I love Chicago.
In my opinion, Chicago is the greatest city in America. Of course this is a biased opinion because I live so close to Chicago, but there have been other factors that have shaped my opinion.
When I was a child, I didn't think much of the city. I thought every other big city in America was like Chicago. Sort of like if you grow up with a dad who plays a lot of instruments, you assume everyone's dad plays music. I had been into the city a few times on field trips in elementary school but I was never exposed to it that much. Not until I was in high school.
In high school, I was part of Geography Club. In this club, led by my favorite teacher, me and 10 other students would travel into the city on a small bus and do whatever we wanted. Of course, there would be an agenda to go somewhere specific but it was usually pretty flexible.
We went to places like museums, and concerts, I remember going to the Chris Kringle Market and seeing Macy's during Christmas for the first time. Usually we wouldn't get home until 2 a.m.
One time he took us to a world famous comedy club called Second City. A lot of celebrity comedians started out at Second City like Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, John Candy, Steve Carell, Bill Murray, and Mike Myers. The list goes on and on. It was during this time that I hadn't realized that I was falling in love with this city.
Then I took a Chicago history class in high school. Of course it was taught by the same teacher that led the Geography Club. I started learning more about Chicago and how it became the great city that it is today. I learned about our flag and what the four stars represent.
The first star represents Fort Dearborn which is what Chicago was called before it became a city in 1837. The second star represents the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. What a lot of people don't know about the fire was that it helped Chicago start over and improve upon itself. Before the fire the city had hellacious living conditions. The air was almost unbreathable due to pollution from industry. The streets smelled of decomposing flesh because of the stock yards where pigs were slaughtered by the thousands.
Fun fact, after news of the Chicago fire spread around the world, the Queen of England sent 8,000 books after assuming our library had burnt down. What she didn't know was that Chicago didn't even have a library. With those 8,000 books, we established the first Chicago Public Library in 1872.
The third star represents the Chicago World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, or "World Fair." This world fair would bring about 27 million visitors to the great city of Chicago. Just to prepare for this event the mayor had all of downtown reconstructed with temporary monument sized buildings that were entirely white. That's when Chicago was called the white city, and it looked like a utopia.
This is also when the world's first ferris wheel was built. This wheel was so massive it had 36 cars the size of train cars, and each car could hold up to 60 people. This meant that the wheel could hold a total capacity of 2,160 people. After the world fair ended, almost all the buildings were dismantled except the Field Museum of Science and Industry which still stands today.
The fourth star is the second world fair which was a lot less significant than the first world fair.
After learning about the magic and the mystery behind Chicago, it's no wonder that I fell in love with it. There is still so much I want to experience in the city, my dream is to live down town at some point in my life. Me next step will be be attending school at the University of Illinois in Chicago so I can spend more time experiencing the town. I know I also wish to travel the world but my heart will always be tied to Chicago.
