Hog Butcher for the World,
Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and the Nation’s Freight Handler,
Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the Big Shoulders:
They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I have seen your painted women under the gas lamps luring the farm boys.
And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to kill again.
And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the faces of women and children I have seen the marks of wanton hunger.
And having answered so I turn once more to those who sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer and say to them:
Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.
Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the little soft cities;
Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning as a savage pitted against the wilderness,
Bareheaded, shoveling, wrecking, planning, building, breaking, rebuilding,
Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with white teeth,
Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young man laughs,
Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has never lost a battle,
Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse.
And under his ribs the heart of the people, laughing!
Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.
-- Carl Sandburg, 1916.
Sandburg knew. He was right then. He is still right now.
Before You Go. Chicago weather can be unpredictable. This game being played in late December, cold weather can be expected. However, the arena is 3 miles inland from Lake Michigan, so the local wind, a.k.a. The Hawk (not named for the hockey team), which tends to produce "Bear Weather," won't be that much of a problem while you're right outside.
The Chicago Tribune is predicting temperatures to be in the high 40s during daylight, and the mid-30s at night. They're also predicting rain for Monday. That won't present problems during the game, which will be indoors, but you won't be indoors the entire trip. The Chicago Sun-Times backs up its rivals' temperature predictions, but is more optimistic about the chance of rain.
Illinois is in the Central Time Zone, 1 hour behind New York. Adjust your timepieces accordingly.
Tickets. Like their co-tenants at the United Center, the Blackhawks, the Bulls lead their league in per-game attendance: 21,343. Getting tickets to the Bulls isn't as hard as it was when ol' What's His Name was playing for them, but it's still tough, and the law of supply and demand, even for the largest arena in the league, makes them expensive.
However, Bulls tickets are cheaper than Blackhawk tickets, which no one could have imagined before the turn of the 21st Century. Seats in the lower level, the 100 sections, are $225 between the baskets and $130 behind them. In the club level, the 200 sections, they're $130 and $95. In the upper level, the 300 sections, they're $70 and $42.
Getting There. Chicago is 789 land miles from New York. Knowing this, your first reaction is going to be to fly out there.
Unlike some other Midwestern cities, this is a good idea if you can afford it. If you buy tickets online, you can get them for $857 round-trip. O'Hare International Airport (named for Lt. Cmdr. Edward "Butch" O'Hare, the U.S. Navy's first flying ace, who was nevertheless shot down over the Pacific in World War II), at the northwestern edge of the city, is United Airlines' headquarters, so nearly every flight they have from the New York area’s airports to there is nonstop, so it’ll be 3 hours, tarmac to tarmac, and about 2 hours going back.
The Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) Blue Line train will take you from O’Hare to the downtown elevated (or “L”) tracks that run in “The Loop” (the borders of which are Randolph, Wells, Van Buren and Wabash Streets) in 45 minutes. From Midway Airport, the Orange Line train can get you to the Loop. Both should take about 45 minutes.
Bus? Greyhound’s run between the 2 cities, launched 5 times per day, is relatively easy, but long, averaging about 18 hours, and is $360 round-trip -- but can drop to as low as $166 on Advanced Purchase. Only 1 of the 5 runs goes straight there without requiring you to change buses: The one leaving Port Authority Bus Terminal at 10:15 PM (Eastern) and arriving at Chicago at 2:30 PM (Central). This includes half-hour rest stops at Milesburg, Pennsylvania and Elkhart, Indiana, and an hour-and-a-half stopover in Cleveland.
The station is at 630 W. Harrison Street at Des Plaines Street. (If you’ve seen one of my favorite movies, Midnight Run, this is a new station, not the one seen in that 1988 film.) The closest CTA stop is Clinton on the Blue Line, around the corner, underneath the elevated Dwight D. Eisenhower Expressway.
Train? Amtrak’s Lake Shore Limited (formerly known as the Twentieth Century Limited when the old New York Central Railroad ran it from Grand Central Terminal to Chicago's LaSalle Street Station) leaves New York's Penn Station at 3:40 every afternoon, and arrives at Union Station at 225 South Canal Street at Adams Street in Chicago at 9:45 every morning. It leaves Chicago at 9:30 every evening, and returns to New York at 6:23 the following night.
If you decide to drive, it’s far enough that it will help to get someone to go with you and split the duties, and to trade off driving and sleeping. The directions are rather simple, down to (quite literally) the last mile. You'll need to get into New Jersey, and take Interstate 80 West. You'll be on I-80 for the vast majority of the trip, through New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Ohio. In Ohio, in the western suburbs of Cleveland, I-80 will merge with Interstate 90. From this point onward, you won’t need to think about I-80 until you head home; I-90 is now the key, and will take you right past Union Station the Loop.
Note that the dividing line between Eastern and Central Time on I-80/90, the Indiana Toll Road, is between Exits 39 (in LaPorte County) and 31 (in Lake County).
If you do it right, you should spend about an hour and a half in New Jersey, 5 hours and 15 minutes in Pennsylvania, 4 hours in Ohio, 2 hours and 30 minutes in Indiana, and half an hour in Illinois before you reach the exit for your hotel. That’s 13 hours and 45 minutes. Counting rest stops, preferably halfway through Pennsylvania and just after you enter both Ohio and Indiana, and accounting for traffic in both New York and Chicago, it should be no more than 18 hours, which would save you time on both Greyhound and Amtrak, if not on flying.
Once In the City. A derivation of a Native American name, "Chikagu" was translated as "Place of the onion," as there were onion fields there before there was a white settlement. Some have suggested that the translation is a little off, that it should be "Place of the skunk." Others have said, either way, it means "Place of the big stink."
Founded in 1831, so by Northeastern standards it's a young city, Chicago's long-ago nickname of "the Second City" is no longer true, as its population has dropped, and Los Angeles' has risen, to the point where L.A. has passed it, and Chicago is now the 3rd-largest city in America. But at 2.7 million within the city limits, and 9.5 million in the metropolitan area, it's still a huge city -- and if you divide the Los Angeles market equally between the Kings and the Ducks, that makes Chicago the largest market in the NHL. If you count Anaheim separately, boosting the Kings' share, then Chicago falls to 2nd lace.
The "Loop" is the connected part of the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA)'s elevated railway (sometimes written as "El" or "L") downtown: Over Wells Street on the west, Van Buren Street on the south, Wabash Street on the east and State Street on the north. Inside the Loop, the east-west streets are Lake, Randolph, Washington, Madison, Monroe, Adams, Jackson and Van Buren; the north-south streets are Wells, LaSalle (Chicago's "Wall Street"), Clark, Dearborn, State and Wabash.
The city's street-address centerpoint is in the Loop, at State & Madison Streets. Madison separates North from South, while State separates East from West. The street grid is laid out so that every 800 on the house numbers is roughly 1 mile. As the United Center is at 1901 West Madison Street, and on the 3600 block of North Sheffield Avenue, now you know it's on the main east-west axis, and a little more than 2 miles west of State Street and the center of the Loop.
The CTA's rapid-rail system is both underground (subway) and above-ground (elevated), although the El is better-known, standing as a Chicago icon alongside the Sears Tower, Wrigley Field, Michael Jordan, deep-dish pizza, and less savory things like municipal corruption, Mrs. O'Leary's cow and Al Capone. The single-ride fare is $2.25, a 1-day pass is $10, a 3-day pass is $20, and a 7-day pass is $28.
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Illinois' State sales tax is 6.25 percent, but in the City of Chicago it's 9.25 percent -- higher than New York's. So don't be shocked when you see prices: Like New York, Boston and Washington, Chicago is an expensive city.
Chicago's legendary crime problem has evolved: It's no longer Al Capone-style gangs running things, it's poor kids with guns. So whatever precautions you take when you're in New York, take them in Chicago as well.
Going In. From 1929 to 1994, the NHL’s Chicago Blackhawks played at Chicago Stadium, “the Madhouse on Madison,” at 1800 W. Madison Street at Wood Street. The NBA’s Bulls played there from 1967 to 1994. The United Center, which has adopted the nickname, opened across the street at 1901 W. Madison at Honore Street.
If you drive in, parking can be had for as little as $5.00. What you don't want to do is park outside of official lots. In a 1992 article, in advance of Chicago Stadium hosting the NBA and Stanley Cup Finals at the same time, a writer for Sports Illustrated suggested that, due to their success having been more recent, Bulls fans were much more likely than Blackhawks fans to say, "I got a great parking space, over in those condos!" Those aren't condos: Those are West Side housing projects.
However you go in, you're least likely to enter from the west side (Damen Avenue). More likely, you'll go in from the north (Madison Street), east (Wood Street) or south (Monroe Street) side. The court is laid out east-to-west.
The United Center has become Chicago's top venue for concerts and professional wrestling, and it hosted the 1996 Democratic Convention, at which President Bill Clinton was nominated for a 2nd term. The Democrats had their Convention at Chicago Stadium in 1932, ’40 and ’44, nominating Franklin D. Roosevelt each time; the Republicans also had their Convention there in ’32 and ’44. Elvis Presley gave concerts at the Stadium on June 16 and 17, 1972 -- giving the last of these as burglars were breaking into the Watergate complex in Washington.
Food. As one of America’s greatest food cities, in Big Ten Country where tailgate parties are practically a sacrament, you would expect the Chicago sports venues to have lots of good options. The United Center lives up to this obligation.
The north side of the arena has DiGiorno pizza, a Captain Morgan/Don Julio cocktail bar, Madison Street Eats and a Ketel One cocktail bar. The east side has Chicago Dish pizza, Chicago Burger, and a Goose Island cocktail bar. The south side has Monroe Street Eats and a Smirnoff/Crown Royal cocktail bar. The west side has Leghorn Chicken, a Crown Royal Whiskey Bar and a Sweet Baby Rays barbecue stand. That's just on the 100 Level. The 300 Level has fewer theme stands, but quite a few of them, including Breakaway (in keeping with the hockey theme) and Fast Break (the basketball theme).
Team History Displays. The Blackhawks' banners are at the east, Wood Street, side of the building. The Bulls' banners are at the west, Damen Avenue, side.
Celebrating their 50th Anniversary in 2016, the Bulls have banners for their 6 NBA Championships, a figure matched or topped only by the Boston Celtics (17) and the Los Angeles Lakers (11 -- 16 if you count their Minneapolis years). They also hang banners for their Division titles of 1975, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2011 and 2012. (They have no separate Conference Championship banners, since they've never lost an NBA Finals, going 6-0.)
The east side of the arena includes a statue of Jordan, erected after his 1st retirement.
With all that snow on him, he might catch the flu again.
The concourse now has a statue of Red Kerr -- no relation to 1990s Bulls star turned 2015 NBA Champion Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr.
Chicago is a great literary city, and while the Cubs have been seen as the city's most romantic sports, there have been some good books about the Bulls. National Public Radio host and Chicago native Scott Simon's Home and Away isn't solely about the Bulls, but its insider view of Chicago sports, particularly the "Last Dance" season of 1997-98, is interesting. He calls sports "a romance language," and he's right. Lew Freedman recently published Chicago's Big Teams: Great Moments of the Cubs, Bears, White Sox, Blackhawks and Bulls.
Roland Lazenby published The History of the Chicago Bulls in 2013, a jump-start on the team's 50th Anniversary. And Sam Smith, a Brooklynite but a writer for the Bulls' website, covered the Bulls' rise to their 1st title in 1991 in his book The Jordan Rules. He later wrote a sequel, Second Coming: The Strange Odyssey of Michael Jordan. And Phil Jackson told of his days coaching the Bulls (and the Lakers) in Eleven Rings: The Soul of Success.
DVD packages are available for the NBA title wins. The NBA has produced Ultimate Jordan, and The Essentials: Five All-Time Great Games of the Chicago Bulls. There's a pre-Jordan game, Game 2 of the 1975 Western Conference Finals against the Warriors. There's 2 post-Jordan games, a 2009 1st Round Game 6 vs. the Boston Celtics, and a 2011 regular-season game between the Derrick Rose edition of the Bulls and the LeBron James and Dwyane Wade Miami Heat. And there's 2 Jordan games: His 1995 55-point game against the Knicks, and The Last Game, Game 6 of the 1998 Finals against the Utah Jazz.
During the Game. The United Center is on the West Side, but the well-policed parking lots should buffer you from neighborhood crime. Chicago fans can get a bit rough, and they do like to drink. However, if you don't antagonize them, they will probably give you no worse than a bit of verbal. The Knicks-Bulls rivalry has always meant more to Knicks fans than to Bulls fans.
During the Bulls' run of dominance, the player introductions became world famous. Longtime announcer Tommy Edwards was the first to use "Sirius" by the Alan Parsons Project in game presentation in the NBA. When Edwards moved to Boston for employment with CBS Radio in 1990, he was replaced by Ray Clay, who continued many of the traditional aspects of the Bulls introductions, including the music. The lights are first dimmed during the visiting team introduction, accompanied by John Williams'Star Wars"Imperial March." Virtually all lights in the stadium are then shut off for the Bulls' introduction, and a spotlight illuminates each player as he is introduced and runs onto the court. The spotlight is also focused on the Bulls logo prior to the introductions. Since the move to the United Center, lasers and fireworks have been added, and with improvements to the arena's White Way video screen, computer graphics on the stadium monitors have been added. These graphics feature the 3-D animated "Running of the Bulls" en route to the United Center, along the way smashing a bus featuring the opposing team's logo.
Traditionally, the players have been introduced in the following order: small forward, power forward, center, point guard, shooting guard. Thus during the championship era, Pippen was usually the first (or second) Bulls player introduced, and Jordan the last. More recently, with Rose's arrival, the guards have been reversed in order, making the Chicago-bred point guard the last player introduced. Although internal disputes eventually led to the dismissal of Clay, the Bulls in 2006 announced the return of Edwards as the announcer.
Jim Corneilson has been the National Anthem singer for both the Bulls and the Blackhawks since 2008. Their mascot is Benny the Bull, and he's been named NBA Mascot of the Year in 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2015. Like Phoenix' Gorilla and Charlotte's Hugo the Hornet, he performs trick dunks. The guys dressing up as the Chicago-based Blues Brothers, calling themselves the Bulls Brothers, are long-gone. Tying in with the bull theme, the fans tend to shout, "Olé!"And the familiar soccer song gets played over the loudspeakers: "Olé, olé olé olé, olé... "
There are no bars or restaurants worth going to in the vicinity. As I said, the parking lots are a buffer zone against the dodgy neighborhood.
If you want to be around other New Yorkers and New Jerseyans, I found listings of 4 Chicago bars where New York Giants fans gather: Red Ivy, just south of Wrigley Field at 3519 N. Clark Street at Eddy Street; The Bad Dog Tavern, 4535 N. Lincoln Avenue at Wilson Avenue (Brown Line to Western); Racine Plumbing Bar and Grill, 2642 N. Lincoln Avenue at Kenmore; and Trinity, at 2721 N. Halsted Street at Diversey Parkway (Brown or Purple Line to Diversey for either Racine or Trinity). Racine Plumbing is also listed as the local bar for Mets and Notre Dame fans.
And I found these 2 which show Jets games: Rebel Bar & Grill, also just south of Wrigley at 3462 N. Clark at Cornelia Avenue; and Butch McGuire's, 20 W. Division Street at Dearborn Street (Red Line to Clark/Division).
Note that all of these are a lot closer to Wrigley than to the United Center. But there are plenty of good places in the city to get a postgame meal, or just a pint.
Sidelights. Chicago is one of the best sports cities, not just in America, but on the planet. Check out the following – but do it in daylight, as the city’s reputation for crime, while significantly reduced from its 1980s peak, is still there.
* Wrigley Field. Built in 1914 for the Chicago Whales of the Federal League, and home of the Cubs since 1916, it is by far the oldest ballpark in the National League, and only Fenway Park in Boston is older among North American major league sports venues.
The Cubs have never won the World Series here, but won 6 Pennants between 1918 and 1945 -- and none since. They've made the Playoffs 7 times in the last 32 seasons (including this year), which is better than some teams have done over that stretch -- but no Pennants. The Bears played here from 1921 to 1970, and won 8 NFL Championships between 1921 and 1963. It hosted the NHL Winter Classic in 2009, with the Hawks losing to the Wings.
If you go, don't watch a game from one of the rooftops on Waveland (left field) or Sheffield (right field) Avenues. What's the point of watching a game at Wrigley Field if you're not in Wrigley Field? 1060 W. Addison Street at Clark Street. Red Line to Addison.
* U.S. Cellular Field. Home of the White Sox since 1991, and originally named the new Comiskey Park, they've made the Playoffs 4 times since, including winning the 2005 World Series. 333 W. 35th Street at Shields Avenue (a.k.a. Bill Veeck Drive), off the Dan Ryan Expressway. Red Line to Sox-35th.
* Site of old Comiskey Park. The longtime home of the White Sox, 1910 to 1990, was across the street from the new one, at 324 W. 35th Street, is now a parking lot, with its infield painted in. This was the home field of Big Ed Walsh (the pitcher supposedly helped design it to be a pitchers’ park), Eddie Collins, Shoeless Joe Jackson and the rest of the “Black Sox,” Luke Appling, the great double-play combination of Luis Aparicio and Nellie Fox of the ’59 “Go-Go White Sox,” Dick Allen, the 1977 “South Side Hit Men” of Richie Zisk and Oscar Gamble, and the 1983 Division Champions of Carlton Fisk, Ron Kittle, LaMarr Hoyt and Harold Baines.
The old Comiskey was also where future Yankee stars Russell “Bucky” Dent and Rich “Goose” Gossage began their careers, and where, in the last game the Yankees ever played there, Andy Hawkins pitched a no-hitter – and lost, thanks to his own walks and 3 errors in the 8th inning.
The NFL’s Chicago Cardinals played there from 1922 to 1959, and the franchise, now the Arizona Cardinals, won what remains their only NFL Championship Game (they didn’t call ‘em Super Bowls back then) there in 1947. And in 1979, during what was supposed to be intermission between games of a White Sox vs. Tigers doubleheader, was Disco Demolition Night. Today, it’s called a fiasco, but the sentiment was right: Disco really did suck. But the biggest music event there was the Beatles' concert on August 20, 1965.
* Previous Chicago ballparks. The Cubs previously played at these parks:
State Street Grounds, also called 23rd Street Grounds, 1874-77, winning the NL’s first Pennant in 1876, 23rd, State, and Federal Streets & Cermak Road (formerly 22nd Street), Red Line to Cermak-Chinatown.
Lakefront Park, also called Union Base-Ball Grounds and White-Stocking Park (the Cubs used the name “Chicago White Stockings” until 1900, and the AL entry then took the name), 1878-84, winning the 1880, ’81 and ’82 Pennants, Michigan Avenue & Randolph Street in the northwest corner of what’s now Millennium Park, with (appropriately) Wrigley Square built on the precise site. Randolph/Wabash or Madison/Wabash stops on the Loop.
West Side Park I, 1885-91, winning the 1885 and ’86 Pennants, at Congress, Loomis, Harrison & Throop Streets, now part of the campus of the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), Blue Line to Racine.
South Side Park, 1891-93, just east of where the Comiskey Parks were built.
West Side Park II, 1893-1915, winning the 1906 and 1910 Pennants and the 1907 and 1908 World Series, the only World Series the Cubs have ever won, at Taylor, Wood and Polk Streets and Wolcott Avenue, now the site of a medical campus that includes the Cook County Hospital, the basis for the TV show ER, Pink Line to Polk. (Yes, the CTA has a Pink Line.)
Prior to the original Comiskey Park, the White Sox played at a different building called South Side Park, at 39th Street (now Pershing Road), 38th Street, & Wentworth and Princeton Avenues, a few blocks south of the Comiskey Parks.
* Soldier Field. The original version of this legendary stadium opened in 1924, and for years was best known as the site of the Chicago College All-Star Game (a team of graduating seniors playing the defending NFL Champions) from 1934 to 1976.
It was the site of the 1927 heavyweight title fight between Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney, the famed “Long Count” fight, which may have had what remains the greatest attendance ever for a U.S. sporting event, with figures ranging from 104,000 to 130,000, depending on who you believe. It definitely was the site of the largest football crowd ever, 123,000 to see Notre Dame play USC a few weeks after the Long Count. In spite of various expansions, the universities of Michigan and Tennessee and Penn State still can’t top this. The 1926 Army-Navy Game was played there, in front of over 100,000.
Games of the 1994 World Cup were also held at the old Soldier Field, MLS' Chicago Fire made it their 1st home ground, winning the MLS Cup in 1998; and 13 matches of the U.S. soccer team have been played on the site, most recently a 2013 win over Panama. The U.S. has won 6 of these games, lost 4 and tied 3. An NHL Stadium Series game was played there earlier this year, with the Blackhawks beating the Pittsburgh Penguins 5-1.
Amazingly, the Bears played at Wrigley from 1921 to 1970, with the occasional single-game exception. The story I heard is that Bears founder-owner-coach George Halas was a good friend of both the Wrigley and Veeck families, and felt loyalty to them, and that’s why he stayed at Wrigley even though it had just 47,000 seats for football. But I heard another story that Halas was a Republican and didn’t like Chicago’s Democratic Mayor, Richard J. Daley (whose son Richard M. recently left office having broken his father’s record for longest-serving Mayor), and didn’t want to pay the city Parks Department a lot of rent. (This is believable, because Halas was known to be cheap: Mike Ditka, who nonetheless loved his old boss, said, “Halas throws nickels around like manhole covers.”) The real reason the Bears moved to Soldier Field in 1971 was Monday Night Football: Halas wanted the revenue, and Wrigley didn’t have lights until 1988.
A 2002-03 renovation demolished all but the iconic (but not Ionic, they're in the Doric style) Greek-style columns that used to hang over the stadium, and are now visible only from the outside. It doesn’t look like “Soldier Field” anymore: One critic called it The Eyesore on the Lake Shore.
Capacity is now roughly what it was in the last few years prior to the renovation, 61,500. And while the Bears won 8 Championships while playing at Wrigley, they’ve only won one more at Soldier Field, the 1985 title capped by Super Bowl XX. The Monsters of the Midway have been tremendous underachievers since leaving Wrigley, having been to only 1 of the last 28 Super Bowls (and losing it).
1410 S. Museum Campus Drive, at McFetridge and Lake Shore Drives, a bit of a walk from the closest station, Roosevelt station on the Green, Orange and Red Lines.
* Site of Chicago Coliseum. There were 2 buildings with this name that you should know about. One hosted the 1896 Democratic National Convention, where William Jennings Bryan began the process of turning the Democratic Party from the conservative party it had been since before the Civil War into the modern liberal party it became, a struggle that went through the Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt years before it finally lived up to its promise under John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. It was here that Bryan gave the speech for which he is most remembered, calling for the free coinage of silver rather than sticking solely to the gold standard: "You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns. You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold." Now a part of Jackson Park, at 63rd Street & Stony Island Avenue. 63rd Street Metra (commuter rail) station.
The other was home to every Republican Convention from Theodore Roosevelt’s in 1904 to Warren Harding’s in 1920, including the 1912 Convention where TR split from the party after being maneuvered out of the nomination to return to office, and his subsequent Progressive Party Convention was also held there.
It was also the original home of the Blackhawks, from 1926 to 1929 and briefly again in 1932. In 1935, roller derby was invented there. In 1961, an NBA expansion team, the Chicago Packers, played there, becoming the Zephyrs in 1962 and moving to become the Baltimore Bullets in 1963 (and the Washington Bullets in 1973, and the Washington Wizards in 1997).
The Coliseum hosted a few rock concerts before the Fire Department shut it down in 1971, and it was demolished in 1982. The Soka Gakkai USA Culture Center, a Buddhist institute, now occupies the site. East side of Wabash Avenue at 15th Street, with today’s Coliseum Park across the street. Appropriately enough, the nearest CTA stop is at Roosevelt Avenue, on the Red, Yellow and Green Lines.
* Site of International Amphitheatre. Home to the Bulls in their first season, 1966-67, and to the World Hockey Association’s Chicago Cougars from 1972 to 1975, this arena, built by the stockyards in 1934, was home to a lot of big pro wrestling cards. Elvis sang here on March 28, 1957. The Beatles played here on September 5, 1964 and August 12, 1966.
But it was best known as a site for political conventions. Both parties met there in 1952, the Democrats in 1956, the Republicans in 1960, and, most infamously, the Democrats in 1968, with all the protests. The main protests for that convention were in Grant Park and a few blocks away on Michigan Avenue in front of the Conrad Hilton Hotel, one of the convention headquarters (now the Chicago Hilton & Towers. 720 S. Michigan).
The Amphitheatre, torn down in 1999, was at 4220 S. Halsted Street, where an Aramark plant now stands. Red Line to 47th Street. This location is definitely not to be visited after dark; indeed, unless you’re really interested in political history, I’d say, if you have to drop one item from this list, this is the one.
* Northwestern University. Chicago’s Big Ten school is 16 miles north of the Loop, in Evanston. Dyche Stadium/Ryan Field, and McGaw Hall/Welsh-Ryan Arena, are at 2705 Ashland Avenue between Central Street and Isabella Street. (Purple Line to Central.)
While Northwestern’s athletic teams have traditionally been terrible, the school has a very important place in sports history: The 1st NCAA basketball tournament championship game was held there in 1939, at Patten Gymnasium, at 2145 Sheridan Road: Oregon defeated Ohio State. The original Patten Gym was torn down a year later -- don't be too hard on them, no one had any idea how important this historical distinction would become -- and the school’s Technological Institute was built on the site. Sheridan Road, Noyes Street and Campus Drive. Purple Line to Noyes.
Welsh-Ryan, under the McGaw name, hosted the Final Four in 1956: Bill Russell and K.C. Jones, soon to be Boston Celtics stars, led the University of San Francisco past Iowa. These are the only 2 Final Fours ever to be held in the Chicago area.
The University of Illinois is in Champaign, 137 miles south of the Loop on Interstate 57.
* Toyota Park. MLS' Chicago Fire have played here since 2006. The U.S. soccer team has played here once, a 2008 win over Trinidad & Tobago. 7000 S. Harlem Avenue, Bridgeview, in the southwestern suburbs. Orange Line to Midway Airport, then transfer to the 379 or 390 bus.
* National Italian-American Sports Hall of Fame. Appropriately in Chicago's Little Italy, west of downtown, it includes a state uf Yankee legend Joe DiMaggio. Other New York native or playing baseball players honored include Joe Torre, Yogi Berra, Phil Rizzuto, Billy Martin, Vic Raschi, Tony Lazzeri, Dave Righetti, Frank Crosetti, Roy Campanella, Sal Maglie, Mike Piazza, Bobby Valentine, John Franco, Carl Furillo, Frank Viola, Jim Fregosi, Ralph Branca, Rocky Colavito, broadcaster Joe Garagiola, and the last active player to have been a Brooklyn Dodger, Bob Aspromonte, and his brother Ken Aspromonte. 1431 W. Taylor Street at Loomis Street. Pink Line to Polk.
* Museums. Chicago’s got a bunch of good ones, as you would expect in a city of 3 million people. Their version of New York’s Museum of Natural History is the Field Museum, just north of Soldier Field. Adjacent is the Shedd Aquarium. On the other side of the Aquarium is their answer to the Hayden Planetarium, the Adler Planetarium.
They have a fantastic museum for which there is no real analogue in New York, though the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia is similar: The Museum of Science & Industry, at 57th Street & Cornell Drive, near the University of Chicago campus; 56th Street Metra station. The Art Institute of Chicago is their version of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, at 111 S. Michigan Avenue, just off the Loop.
* Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. If you’re a fan of that movie, as I am (see my 25th Anniversary retrospective, from June 2011), not only will you have taken in Wrigley Field, but you’ll recognize the Art Institute as where Alan Ruck focused on Georges Seurat’s painting A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.
Other sites visited by Ferris, Cameron and Sloane were the Sears Tower, then the tallest building in the world, 1,454 feet, 233 S. Wacker Drive (yes, the name is Wacker), Quincy/Wells station in the Loop; and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, 335 S. La Salle Street, LaSalle/Van Buren station in the Loop. (That station is also where Steve Martin & John Candy finally reached Chicago in another John Hughes film, Planes, Trains and Automobiles). The von Steuben Day Parade goes down Lincoln Avenue every September, on or close to the anniversary of Baron von Steuben's birth, not in the spring as in the film.
While the Bueller house was in Long Beach, California, the Frye house is in Highland Park, north of the city. Remember, it’s a private residence, and not open to the public, so I won’t provide the address. And the restaurant, Chez Quis, did not and does not exist.
Nor did, nor does, Adam's Ribs, a barbecue joint made famous in a 1974 M*A*S*H episode of the same title. Today, there are 18 restaurants in America named Adam's Ribs, including two on Long Island, on Park Boulevard in Massapequa Park and on the Montauk Highway in Babylon; and another on Cookstown-Wrightstown Road outside South Jersey's Fort Dix and McGuire Air Force Base. But only one is anywhere near Chicago, in Buffalo Grove in the northwestern suburbs.
Not far from that, in the western suburbs, is Wheaton, home town of football legend Red Grange and the comedic Belushi Brothers, John and Jim. John and Dan Aykroyd used Wrigley Field in The Blues Brothers, and Jim played an obsessive Cubs fan in Taking Care of Business. Their father, an Albanian immigrant, ran a restaurant called The Olympia Cafe, which became half the basis for John's Saturday Night Live sketch of the same name, better known as the Cheeseburger Sketch: "No hamburger! Cheeseburger, cheeseburger, cheeseburger, cheeseburger, cheeseburger... No fries, chips!... No Coke, Pepsi!"
Don Novello, an SNL writer who played Father Guido Sarducci, said the other half of the inspiration was the Billy Goat Tavern, originally operated by Greek immigrant William "Billy Goat" Sianis, originator of the supposed Billy Goat Curse on the Cubs, across Madison Street from Chicago Stadium, from 1937 until 1963. At that point, Sianis moved to the lower deck of the double-decked Michigan Avenue, since it was near the headquarters of the city's three daily newspapers, the Tribune, the Sun-Times, and the now-defunct Daily News. Mike Royko, who wrote columns for each of these papers, made it his haunt and frequently mentioned it in his columns.
Novello and Bill Murray, Chicagoans, were regulars at the Billy Goat, but John Belushi later said he'd never set foot in the place, so while the others may have drawn inspiration from it, his came from his father's restaurant.
Sam Sianis, nephew of the original Billy, still serves up a fantastic cheeseburger (he was there when I visited in 1999), he deviates from the sketch: No Pepsi, Coke. It's open for breakfast, and serves regular breakfast food. It looks foreboding, being underneath the elevated part of Michigan Avenue, and a sign out front (and on their website) says, "Enter at your own risk." But another sign says, "Butt in anytime." 430 N. Michigan Avenue, lower deck, across from the Tribune Tower. Red Line to Grand. The original location near Chicago Stadium has effectively been replaced, at 1535 W. Madison Street.
The Tribune Tower is a work of art in itself. Its building, Tribune publisher "Colonel" Robert R. McCormick, had stones taken from various famous structures all over the world: The Palace of Westminster in London, the Western Wall in Jerusalem, the Taj Mahal, the Great Wall of China, the Grand Canyon. (He must've paid a lot of people off.) These can be seen at near ground level, but the building itself is so grand that it doesn't need it.
The building is also the headquarters of the TV and radio station that McCormick named for his paper: WGN, "The World's Greatest Newspaper," a line that has long since disappeared from the paper's masthead. 435 N. Michigan Avenue. Red Line to Grand.
The Wrigley Building is right across from it, at 400 N. Michigan. The block of North Michigan they're on is renamed Jack Brickhouse Way, and Brickhouse's statue is on the grounds of the Tribune Tower.
You may notice some other film landmarks. The Chicago Board of Trade Building was used as the Wayne Tower in Christopher Nolan’s Batman films. And Chicago stood in for Metropolis in the Superman-themed TV series Lois & Clark, with the Wrigley Building and the Tribune Tower as standout landmarks.
TV shows set in Chicago include The Untouchables, about Eliot Ness and his Depression-era crimebusters; Good Times, set in the infamous, now-demolished Cabrini-Green housing project; the related sitcoms Perfect Strangers and Family Matters (Great shows? Well, of course, they were, don't be ridiculous!); Married... with Children, Fox's longest-running non-cartoon (though the Bundy family was pretty darn cartoonish); the 1990s hospital dramas ER and Chicago Hope; Boss, the current show with Kelsey Grammer as a corrupt Mayor; and The Bob Newhart Show, with Bob as psychiatrist Dr. Bob Hartley.
Nearly every one of these shows was actually filmed in Los Angeles, and the exterior shots were also mostly L.A. sites, so don't bother going to look for them. However, a statue of Newhart is at the Navy Pier, near its amusement rides, between Grand Avenue & Illinois Street at the lake.
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Every American should visit Chicago. And going to a Chicago Bulls game is still an epic experience, for a Nets fan and especially for a Knicks fan. Have fun -- but remember, be smart, and don't go out of your way to antagonize anyone.