CHICAGO is in many ways the
nation's last great city. Sarah
Bernhardt called it "the pulse
of America" and, though long
eclipsed by Los Angeles as the
nation's second most populous city
after New York, Chicago really does
have it all, with less of the hassle
and infrastructural problems of its
coastal rivals.
Founded in the early 1800s,
Chicago grew up with the country,
serving as the main connection
between the established east coast
cities and the wide open Wild West
frontier. This position on the sharp
edge between civilization and
wilderness made the city into a
crucible of innovation. Many aspects
of modern life, from skyscrapers to
suburbia, had their start, and
perhaps their finest expression,
here on the shores of Lake Michigan.
Despite burning to the ground in
the legendary fire of 1871, Chicago
boomed thereafter, doubling in
population every decade and reaching
two million around 1900, swollen by Irish
and eastern European
immigrants (Chicago still has the
largest Polish population in the
world outside Warsaw). In the early
years of the twentieth century, it
cemented a reputation as a place of
apparently limitless opportunity,
with jobs aplenty for those willing
to work. The attraction was
strongest among Deep South blacks
: from 1900 to 1920 African
Americans poured in, with more than
75,000 arriving during the war years
of 1916-18 alone. Long hours, poor
pay and squalid working conditions
were the catalysts that made Chicago
the cradle of American trade
unions . By around 1900 most
workers were organized under the
American Federation of Labor, and
the 1894 Pullman strike saw black
and white workers unite for almost
the first time in the US. As
hostilities intensified, the city's
workers became the driving force
behind the left-wing "Wobblies."
Chicago has also long been an
important center for black
organization - both the Reverend
Jesse Jackson's Operation PUSH
(People United to Save Humanity) and
the more militant Nation of Islam
, founded by Elijah Mohammed in the
1940s, have their national
headquarters on the city's South
Side.
During the Roaring Twenties,
Chicago's self-image as a
no-holds-barred free market was
pushed to the limit by a new breed
of entrepreneur. Criminal
syndicates, ruthlessly and brazenly
run by the likes of gangsters
like Al Capone and Bugsy Moran, took
advantage of Prohibition to sell
bootleg alcohol. Shootouts in the
street between sharp-suited,
Tommy-gun-wielding mobsters were not
as common as legend would have it,
but the backroom dealing and
iron-handed control they pioneered
was later perfected by politicians
such as former mayor Richard
Daley - father of the present
mayor - who ran Chicago
single-handedly from the 1950s until
his death in 1976. His brutal
handling of antiwar demonstrators at
the 1968 Democratic convention
remains notorious. These days, the
tourist authorities play down the
mobster era; few traces of the
hoodlum years exist, and those that
do owe more to Hollywood than
contemporary Chicago.
Today, Chicago's towering skyline
- the city has one of the world's
best collections of modern
architecture , from Frank Lloyd
Wright houses to the 110-story Sears
Tower - dominates the
pancake-flat prairies for hundreds
of miles around. Chicago's status as
the cultural and financial heart of
middle America is beyond question. The
Loop downtown holds the head
offices of many major US companies
and some of the nation's most
important commodity markets ,
which together handle the buying and
selling of one-third of the world's
agricultural and industrial
products.
For visitors, Chicago offers the Art
Institute of Chicago and a wide
range of excellent museums
(many of which have one day of free
admission per week), restaurants,
sports and highbrow cultural
activities. However, its strongest
suit is live music , with a
phenomenal array of jazz and blues
clubs packed into the back rooms of
its amiable bars and cafés. The rock
scene is also one of the healthiest
in the country with a prolific
number of bands having come out of
the city in the 1990s, including
Smashing Pumpkins, Material Issue,
Veruca Salt and Wilco. And almost
everything is noticeably less
expensive than in other US cities - eating
out , for example, costs much
less than in New York or LA, but is
every bit as good. Though locals
might deny it, the city has a
surprisingly low-key and generally
welcoming population - Chicagoans on
the whole are proud of their city
and usually keen to point out its
best features. Two great ways to get
a real feel for the city are to head
out to ivy-covered Wrigley Field
on a sunny summer afternoon to catch
baseball's Cubs in action, or take a
cruise boat under the bridges of the
Chicago River at sunset.
