Chicago

Last week our family had a chance to get together with our extended family in Chicago to celebrate the 90th birthday of my wife's mother.  A few days prior to the birthday bash some of us stayed in the Congress Plaza Hotel on the shore of Lake Michigan, in downtown Chicago.  http://congressplazahotel.reachlocal.net/  It turns out that hotel was built to accommodate visitors to the 1893 Columbian Exposition and World Fair.  The hotel was once owned by Al Capone.  The room was wonderful, the service excellent, and the view magnificent.

In the weeks leading up to our trip I read a fascinating, readable history by Eric Larson, entitled, The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America.  The book chronicles the events leading up to the Exposition, including the massive, rapid construction project.  It also contains a murder mystery.  Aside from the murders, the story of the fair is about optimism and vision.  It also provides a peek at life before the turn of the 20th century in a rough and tumble Chicago, where life was cheap and working conditions and quality of life, awful for most.


I was born on the edge of the Exposition site at the University of Chicago Lying In Hospital many years later and spent my grade school years fewer than two miles from there. Nearly all the buildings are gone, except for the Museum of Science and Industry, the Midway Plaisance, the Wooded Island, and Jackson Park.  


One day when we visit, in warmer weather, we plan to take in some of those sights.