Thursday, July 12

Mural Lincoln - Douglas Debate - Ottawa, IL.

Merchandise Mart

12 miles of Hell

Leo Burnett & United Airlines Blds.

Marina City

Statue Lincoln- Douglas Debate- Ottawa, IL

Tribune Building

Wrigley Building

Today we officially ended our tour of the Great Lakes.  From Lake Ontario to the granite lined shores of Georgian Bay & The North Channel (Lake Huron) and the Eastern & Western shores of Lake Michigan, it was a magnificent cruising ground.  A person could spend a lifetime cruising these waters - our short visit left us tempted to return, but that probably won't happen.
Wanting to beat the tour boat traffic we entered the Chicago Lock on Lake Michigan (located just south of Navy Pier) at 8:30 am.  With our "A View from the River" ( The Chicago Architecture Foundation River Cruise Book) in hand, we leisurely headed down The Main Channel & The South Branch of the Chicago River.
Highlights included:
Tribune Tower (1925)
The Tribune announced a competition with a $50,000 prize - to design "the most beautiful and distinctive office building in the world".  The winning entry was a tower with a Gothic crown and flying buttresses.  The Tribune Tower's most popular feature is its base, where 150 stone fragments are embedded in the exterior walls.  At the request of Col. Robert McCormick, the head of the Tribune, journalists gathered fragments of historically significant buildings from around the world.  The pieces came from sites such as the Taj Mahal, the Great Wall of China and the Alamo.
Wrigley Building (1921/1924)
This Beaux Arts architectural gem is an elegant monument to Chicago - and chewing gum.  The two buildings are connected by a sky bridge and once completed, it was Chicago's tallest building.  For a quarter, visitors could take an elevator to the tower observation deck for breathtaking views and a complimentary stick of Wrigley chewing gum.
Marina City (1964)
Bertrand Goldberg's vision for the modern American metropolis.  When completed, it consisted of two residential towers, an office building, a bowling alley, swimming pool, health club, restaurant and stores.
Leo Burnett Building (1989) & United Airlines Building (1992)
These two buildings are examples of Postmodern Architecture - a style that mixes elements of traditional architecture with the modern.  Both buildings take inspiration from the classical column.
Merchandise Mart (1930)
 Marshall Field & Co. built the Merchandise Mart to centralize and modernize its wholesale merchandising which was scattered in 13 different warehouses in Chicago.  The enormous facility, over 4,000,000 square feet of space, was the largest commercial building of its day.  The Great Depression forced Field's out of the wholesale market and the $32 million investment stood half empty until it was purchased by the Kennedy Family in 1945 for one-half of its original cost.  What goes around, comes around - sounds a lot like our current real estate market.
Once through "the good stuff", at the intersection of the Calumet River and the Chicago Shipping Canal, we entered what is known as the "Twelve Miles of Hell".  It is every canal boater's nightmare - a narrow channel with a great deal of commercial traffic and no place to hide.  We got a dose of this, but it could have been far worse.
The Illinois Waterway then joins the wider Des Plaines River which merges with the Illinois River where we navigated a series of four locks that lowered us a total of 120 feet.  The boat traffic gradually became less commercial and more recreational the further we got from Chicago.  After ten hours on the water and traveling 99 miles we tied up to the city wall in Ottawa, IL.  An otherwise ordinary Midwestern river town, it was the site of the famous Lincoln- Douglas Debate.  We had just enough energy to ride our bicycles to the town square commemorating the 1858 event.