Come to Chicago in June and you'll discover one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Chicago is an architectural jewel that shines brightest at this time of year, when the Midwest is in full bloom.
With miles of sandy beaches and the brilliant blue waters of Lake Michigan at its front door, Chicago will have you at hello, providing the perfect setting for this year's APsaA Annual Meeting.
Home base for our meeting will be the historic Palmer House Hotel, Chicago's version of the Waldorf. There actually have been three Palmer House Hotels at the corner of State and Monroe Streets in Chicago. The first was built as a wedding present from retail magnate Potter Palmer to his bride Bertha Honoré—more about them later. The Palmer House is within easy walking distance of the best that Chicago has to offer (including our Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis). And there is so much to see, do, and experience here that any attempt to be comprehensive would put me in the ranks of yet another impossible profession.
So here is a brief walking tour of your meeting neighborhood, as an appetizer: Turn right out of the Palmer House entrance and walk a few short blocks to Millennium Park. First planned in 1997 as a way to create new parkland in Grant Park and transform unsightly railroad tracks and parking lots, the 24.5-acre park is an unprecedented center for world-class art, music, architecture, and landscape design. Here you can experience everything from interactive public art (see the sky reflected off of Cloud Gate, also known as the “Chicago Bean”) to al fresco dining to free classical music presentations by the Grant Park Orchestra and Chorus. Among the park's prominent features is the dazzling Jay Pritzker Pavilion, the most sophisticated outdoor concert venue of its kind in the United States, designed by Frank Gehry, one of the world's greatest living architects. And opening night for the season is Wednesday June 13, during our conference week.
As part of your Millennium Park experience, cross the Serpentine Bridge over Columbus Drive to Grant Park, and walk south to Buckingham Fountain. The design of the fountain is based on the Bassin de Latone at Versailles. The fountain rises more than 23 feet and consists of three layers of basins surrounded by four pairs of bronze sea horses. Each sea horse symbolizes a state bordering Lake Michigan (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin) while the fountain represents the lake itself.
Photo: J. Crocker
From Millennium Park you can cross a footbridge to the Chicago Art Institute, and lose yourself in one of the world's great collections displayed in one of the world's most beautiful and inviting art museums. Don't miss our exhibit of French Impressionists, including the famous A Sunday on the Grande Jatte, by Seurat. Many of these paintings come from the collection of Bertha Honoré Potter, who “discovered” Renoir and Monet before the rest of the world caught on (she also posed for Rodin). This June the museum will be holding a major exhibition of the works of pop art icon Roy Lichtenstein, sure to be worth seeing.
Neal Spira, M.D., is current president of the Chicago Psychoanalytic Society. He serves on the faculty of the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis and Northwestern University Medical School. Spira blogs at .
Across Michigan Avenue from Millennium Park, the Chicago Symphony Center is home to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO), led by renowned Italian conductor Riccardo Muti. The CSO (and Muti) will be performing Beethoven's Fifth the week of our meetings. If you can get tickets, grab them!
Walk north along Michigan Avenue. You will pass the People's Gas Building, a classic example of Chicago architecture, at 122 South Michigan. Once the biggest kid on the block, the People's Gas Building retains its stature even though the city of Chicago has grown up around it. The entrance floor is covered with marble quarried from the same source near Athens where the stone for the Parthenon was quarried. Today its occupants include the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis, headquartered on the 13th floor. Come up and say hello.
Continue your walk north up Michigan Avenue. Along the way you will pass the old Chicago Public Library, now the Chicago Cultural Center, the nation's first and most comprehensive free municipal cultural venue. Every year, the Chicago Cultural Center presents hundreds of free international, national, regional, and local artists, musicians, and performers, providing a showcase where the public can enjoy and learn about the arts. Step inside for the view of its glorious Tiffany glass dome. It also serves as an information center.
As you approach the corner of Wacker Drive and Michigan note the plaque commemorating Fort Dearborn. Fort Dearborn was a United States fort built in 1803 beside the Chicago River, which is just up ahead. The original fort was destroyed by neighboring Potawatomi Indians following the Battle of Fort Dearborn in 1812, and a new fort was constructed on the same site in 1816. The fort was decommissioned by 1837, and parts of the fort were lost to the widening of the Chicago River in 1855 and a fire in 1857; the last vestiges being destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. Now follow Michigan Avenue as it traverses the Chicago River, and pause by the bust of Jean Baptiste Point DuSable. About 1779, DuSable, who came from Haiti, picked out a piece of real estate near this spot and made it home to his fur-trading operation.
Take a good look around. Look east, at the big lake, with the sun rising over it. Look down at the river (our Seine) as it carries water taxis into an Oz-like panorama of skyscrapers that define the Chicago skyline. To the southwest, the Willis (formerly Sears) Tower, tallest building in the United States. Directly across from you, the Wrigley Building, looking like a giant white wedding cake, posing in front if its new much bigger brother, the Trump International Hotel and Tower, gleaming in the sun, second tallest building in the country. To your immediate north is the Tribune Tower. And at the far north end of Michigan Avenue, the John Hancock Center, a Chicago favorite, with its distinctive X bracing and twin antennae. (By the way, Oz was a creation of Chicago resident L. Frank Baum, who was inspired by the “White City” built for Chicago's Columbian Exposition.)
Walk down the grand staircase at Michigan and Wacker and explore our riverwalks, with their pleasant sidewalk cafes and opportunities to explore Chicago by water. The Chicago Architecture Foundation () offers a terrific river tour that provides another perspective on the great architecture all around (highly recommended). Or, if you're in the mood for something more active, rent a kayak and do it yourself.
On the return trip, make a stop at the Hot Tix booth on Randolph and Wabash (across from the Cultural Center). Here you can pick up highly discounted tickets to any number of events in the Chicago area. Then continue on to State Street and back to the hotel. Along the way be sure to visit Marshall Field's—I mean Macy's. The Marshall Field's Building on State Street, which is now Macy's, covers an entire city block and features four clocks on the outside of the building. The current building was built before the Columbian Exposition in 1893 by department store magnate Marshall Field, who entered the business as a partner with none other than Potter Palmer, the man who developed much of the street that leads full circle back to your hotel. (By the way, after the Great Fire, an earlier version of Marshall Field's sat on the site of the Art Institute).
For more information about shopping, restaurants, and entertainment, check out our wonderful Chicago website: . For those of you who are interested in touring Chicago by bicycle, contact me at .