Visiting Obama’s home
There were some banana skins on the way – but Síle McArdle found Chicago buzzing with a friendliness worthy of Obama
There are many US cities, I imagine, in which stopping a smartly dressed twentysomething woman munching her breakfast on a Monday morning and asking: ‘Excuse me, where did you get your banana?’ could result in a puff of mace to the face and a 911 call.
Not at Logan Square that day, though, an up-and-coming (if slightly edgy in places) suburb in north-west Chicago, where we were renting our first Airbnb apartment.
This particular woman stopped and smiled. ‘I bought it from a farm shop,’ she replied softly, twigging that we were after a healthy breakfast rather than her wallet. ‘But it isn’t open today. Sorry.’
Had we met her 10 minutes later the question might have been: ‘Excuse me, do you know how to treat ruptured ligaments?’ But that’s another story.
With time ticking on our precious last day of drive-by sightseeing, we bought bright yellow (but regrettably banana-less) pastries from the Guatelinda Bakery on West Diversey Avenue, where a temporary finger splint was fashioned with bakery Sellotape and two scuffed emery boards. MacGyver would have been proud.
Then we motored into the city centre, and far south along Lake Michigan’s shores – with a particular address in mind: the Obama homestead.
Their elegant red-bricked house is in the (definitely not edgy) suburb of Kenwood, six blocks north of the University of Chicago campus, where both Barack and Michelle worked before the White House beckoned.
Of course we didn’t seriously expect the family to be in residence at 5046 South Greenwood Avenue, never mind to be invited in, but when you’re high on sugary pastries anything seems possible. ‘What’re you ladies doing?’ The Homeland Security/FBI/ CIA chap approached as we reached the ‘RESIDENTIAL TRAFFIC ONLY’ sign. His hand hovered near his holster.
‘Play it cool,’ giggled my Ruptured Ligament friend, by then high on painkillers. ‘Don’t annoy him.’
‘Hello, officer,’ I replied, summoning a butter-wouldn’t-melt smile. ‘We’ve come for tea and buns with the Obamas.’
A couple of pleasantries later he’d realised we were harmless eccentrics and left us alone to photograph our home-made ‘P’ placed in front of ‘RESIDENTIAL PARKING ONLY’ – so that it spelled ‘PRESIDENTIAL’.
The previous evening, on board a fascinating Chicago Architecture Foundation citycentre river cruise, as dusk fell and fog obscured the upper floors of Trump International Hotel and Tower – at 432.2 metres high, it’s the fourth-tallest building in the States – we watched the current US President’s name light up in harsh white lettering.
Such a world of difference between Obama’s classy redbricked house in suburban Kenwood and his successor’s glassy riverside monolith on North Wabash Avenue. Enough said.
Presidential talk aside, the good folks of the Windy City are immensely and justifiably proud of their diverse architecture – particularly the painstakingly reclaimed river warehouses.
To get that famously glistening skyline as your backdrop, stand on the shoreline between the John G Shedd Aquarium and the Adler Planetarium, on Northerly Island in the south city centre. What better spot for a very first selfie…
And not forgetting the dizzying views from the 103rd-floor Skydeck of the Willis Tower, America’s second-tallest building (trumped in 2014 by the One World Trade Center in Manhattan). Stand on the glass ledge and look down if you dare…
A firm favourite for information versus effort is the docent-narrated Chicago’s First Lady Cruise in conjunction with Chicago Architectural Foundation (www. cruisechicago.com, April to November). There’s something special – intimate, even – about seeing a place through the eyes of its river…
After three days using buses and metro (called the ‘L’ here) and a hop-on, hop-off ticket thanks to Chicago Trolley and Double Decker Company, hiring a car during our precious Sunday was a smart move.
After Obamagate it allowed us to scoot into the university campus for panini and fresh-pressed juice
‘Hello officer, we’ve come for tea and buns with the Obamas’
in Zaleski and Horvath Market Café, and whizz through ethnic neighbourhoods Greektown and Little Italy and Pilsen. That said, a satnav can only take you so far if you don’t know what you don’t know – given that several northsouth roads in this lakeside city run for miles and miles, check your numbers with care!
Feeling adventurous, I navigated with a Chicago Transit Authority bus map.
Then Damen, the north-south artery I’d chosen as a sightseeing barometer, decided to… well, end in a dead end. (Another note to self: check when the Chicago Cubs are playing at Wrigley Field so you don’t get stuck in traffic.)
Until that Sunday we’d only had so-so evening meals, including at jam-packed Lao Sze Chuan in Chinatown – an uber-popular spot but which didn’t deliver that night.
But thankfully a tasty dinner at Topo Gigio in the Old Town on Chicago’s near north side soothed the tattered bus-map nerves.
The culinary gem of the trip, though, was Saturday breakfast at Lula Café near our Logan Square accommodation – local and unpretentious and innovative… and deservedly busy.
Overall Logan Square worked well for us, especially as it’s on the Blue Line ‘L’ from O’Hare Airport, but if you prefer a more affluent base then consider north-of-centre areas around the Red Line ‘L’ such as Bryn Mawr, Berwyn, Fullerton or Belmont.
The city-centre loop is fine for tourist-trail activities (especially using a handy CityPASS) such as the unmissable Art Institute.
But sprawling Chicago is essentially all about neighbourhoods.
Apart from the honourable exception of the Tribune Tower on North Michigan Avenue – whose façade has 149 historic stone fragments embedded in it, ranging from the Taj Mahal to the Pyramids to Notre Dame… even Derry’s Walls – the heart of Chicago is not about buildings.
It’s about the man who helps you out with a parking disc, the lad who offers you binoculars to view an unusual moon and the busy woman who stops to answer your question about breakfast.
And it will be forever associated with a classy, pioneering President.