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Vancouver, British Columbia
Close up of the sign that says we never close
Unlike other North American cities, there is a large residential population in downtown Vancouver, British Columbia with high rise condominiums stretching as far as the eye can see. Whether new or old, these (mostly) glass towers all sort of look alike, all with a great view of mountains or the sea (like this), and all with a guaranteed view across the street of another building that looks somewhat suspiciously similar to your own.
On both days in Vancouver when I found myself with free time I found myself in Lord Stanley's Park, an amazing stretch of land adjacent to downtown with paths that could best be described as trails. The most popular one seamlessly connects the city, the park and the sea. The appropriately named Seawall Path follows the seawall from the front yard of one of my two highly recommended hotels, sneaks under the Lions Gate Bridge, goes past the end of the inside passage and all the way to False Creek. The 10k (or 12k) walk is as far away from a city as you can imagine, which is also a fairly good description of Vancouver I guess.
The path wraps around the peninsula for this underside view of the Lions Gate Bridge, a hard to miss graceful suspension bridge in one of the world's great locations for a graceful suspension bridge.
If you keep walking counter clockwise (like I did) you’ll soon end up on the dramatic western side, with a late afternoon light both blinding you and also creating some damn fine photo opportunities.
Granville Island is the place to go to in Vancouver, if you don't count Stanley Park, nearby Whistler or (slightly less nearby) Victoria. Under the bridge (across from) downtown, it is a healthy mix of low rise shops, restaurants, bars and markets in no particular order. Certainly pleasant and easy to get to, what more do you want?
You should be comforted to know that Chicago is still there, everything is (probably) where you last left it. Ok, maybe everything's not exactly how you left it. Right across from my hotel, on the river between the Wrigley Building and Mies' IBM building (on the site of the old Sun Times building), everyone's favorite short fingered vulgarian Donald Trump has lent his completely untarnished name to a mammoth building project, the Trump International Hotel and Tower. It will single-handedly destroy the scale of the river and quite possibly the city, but its too late to protest now. The building has been designed by the guy at SOM who isn't David Childs (the same office that designed the hated Sears Tower and the beloved John Hancock Center) so maybe there is hope after all.
A bit farther south in Chicago at IIT, Mies's ghost still has no idea what to do with Rem Koolhaas' year old student center, a great little building complete with its own train, glowing orange walls and enough good ideas to make you understand why everyone loves Rem.
The facade of the student center is made up of tiny circular icons of things you can do at the student center and, as you get farther from the building, you can see a humorless photo of Mies van der Rohe himself staring back at you. And his mouth is located right where the doors open, as if this humorless giant Mies is actually eating and regurgitating students all day. This is another reason why everyone loves Mies.
Chicago is becoming such a wonderfully familiar place, this was my seventh visit in the last ten years- not yet ahead of coastal Maine (eleven visits) but a few ticks beyond such equally familiar haunts as Paris (five), Los Angeles (four) and Toronto (three). For the second consecutive time I stayed at the same hotel as last time (Hotel 71- possibly the best in the city with an absolutely unbeatable location, slow elevators and killer views). From the lobby, you are less than five minutes away from the State and Lake train station, the Michigan Avenue Bridge, the edge of River North or Marina City, in less than ten minutes you're at Millennium Park, the Art Institute or North Michigan Avenue.
As previously mentioned, the legitimate reason behind this trip was actually work related (although I will freely admit I'm always looking for reasons to go back to Chicago). As actual research for an upcoming project, I needed to visit a facility at the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons (AAOS) in nearby Rosemont, in one of those suburban office buildings that you see from the Blue Line on that always painfully slow ride from O'Hare. Specifically I needed to visit a cadaver lab, a place which in reality is suspiciously close to what it sounds like it is. If you somehow want (or need) more details I will be happy to share them with you. I will warn you that said stories are between borderline gruesome and, well, really gruesome (for example, the words "severed" and "dead guys" get used more than you would probably like them to). On second thought, let’s skip the cadaver stories and instead just enjoy the view from the 94th floor of the John Hancock Center, safe atop all of those X braces, where generous views still seem to extend as far as the curvature of the earth will allow.
