Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
A River Runs Through It
Fun Fact
The Chicago River remains one of the most visible of the city's major
physical features. It's spanned by more movable bridges within the city
limits (52 at last count) than any city in the world. An almost-mystical
moment occurs downtown when all the bridges spanning the main
and south branches—connecting the Loop to both the Near West Side
and the Near North Side—are raised, allowing for the passage of some
ship or barge or contingent of high-masted sailboats. The Chicago
River has long outlived the critical commercial function that it once
performed. Most of the remaining millworks that still occupy its banks
no longer depend on the river alone for the transport of their materi-
als, raw and finished. The river's main function today is to serve as a
fluvial conduit for sewage, which, owing to an engineering feat that
reversed its flow inland in 1900, no longer pollutes the waters of Lake
Michigan. Recently, Chicagoans have begun to discover another role
for the river, that of leisure resource, providing short cruises on its
water, park areas, cafes, and public art installations on its banks, and
the beginnings of a riverside bike path that connects to the lakefront
route near Wacker Drive. Actually, today's developers aren't the first to
wonder why the river couldn't be Chicago's Seine. A look at the early-
20th-century Beaux Arts balustrades lining the river along Wacker
Drive, complete with comfortably spaced benches—as well as Parisian-
style bridge houses—shows that Daniel Burnham knew full well what
a treasure the city had.
festivals, and parades occurring throughout the city. The TTY line for people
with hearing impairments is
&
312/744-2964.
PUBLICATIONS
Chicago's major daily newspapers are the
Tribune
and the
Sun-Times.
Both have cultural listings, including movies, theaters, and live
music, not to mention reviews of the very latest restaurants that are sure to have
appeared in the city since this guidebook went to press. The Friday edition of
both papers contains a special pullout section with more detailed, up-to-date
information on special events happening over the weekend. Both papers have
also launched weekday tabloids aimed at younger readers: the
Tribune
publishes
Red Eye,
while the
Sun-Times
puts out
Red Streak.
Both carry a similar mix of
“lite” news items, entertainment news, and quirky features, making them pretty
much interchangeable.
Chicago
magazine is an upscale monthly with good restaurant listings. For a
look at the city's beautiful people, pick up
CS
(formerly
Chicago Social
), a glossy
monthly magazine filled with photos from charity galas and ads for high-priced
local boutiques.
In a class by itself is the
Chicago Reader,
a free weekly that is an invaluable source
of entertainment listings, classifieds, and well-written articles on contemporary
issues of interest in Chicago. Published every Thursday (except the last week of
Dec), the weekly has a wide distribution downtown and on the North Side; it is
available in many retail stores, in building lobbies, and at the paper's offices, 11 E.
Illinois St. (
&
312/828-0350
), by about noon on Thursday.
