Beautiful Chicago [antikvár]

introduction There have been two Chicago's. The first arose from the muddy landscape near where the Chicago River joins Laké Michigan. The second came from the ashes of the Great Fire, which destroyed most of the city center in 1871. In a bold display of the Chicagoan ' 'I Will'' spirit, the devastation of the holocaust was swept away. In its place has risen a megalopolis-known best by a line from one of the poems of Carl Sandburg, the "City of the Big Shoulders.'' Were Sandburg alive today, he might well be astonished at just how big Chicago's shoulders have become. Monolithic structures of steel and glass dominate the city's skyline. The tallest of these, the Sears Tower, rises 100 stories, or 1,454 feet, topping the world's second-largest building, the New York World Trade Center, by 100 feet. Towering above Grant Park to the south is the Standard Oil Building, the world's fourth largest, which adds to the bulk of the city's shoulders. Its lightgray marble exteriőr thrusts upwards 1,136 feet into the Chicago skyline. Chicago's "bigness" comes in other forms, not the least of which is its population-over three millión-the second largest in the United States. Early on, Chicago was known as a melting pot for immigrants, and today Chicago's population has a large percentage of ethnic groups: Poles, Czechs, Yugoslaves, Ukrainians, Germans, Scandinavians, Irish, and Italians. One can find newspapers in almost any language: Lithuanian (two daily), Spanish, Chinese, Croatian, Germán, Danish, Hungárián, Japanese, Serbian, and many others. Big, alsó, is Chicago's O'Hare Airport, the world's busiest commercial airport. O'Hare sees more than 37 millión passengers file through its doors yearly. Big is the city's convention business, with nearly six millión visitors flocking annually to this husky, brawling giant to enjoy its museums, admire the architecture, experience the nightlife, savor the cuisine of the many fine restaurants, and to stroll its 4 'Magnificent Mile," (North Michigan Avenue) lined with stylish shops. Now merely a legend, as are the colorful figures of Chicago's one-time gangland rulers and the bosses of the city's political machine, the city's stockyards have been replaced by a new industrial park. Though the smell from the yard's "sea of pens"