River North Boundary Walk (Oct 2024)

In previous blogs, I explored the Old Town and Gold Coast neighborhoods of Chicago. In this post, I explore some landmarks of the River North neighborhood.

There is no official arbiter of neighborhoods in Chicago. The River North neighborhood is commonly understood to be within the perimeters of the red lines shown below:

Source: Google Maps

Given the limited time I had on hand, I limited my exploration of River North to its boundaries formed by:

East: the mag mile stretch of Michigan Avenue
South: the Chicago River
West: the Chicago River
North: Chicago Avenue

Beginning at the intersection of the Northern and Eastern border (Chicago and Michigan avenues), I walked clockwise around River North's perimeter, and returned to my starting point. The trek took four hours at a very leisurely pace.

The Magnificent Mile

A visit to Chicago isn’t complete without a walk along the Magnificent Mile—the stretch of Michigan Avenue between Oak Street and the Chicago River, most of which lies within River North’s boundaries. The Mag Mile was designed as a bridge between the business district (the loop) on the south and the luxury residential neighborhood of Gold Coast towards the north.

The Water Tower

Most people think of the modern skyscraper hosting a popular shopping mall when they speak of Chicago's Water Tower. But that building is merely a namesake of the original Water Tower that sits at the intersection of Chicago and Michigan Avenues, a beautiful building inaugurated in 1869 to supply water to a rapidly growing population:

The Water Tower worked in conjunction with a Pumping Station housed in a building right across it on Michigan Avenue:

In the 1800s the Chicago River was heavily polluted, flowing into and contaminating Lake Michigan, the source of drinking water for the city. To address this, the pumping station was built in 1866 that drew water through a tunnel dug to a cleaner point further into the lake. Three years later, the Water Tower was constructed to conceal a tall pipe that regulated the water pressure of the incoming flow. Surviving the 1871 fire, both structures were decommissioned in 1911. City planners, envisioning more than mere functionality, commissioned renowned architect William W. Boyington to give the buildings architectural distinction. Though no longer operational in their original purpose, they remain iconic landmarks on the Magnificent Mile.

Those in the vicinity of the original Water Tower would do well to visit the namesake mall as well as the adjacent iconic John Hancock Center, with its gently sloping black steel form:

The Great Lakes—Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario—and their connecting channels contain one-fifth of the planet’s fresh surface water and supply drinking water to 40 million North Americans. Remarkably, this means that less than 0.5% of the world's population has access to 20% of its fresh water. It’s no wonder midwestern cities like Chicago flourished in the 19th and early 20th centuries, despite harsh winters. But it is not just what nature bestows but how a community nurtures its inheritance that makes a difference to the lives of people. Chicago’s early town planners were visionaries, committed to merging form with function and creating one of the world’s most beautiful cities.

The Warwick Allerton Hotel

The old inevitably gives way to the new, and Chicago architecture is no exception. For example, 737 North Michigan Avenue once housed the Sterling Building—a six-story retail and office space topped with an astronomical observatory dome. It was later demolished, and a luxury retail store now occupies the site:

Walking on Michigan Avenue, I was sad to see multiple stores boarded up, a reminder of Covid's devastating impact on in-store commerce. One building that still stands from its inception in 1924 is the Warwick Allerton Hotel:

The building stands out on the Mag Mile with its dark red brick facade, inspired by Northern Italian architecture from the 14th and 15th centuries. Unlike nearby historic structures like the Water Tower, the red brick—chosen over the more popular stone of the era—was intended to give the building a "homey" feel.

The hotel opened in 1924 as a "club hotel," a hybrid between a private residential club and a hotel. Club hotels offered apartment hotel services—such as public dining rooms, housekeeping, and flexible rental terms—alongside club features like lounges, libraries, and gymnasiums. For affordability, however, the accommodations were modest, typically a single room without a kitchenette.

In promotional materials, the hotel targeted companies, emphasizing that a man’s living environment impacts his work quality, and suggesting they house younger, single employees there. Such employer intrusion in personal life would be unacceptable today. Eventually, women were also allowed as residents, though charmingly, male and female floors remained separate. After struggling through the 1930s Depression, the hotel rebounded. By the late 1940s, the Tip Top Tap—a cocktail lounge with stunning views of the Chicago skyline—had replaced the former club rooms on the 23rd floor. The lounge gained popularity among Chicagoans thanks to radio broadcasts by the morning show host Don McNeil, which aired directly from there.

In its early years, the Allerton Hotel attracted young, college-educated men (and later women) seeking an affordable yet classy residence close to work and the city's cultural life—a remedy for the social isolation of big-city living. This dynamic persists in Chicago today, though the buildings have become increasingly luxurious.

While human emotions are timeless, the social and cultural context in which they play out are defined by a time and place. Today’s young in big cities seek the same things as the early Allerton residents but have greater resources, especially those from historically disadvantaged groups like women and racial and sexual minorities. However, the relationship between choice and happiness is possibly a parabola, with privileged young people in Western cities likely on the downward slope. Since being in the Goldilocks Zone is difficult, problems of abundance are preferable to those of scarcity. Whether Thoreau’s claim that most people live "lives of quiet desperation" was ever true, it is better to be among those grappling with the emptiness of success than the sting of failure.

Continuing down Michigan Avenue, I stopped at the Starbucks Roastery, currently the largest Starbucks in the world:

The inside is different from any Starbucks I have seen and they also serve cocktails:

Tribune Tower

A landmark building on the Mag Mile is the Tribune Tower, that opened its door in 1925 and housed the Chicago Tribune for more than nine decades till the newspaper, battered by digital media, moved out in 2018:

In 1922, the Tribune's publishers launched a competition to design "the most beautiful office building in the world." As the tower neared completion in 1925, White Sox catcher Ray Schalk famously caught a baseball dropped from its top, attracting 10,000 spectators. The Tribune's foreign correspondents also collected fragments from historic monuments—such as the Taj Mahal, Edinburgh Castle, and the Great Wall of China—and embedded them in the tower’s exterior walls, a practice that would be considered unethical today. You can view these pieces up close at the building’s base-the picture below shows a piece from Cologne Cathedral:

In contemporary times, it is difficult to believe that not long ago, publishing newspapers was an immensely profitable business. There are three levels at which we understand the world:

First is at the level of facts- the what happened. Today, just knowing what’s going on is free. Consider the Russia Ukraine war. To get bare facts, one can rely on free websites of CNN or BBC.

Second is analysis. Within the context of Russia-Ukraine war, this may involve explaining the historical context that led to the war or analyzing it's impact on the Russian economy. Quality analysis usually requires a subscription, and since digital advertising has disproportionately shifted to social media, newspaper subscriptions in the West are costly, catering mainly to affluent readers.

Third is opinion, which is similar to analysis but applies a much bigger dose of judgment to the underlying facts. For instance, an analyst who asserts that the expansion of NATO is responsible for the Ukraine War is expressing an opinion.

Unfortunately, in the current environment, even before one can get to analysis and opinion, there is no consensus on the base layer of facts. Incontrovertible facts are disputed and if visual evidence is compelling, the analysis is spun to fit a narrative. Personally, I double-check my social media feeds against credible news sites to clarify facts, though who is “credible” is for each of us to decide.

The McGraw Hill Building

The building at 520 N Michigan that is currently known for its anchor tenant Nordstrom and stretches a long distance from its entrance towards its southern most point, includes a part that began as the McGraw Hill Building in 1929:

Since the McGraw Hill building was granted landmark status by the city of Chicago, it retains its original facade but the insides were completely revamped to accommodate a modern mall. The building was designed for office space and got its name when the McGraw-Hill Publishing Company leased four floors to house its midwest headquarters. A distinctive artistic element of the facade are sculptures depicting scenes from Greek mythology visible from the street level (at floor 4 and 5):

Wrigley Building

One of the boasts of the Tribune Tower when it opened was that it overlooked another iconic building right across it-the Wrigley Building:

Situated at the intersection of the Chicago River and Michigan Avenue, this iconic building marks the southern entrance to the Magnificent Mile. It comprises two towers originally built as the Wrigley Company headquarters: one by the river (1921) and a northern annex (1924). The gleaming nighttime illumination of the building is a result of a carefully designed lightning system integrated into its design at inception. Except for a period during the oil shock of the 1970s, the lights have stayed on, dazzling residents and tourists while possibly dismaying energy conservationists over the years.

William Wrigley Jr., born in 1861 in Philadelphia, began selling soap at age 11 before moving to Chicago in 1891 to start his own business. He experimented with selling various consumer products but found his breakthrough in chewing gum, which he initially offered as a promotional item for baking powder. During World War I, the company gained international recognition as American soldiers carried Wrigley gum, and advertisements encouraged people to send it in letters to soldiers overseas. The Wrigley Building was designed as a headquarter worthy of his successful company. However, today, like the Tribune Tower, the Wrigley Company no longer owns the building that bears its name.

The four clock faces on the tower are so large they span two floors, making the biannual task of changing the time quite an undertaking! In this fast paced digital age, there is something comforting about an analog clocktower. If you pay attention, Chicago is full of them. The American stage actress Kitty Carlisle Hart once remarked “By the time you get to be my age it's like you're having breakfast every fifteen minutes.” Expressing a similar sentiment, Sam Altman quoting a psychologist friend once tweeted "Adjusted for the subjective increase in how fast time passes, life is half over by 23 or 24. Don't waste time." Analog clocks provide us some reassurance that while the seconds dial is moving fast, the slower motion of the hour and minute dials confers on us the luxury of slowing down to smell the roses. At one level, having four teams of people synchronizing the clocks might seem inefficient. At another level, the idea of man taking control of time, quite literally, is delightful.

The Michigan Avenue Bridge

William Wrigley Jr. chose the location of his headquarters strategically as the area was set to become a real estate hotspot with the completion of the Michigan Avenue bridge in 1920.

Prior to the bridge, people crossed the river used a bridge on Rush Street (torn down after the new bridge was built) to reach the northern stretch (the mag mile today) of what was then called Pine Street. With the construction of the new bridge (official name DuSable Bridge), the name Michigan Avenue was extended to the northern section:

The Wrigley Building, because of its carefully chosen location at the northwest corner of the bridge enjoys high visibility from multiple vantage points:

The north east side of the bridge (the Tribune Tower side), now home to Pioneer Court, a privately owned plaza open to the general public, has historical significance. In the 17th century, it was a campsite used by European explorers. In 1779 it became the site of the first permanent non-native home in Chicago, that of Jean Baptiste Point du Sable, Chicago’s first non-indigenous resident. A free black trader from Haiti, he settled here with his family in the 1780s and sold the home in 1800 to John Kinzie, a Canadian trader who was among the earliest white settlers of the city. A plaque commemorates the Du Sable homesite:

The south side of the bridge (the intersection of Wacker Drive and Michigan Avenue) is also historically significant as the site of Fort Dearborn, a fort named after President Jefferson's secretary of war. In 1812, Potawatomi warriors attacked American soldiers evacuating the fort and destroyed Fort Dearborn, an event known as the Fort Dearborn Massacre. A fort was rebuilt at the site in 1816 and demolished in 1857 after it had outlived its utility.

At each of the four corners are bridgehouses, a common feature of all the bridges on the Chicago river:

Since the 1850s, bridge operators, or "tenders," lifted bridges to facilitate boat passage. The bridgehouses housed the necessary equipment, and tenders monitored the river around the clock, lifting bridges to let large ships go through:

Today, with few commercial boats on the Chicago River, bridge lifts are scheduled only a few dozen times per boating season, leaving bridgehouses mostly unoccupied. Watching a bridge lift is an exciting sight and a more worthwhile interruption than waiting at a railroad crossing.

Each of the four bridgehouses of the Michigan Avenue bridge display sculpture that commemorates aspects of Chicago's history.

The Discoverers on the north-west side depicts the first European explorers to arrive at the Chicago area in the 1670s (Louis Joliet, Jacques Marquette, René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle and Henri de Tonti):

Defense on the south-west side depicts the Fort Dearborn Massacre of 1812:

The Pioneers on the north-west side depicts John Kinzie leading a group through the wilderness:

Regeneration on the south-east side depicts the rebuilding of Chicago after the 1871 fire:

The history of Chicago in these sculptures is depicted from the perspective of the European settlers. The men who commissioned them were paying homage to their ancestors- their spirit of inquiry and resilience in the presence of suffering . These men, who started arriving in the area17th century onwards, were motivated not only by territorial conquest but also by the Renaissance ideals of critical thinking and empirical evidence. While they deserve our admiration, we should also spare a thought for the Native Americans, who lost their land and way of life. They did not have the guns, germ and steel, but they were human, just like the rest of us and their story deserves to be told too.

The Apple Store

Across the Wrigley Building, the northeast corner of the Michigan Avenue bridge is occupied by a building that cascades down towards the river instead of rising to the sky. The Apple Store is constructed on stairs leading from the street level Pioneer Court plaza down to the Chicago River:

The storefront at Pioneer Court plaza invites us to explore the mysteries of this beautiful structure and spend more than what we planned for:

A nice view of the Chicago Skyline can be seen on the store's glass facade from the river level side of the store:

Billy Goat Tavern

Somewhat improbably, Michigan Avenue has two levels for a small portion of the street and pedestrians can walk down to it via stairs outside the Wrigley Building:

On Lower Michigan Avenue is an iconic Chicago restaurant:

In 1934, Greek immigrant William Sianis bought the Lincoln Tavern at 1855 W. Madison. According to legend, a billy goat fell from a truck and wandered into the restaurant, triggering Mr. Sianis to rename the establishment. In 1964, the restaurant moved to Lower Michigan avenue, though now there are multiple branches serving the city and the suburbs. The tavern built a reputation for attracting journalists from the Chicago Sun Times and Chicago Tribune, both of which were neighbors before eventually moving out of the area.

The Curse of the Billy Goat began in 1945, when owner William Sianis was asked to leave Wrigley Field due to his pet goat's odor. Offended, Sianis allegedly cursed the Chicago Cubs, declaring they’d never win another World Series. For decades, fans believed this “curse” explained the Cubs’ repeated failures, until it was famously broken in 2016.

The Chicago River

Having completed the Mag Mile stretch of River North, it was time to walk on the southern boundary on Wacker Drive along the Chicago River. I have always found Wacker Drive to be the city's most confusing street as it spans three levels- Upper Wacker Drive, Lower Wacker Drive and a third recreational riverwalk level that was completed in 2016:

Driving on Lower Wacker is intimidating, especially at the exit to the upper level, which felt accident-prone to me. Another reason it is confusing is that it defies Chicago’s grid pattern, where streets run either north-south or east-west and intersect at traffic light-controlled crossroads. In contrast, Wacker Drive twists and turns, running both east-west and north-south, making it the only street in Chicago with addresses in all four cardinal directions.

The Chicago Riverwalk is a beautiful place to sit down with a sandwich on a sunny fall day and see the boats go by:

The city of Chicago derives its name from Checagou- the name Native Americans called the river, alluding to the pungent smelling wild leeks that grew by the riverbank. In 1673, a French missionary, Father Jacques Marquette and a French-Canadian explorer, Louis Jolliet were returning to Canada on the Mississippi river from one of their expeditions. Along the way, some locals informed them about a shortcut for their trip home. This route involved sailing from the Mississippi River to the Illinois River, which connects to the Des Plaines River, and then crossing over to the Chicago River, which links to Lake Michigan. However, at the time, the Desplaines and Chicago rivers were not connected, and the explorers had to use a portage-a term that describes land that connects two waterbodies.

Source: https://www.britannica.com/place/Chicago-River

The Chicago Portage connecting the two rivers was about six miles of marshland, referred to by locals as "mud lake". During the rainy season, the mud lake got flooded and hence, there was no portage. But for most of the year, sailors had to carry their boat and belongings physically over the portage. While Marquette and Jolliet were the first white men to use the Chicago Portage, Native Americans had been using the route for centuries. As the portage became known to European settlers, they cognized its significance as a potential trading route because it connected the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River. The Chicago River converges with Lake Michigan while the Desplaines River connects to the Mississippi via the Illinois River.

The urban agglomeration built around the portage, which eventually became the city of Chicago, began attracting successful traders like Jean Baptiste Point du Sable and many others. Traversing the portage, however, was onerous with men having to slide their boats wading knee dip in dirty marsh. Eventually, in 1848, a ditch was completed after twelve years of construction, connecting the two rivers and furthering Chicago's status as a trading hub.

Walking along Wacker Drive by the river, one comes across an eponymous tower that might be triggering to some but we can seek some comfort in the fact that he will be gone and forgotten like all of us:

London House

London House is the fourth in the quartet of landmark buildings that flank the Michigan Avenue Bridge-the others being the Tribune Tower, 333 N Michigan and Wrigley Building:

The building, which sits on the site of Fort Dearborn, was inaugurated in 1923 as the US headquarters of the London Guarantee and Accident Company, a British insurer of merchant ships. Today London House is a luxury hotel and as the city evolves, like countless other buildings, it is sure to find a different purpose in the future.

Jeweler's Building

Walking further west on Wacker Drive, one comes across the Jewelers Building (35 East Wacker) that began its life in 1927 to house the members of Chicago's Jeweler's Association:

A unique feature of the building at the time of its inception was the large space allocated for indoor parking to promote the security of the jewelers who often carried valuable merchandise on them. Drivers entered from Lower Wacker Drive and left their cars on elevators with attendants. An automated system would then tag and move each vehicle to a designated spot on an upper floor. The elevator floor tilted to roll the car onto a mobile cart, transporting it securely to its space. When the owner returned, the system retrieved the car without any human handling. Somewhat ironically, by the 1940s, this parking system that was the building's unique selling point, was removed because of maintenance challenges, particularly as automotive designs evolved.

The name of the building, notwithstanding, the largest tenant of the building was The Pure Oil Company, leading to its unofficial name as the Pure Oil building. Today, after multiple changes in ownership, the building is known by its street address instead of a moniker.

The Corn Cob Towers

It is impossible not to notice the Marina City Towers on the river side of Wacker Drive:

Over the years I have walked by these towers, the precariousness of their car parking has always made me nervous.

The building opened in 1967 to curb outbound migration to the suburbs by creating mixed-use residential and commercial spaces in downtown. Marina City aimed to integrate all aspects of daily life—living, working, recreation, and services—into a single high-density vertical block.

The development of commercial and residential space along the riverfront, and indeed the city itself, would not have been possible without a series of water related public works projects in the 20th century. By the middle of the 19th century, the Chicago River had become polluted with industrial effluents, animal waste and residential sewage. To make matters worse, the river flowed into Lake Michigan, the source of city's drinking water, which resulted in frequent breakout of cholera, typhoid and dysentery epidemics. An impressive civil engineering feat was accomplished in 1900, with the construction of the 28 mile Sanitary and Ship Canal, which reversed the direction of the Chicago River, so that the dirty water was being emptied into the Mississippi. As environmental consciousness and legislation evolved, the city established a sewage treatment system so that pollutants were not being dumped into the water in the first place. Multiple civic improvement projects along with the deindustrialization of Chicago, makes the Chicago River a tourist hotspot today.

The story of the Chicago River illustrates the contrast between public health, which aims to protect population health through preventive measures, and private healthcare, which treats individual health issues. The river’s cleanup demonstrates how wealthy nations addressed public health challenges as they grew prosperous, while developing countries continue to struggle with them.

The Merchandise Mart

West of the Corn Cob Towers is the landmark Merchandise Mart, which when it opened in 1930 as a warehouse serving retailers, was the largest office building in the world:

Merchandise Mart, built by the now defunct retailer, Marshall Fields, was eventually owned by the Kennedy family for five decades, a period that included John F Kennedy's presidency. There is a nice seating area right outside the Mart along the river, which features eights busts of famous American retailers commissioned by Joseph Kennedy:

Reflecting the changing times, a significant portion of the Merchandise Mart is occupied now by tech startups.

Wolf Point

Wolf Point is the point of intersection of the East branch of the Chicago River, with its North-South stem:

By the 1830s, Wolf Point had become a meeting point for explorers and traders traversing the Chicago Portage. The original Wolf Point was the south bank of the junction where a Native American man, whose name meant wolf, lived. Now the term refers to all three banks. A significant historic fact about Wolf Point is that Abraham Lincoln accepted the nomination at the 1860 Republican National Convention held in a wooden building constructed for the purpose here.

Today, Wolf Point hosts three tall towers-two luxury residential apartment building and the Salesforce Tower:

The west bank of Wolf Point features a red leafy sculpture called "Constellation" whose bright red color can be seen from afar on the riverwalk:

The Western Boundary

I started walking on the western bank of Wolf Point turning in the direction of Chicago Avenue with the intent of completing the River North boundary circuit. However, public access to the riverbank on the west side is intermittent, parts of which are private property:

Montgomery Ward Park

I chose to walk some way on Kingsbury Street towards Chicago Avenue and was able to access the riverbank again at the Montgomery Ward Park:

The park features a tile glass mural by the celebrated Chicago-based artist Ginny Sykes:

Many of us, myself included, do not consider ourselves connoisseurs of art or architecture. We do not really get the aesthetic appeal of artwork like the one above and we are not the type who visit art museums. But consider a hypothetical. The picture below is that of a somewhat nondescript but certainly not ugly apartment building:

Imagine if all the buildings on the Mag Mile mirrored the style described above, replacing the distinctive architecture of landmarks like the Water Tower, the Wrigley Building, or the modern Apple Store. Even the most philistine among us will recoil from that image. Hence, we are more attuned to beauty than we realize, even if we cannot articulate our feelings in words.

Chicago Avenue

The Montgomery Ward and Company Warehouse

Walking along the river path on the Montgomery Ward Park, I hit the intersection of Chicago Avenue and the river, where resides a large building that was a warehouse of the extinct retailer Montgomery Ward:

The building, completed in 1908, housed the inventory of an early e-commerce model: the mail-order catalog business. Its site on Chicago Avenue was selected for its proximity to both the river and the railroad. Given its purpose, the building’s massive horizontal size makes sense.

In 1865, the founder of the company, the 22 year old Montgomery Ward arrived in Chicago looking to make his mark. The idea of the mail order catalog business came to him as a traveling salesman for a big retailer that gave him an understanding of the consumption habits of rural America. The year 1848, in addition to the canalization of the Chicago Portage, saw the achievement of another transportation milestone in Chicago: the beginning of a railroad service. Ward realized the railway network could reach a market of consumers willing to buy goods sight unseen from a catalog. In 1872, a year after the Great Fire, he launched his business with a single-sheet catalog listing 163 items, from socks to handkerchiefs.

In 2001, Montgomery Ward—the pioneer of the original e-commerce model—went bankrupt, just four years after Amazon went public. Schumpeter's creative destruction was alive and well.

Bush Temple of Music

Walking east on Chicago Avenue, I came across the apartment building at 100 West Chicago Avenue, which opened in 1902 as the headquarters of the Bush & Gerts Piano Company, Chicago's leading manufacturer of pianos:

At the turn of the 20th century, the piano became very popular in American homes and Chicago became their second largest manufacturer in the US after New York. The building housed a sprawling 10,000-square-foot piano showroom, a 1,000-seat theater, recital halls, musician studios, office and retail space. But after the first world war, the popularity of motion pictures led to declining interest in music among the public and by 1922, the building had been remodeled exclusively as office space.

In 2017 it was renovated into an apartment building with care being taken to restore many of the original elements of the facade. A heartening feature of Chicago is how the old pays homage to the new. For instance, the building at 212 West Chicago still carries the post office header even though it no longer serves as one:

The Cosmopolitan State Bank Building

Across the Bush School is the former home of The Cosmopolitan State Bank built in 1920 to serve German immigrants who had settled in this part of the city:

The success of the River North neighborhood is a product of two types of fusion.

The first is that of public and private. Public work projects focused on the Chicago River and Lake Michigan, transforming the region from a sleepy backwater to a thriving city. Private enterprise made River North a commercial hub supporting jobs and generating tax revenues for the local government. People working in private enterprise can step out during lunch and enjoy a stroll down the beautiful publicly funded riverwalk.

The second is that of form and function. While the buildings in River North were designed primarily for commercial purposes—offices, retail, and warehousing—city planners and builders emphasized not just practical utility but also the visual appeal of their designs.

The buildings of River North bear witness to the creative destruction brought on by technology and globalization. This disruption began as early as 1848 when the canalization of the Chicago Portage coincided with the beginning of a competing transportation mode: railways. Luckily, both shipping and rail supported an economy driven by the manufacture and trade of physical goods, a setting in which Chicago thrived. But by the late 20th century manufacturing had shifted to China and U.S. economy transitioned from atoms to bytes. Chicago lost its preeminence as New York became the hub of financial services and Silicon Valley led technology. Montgomery Wards and Marshall Fields gave way to Amazon, The Chicago Tribune shrank as advertising moved to social media and prominent family-owned Chicago businesses like the Wrigley Company sold out to global conglomerates.

Despite these challenges, Chicago remains one of the world’s greatest cities, thanks to the legacy of its gilded years. The strong foundation laid by early planners, businessmen, and philanthropists continues to propel the city forward, albeit more slowly than desired. Negative coverage of the city often comes from those who don’t live there. Walking along the boundaries of the River North neighborhood reminded me of its physical beauty and cultural richness—the very reasons the city is so beloved to its residents.