watch workers on breaks smoking in parking lots and try to decipher faded words on warehouses. Sometimes I’d try to count the water towers; a friend once told me this was his symbol for Chicago. Getting close to the Loop, you pass the dome of the United Center; it looks strange- as if an alien ship had landed in the middle of brick row houses and asphalt.
Saturday my friend Barbara and I saw the El in a new light during a tour of the El– a vantage point for viewing the city’s architectural gems. From the Clark green line we got close enough to recognize the aquatic creatures carved into the terra cotta facade of the Fisher Building. On the brown line we examined the north facade of the Harold Washington library, decorated with chubby-faced creatures pursing their lips to blow out hot air ( anyone know a Chicago politician like that/) From the Quincy stop our guide pointed out magnificent old buildings that had sprung up on Wabash Street, just one year after the Great Chicago Fire.
And there were tales of how the L became the great Chicago icon, its first rails going all the way from the Loop to the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Jackson Park. And how its creator, the financier Charles Yerkes, tricked local business owners along Wabash to consent to building the massive rails of steel called “The great nuisance” by the Chicago Tribune. Rumor has it he even bribed Chicago lawmakers to get the green light for his rails. Shocking!
Maybe Proust got it right. The next time I hop on the green line, I’ll take a better look.