Slice of Life: Reflections of Chicago

The Chicago skyline is reflected in the new Modern Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago.

McCormick Sans Tribune

It's a sign of the times.  The area in front of the Art Institute's new Modern Wing is called "Brooks McCormick Court."

In the six short years I've been in and blogging about Chicago, it's become habit to always write "McCormick" followed by "Tribune."  But with Tribune as a brand teetering on the edge of extinction, it's not surprising to see other alliances made.

Skating at Millennium Park is still in the "McCormick Tribune" rink, but who knows for how long.  The McCormick Tribune Freedom Museum is gone.  And although the web address is still http://www.McCormickTribune.org/, I can't help but notice that the official name of the charity is now the "McCormick Foundation" with no trace of Tribunicity.

Whether the Chicago Tribune survives as a newspaper or not, it appears that Tribune, as a brand, is going the way of Marshall Field's, Sears, Frangos, and other Chicago labels that have either disappeared, or been co-opted by bigger organizations.

Full disclosure: I am a former Tribune employee.

The Nichols Bridgeway: More Than a Massive Downspout

Over the weekend, two of the city's newest tourist attractions opened: The Art Institute of Chicago's Modern Wing , which we talked about Thursday, and the attached Nichols Bridgeway.  "Bridgeway," by the way, is not a word.

The "bridgeway," for lack of a better description, looks essentially an overgrown PVC drainage pipe drawing human runoff from the Art Institute and depositing it across Monroe Street in Millennium Park.  Or at least it would seem that way, if gravity was in charge.  In reality, traffic moves best from the park side to the museum side.  That's because once a crowd of tourists arrives at the museum side, there is a series of escalators to smoothly move them from the third floor bridge lobby down to the main lobby of the museum where they can purchase tickets or visit the gift shop.

Going the other way is an exercise in futility. You cannot get to the third floor bridge lobby from the third floor of the Art Institute.  Or the second.  It is only accessible from the first floor.  And then, only from outside the museum area, and only by a single elevator which is woefully inadequate for the hoards of tourists and their baby buggies trying to go the other way.

The Nichols Bridgeway was touted, in part, as a safe solution for moving tourists back and forth across Monroe between the Art Institute and the are near the Lurie Garden.  But it only works one way.  This is because anyone can use the bridge for free.  You can wander from Millennium Park up the bridge and end up in the Modern Wing of the Art Institute -- but the newly arrived masses must be kept behind the ticketing and security barrier to prevent free access to the treasures inside.  It's like the difference between the land side and the air side of an airport terminal.  Except in this case, arriving at the airport puts you as far as you can possibly get from the ticketing and check-in counters that you need to proceed into the rest of the facility.

It was all designed to be clean, and elegant, and very Buck Rogers.  It was not designed for mobility or to effectively transport 20 thousand shuffling tourists.  During Saturday's grand opening, the most common question posed to the weary workers at the museum's third floor terrace bar wasn't, "Can I get a double latte?"  It was, "Where the heck is the stupid bridge?"

Every directional sign in the Modern Wing clearly states that access to the bridge on the third floor is from the first floor, but it's so counterintuitive that the average tourist can be forgiven for thinking it's a mistake.  And even when one is on the first floor, the bridge access area is ensconced down a side hallway around the back of the gift shop.  

The other thing that puzzles is the notion of drainage.  Will the bridge be open when it rains?  Sure, Chicago isn't Seattle.  But we do get an average of three feet of rain each year, and the Nichols Bridgeway looks designed to capture and move moisture rapidly into Millennium Park.

Toward the bottom of the bridge, pedestrians exit to the east through a little gangway, while water continues flowing to the end of the bridge.  In the photo above it looks like the bridge actually misses dumping its load into an existing drain by about two feet.  That's something of an optical illusion, as the visible drain is well beyond the reach of the bridge.

What does exist is a tiny circular drain embedded deep in the grass right below the apex of the lip of the bridge.  Is it enough to handle the flow from a thunderstorm?  The surrounding grass will let us know over the next few months.  My uneducated guess is that we'll see some gravel at the end of the bridge before the end of the year.

Clearly, the Art Institute is worried about water, too.  Security guards posted near and on the bridge are warning tourists to keep their water bottles closed when walking on the bridge.  They're worried about people slipping and falling on the shiny new metal deck.  Maybe once the bridge is worn in that might not be a concern anymore.  But for now the bridge could face trouble whether the skies are wet, or the tourists are dry.

Art Institute Expansion Opens Tomorrow. Not Quite Done

The Art Institute of Chicago opens its biggest expansion in years tomorrow.  The new 264,000 square foot modern wing comes complete with a slew of eco-friendly features, a big name starchitect, and a $294,000,000.00 price tag.

It's the first major public project for the Italian architect in Chicago, though as the New York Times notes, the rest of "America has been suffering from Renzo Piano fatigue."  He's been doing art museums in Texas and California since the 80's.

I went down to the museum on Thursday, figuring that if it was going to open on Saturday, it would be finished.  I was wrong.  There was still much frantic dozing of bull, scaping of land, and even some cement work being done.  I did get to watch as a guy folded on his knees on the ground scratched "Renzo Piano" into the cornerstone near the new entrance.  I always thought that sort of work would be done in an artisan's studio, not in the hot sun and dust of East Monroe Street with what looked like little more than a screwdriver, but I'm sure was a much more sophisticated tool than I can comprehend.  I didn't get that good a look at it because some guy in a hard hat and an accent I couldn't quite identify driving a scissor jack yelled at me to get out of his way.  Renzo?  Not likely.  But maybe one of his flunkies.  What an honor to be admonished by the man next to the man next to the guy who gets coffee for the architect who designed a museum in Chicago 20 years after doing the legendary Menil Collection in Houston.  We'd might as well be Winnipeg.

I'm not trying to be critical.  Certainly not.  The building is beautiful, and I hope it stays that way.  There's lots of intricate gleaming white surfaces that will need to be cleaned.  Thanks to Iowa, Chicago's a lot dustier than some cities.  I hope that the building can be kept looking like new.  I think it's a nice building.

It's also important to note that according to its new signs and logos, the joint is now the "Art Institvte" as if we've stepped back in time to ancient Greece and no longer have use of the letter "u."  Funny how the "Modern" wing gets the old alphabet.

It's not exactly daring or groundbreaking or anything like that, but it's new.  I like new.  It turns out, it's not supposed to be cutting-edge.  Again, to quote the Times:

...The subdued nature of his designs — sophisticated but not too threatening or unfamiliar — which seem tailored to ease the insecurities of museum boards. Some envy his elegance, which makes him seem equally at home in corporate boardrooms and lofty cultural circles.

It’s hard to know how these qualities will play out amid the gloom and doom of the new economy. In some ways Mr. Piano’s refined, risk-averse architecture may be more appealing than ever. He is not out to start a revolution. His designs are about tranquillity, not conflict.

Tranquility is good.  Especially when you're trying to immerse yourself in a great piece of art and some little brat who's way too old to still be pushed around in a stroller is screaming at the top of her lungs for no apparent reason other than people are looking at something other than her.  I believe that art museums (along with airlines and restaurants) would find that there are millions of people willing to pay a premium for child-free access to their facilities, even if only for a few hours a week.

Of course, there are already people who pay for premium access to the Art Institute.  They're called "members."  I was one when I first moved to Chicago, but didn't renew my membership because the museum sold my information to every charity from here to Peoria.  I value my privacy a little more than the Institute does.

Regardless, there were plenty of members on hand on Thursday, as it was a member preview day.  They got to go inside and marvel at the space, and the art, and the new garden of serenity, and crawl all over the new Nichols Bridgeway (we'll have an article on that on Monday).  They also got to watch some girl carrying a green flag run up and down the new bridge over Monroe while being timed by a man with a stopwatch.

In all, I think the new wing will be a success.  I'll be among the throngs of people shoving their way in on Saturday -- the first official day the unwashed masses get a crack at it.  If nothing else, the extra space will at least thin out the herds of tourists who flood the Art Institute every day, keeping the locals out of the facility that is partially funded with their tax dollars ("Locals Day," anyone?).  I will go.  I will acknowledge the splendor of it all.  I will mark it off my list of things to do in Chicago.

Status Update: The Nichols Bridgeway

After yesterday's mini-rant about the Art Institute's Modern Wing, it seemed logical to follow that up with an update on the bridge that will link the museum with Millennium Park.

The 620-foot-long bridge has a Renzo Piano pedigree and like most modern architecture is simple in design.  In fact, it's a big white pipe cut in half.  A culvert, really.  Which I guess is symbolic or ironic or something since it's supposed to "funnel" people into the park from the museum.  Clever.

Did we really need to spend a brazillion dollars to have Piano tell us to build a pipe?  And did we even need a bridge in the first place?  I'm not questioning the utility of finding a way to get thousands of tourists across Monroe Street.  I've seen enough of them almost get creamed while jaywalking with their noses buried in their pop-out maps.  But was a bridge the best way to go?  Couldn't we have sent them under Monroe along the existing pathway at a fraction of the price?

Regardless, the bridge is here and I'm going to try hard to learn to love it.  Currently it has a lot of nasty rust all over it and it looks like a broadcast antenna fell down.  But come spring when it's all nice and shiny and painted I hope I'll find it's the next best thing to sliced bread.  Or one of those pop-out maps.

Ben-Agains

Last year the Bennigan's restaurant chain collapsed, leaving two very high profile vacancies in Chicago's Loop.  One, directly across from the Art Institute must have been a gold mine, especially on rainy days, as tourists sought shelter from the elements and vagrants. The other was front and center on the ground floor, Michigan Avenue face of the Illinois Center.  Now it appears there is some life at both locations.

First, down by the Art Institute, we're happy to report that the Bennigan's has actually reopened for business.  It's been open since at least November and appears to be doing OK.  Not as good as it used to, but what restaurant is doing its old traffic these days anyway?

The Illinois Center location isn't open, but at least we don't have to look at a vacant bar anymore.  The windows have been covered up with advertising for some movie coming out in the spring.  One of the large windows has been transformed into a video screen.  It's not ideal, but it's certainly better than nothing, especially considering the amount of vacant storefronts within 1,000 yards of that location.

What we'd like to see: WFLD Television take over the Bennigan's space and finally get the streetfront news studio it's been craving for years.  Parking the microwave truck on South Water Street and doing live shots from the plaza of 230 North Michigan really isn't the same thing.  It would also leave WGN Television as the only commercial station in town whose news operation isn't open to public viewing.