Friday, May 8, 2009
The City of Chicago Mayor’s Office of Special Events has just announced the presentations being offered for Great Chicago Places and Spaces this year. I am honoured to have been asked to make three separate walking tour presentations for this event, which will occur on Saturday, May 16.
In Secret Streets of Chicago’s Loop; streets like Monroe, LaSalle and Jackson are quintessentially part of Chicago’s Loop, just as are streets like Garland, Couch, Marble and Arcade. Let’s find these streets and learn about the significant events that happened there. This presentation will take place at 945AM and registration is available at the Chicago Architecture Foundation on the day of the tour.
Great Train Stations of Clinton Street occurs at 12 noon. The train stations of Clinton Street – the Old Post Office, Union Station, Northwestern Station (Olgivie Transportation Center) and the CTA Clinton / Lake Green Line and the CTA Clinton / Blue Line Stations have always played an important role in Chicago’s Development. See the stations of the past and present, and let’s glimpse at what the future holds in store.
The presentation of Just a Bit of Chicago’s Transit Archaeology takes place at 2PM. What is this lost wall, this crooked building, this odd thing in the river, this old sign? Remnants of a lost civilization? No: Chicago is loaded with all sorts of Archaeology of past transit systems. let’s look at this one part that ran up to the Loop. On my suggestion, some of this tour was previewed by Geoffrey Baer in a telecast of “Ask Geoffrey” during an episode of Chicago Tonighton WTTW-TV last January.
The two afternoon presentations “Great Train Stations of Clinton Street” and “Just a Bit of Chicago’s Transit Archaeology” require advance registration, which will be available online at www.greatchicagoplaces.us starting Tuesday, April 21. In previous years, both of these presentations sold out early.
Great Chicago Places and Spaces offers a cornucopia of other terrific presentations, most of which are not offered other times of the year. Some presentations are aimed specifically at children and families. More information is available at www.greatchicagoplaces.us