Chicago Architecture River Tour: Seeing the City Through Time

In this episode, we're exploring the history of the Chicago River itself before diving into the buildings we remembered most from the Architecture River Tour. From the birthplace of the skyscraper to icons like Marina City, Tribune Tower, Aqua, and more, you'll discover the stories that unlocked Chicago for us.

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Transcript

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Since we're basically just friends and family hanging out at this point, can I ask you two favors? The first one is super easy. Before we jump in, will you just hit the subscribe or follow button, seriously, it just takes two seconds. Just hit subscribe and come right back. And the second favor, could you leave me a review? You can wait until the end of the episode for this one, but I'd be so grateful if you did. Reviews help other people discover podcasts because at the end of the day, I'm a teacher, and I can't teach if I don't have students. So thank you. Your support genuinely means the world to me Today we are gonna talk about the architecture boat tour in Chicago. And this really got me thinking about this one day that I was getting ready to teach my art history class, and I was sitting at my desk about an hour before class, just going through my slides and making sure I remembered all of the little details that I wanted to share. And one of my students walked by, and he looked at me with this, like, really confused expression on his face. And he said, "Wait, you study this stuff before you teach it?" And I just kind of laughed I think he imagined I just walked into the classroom already knowing everything. So of course, I told him that I don't know everything. I'm just endlessly curious. I love learning, and then I get so excited to turn around and share what I've learned with my students, my kids, my family, with anyone who will listen. But that conversation also really reminded me of something, and that's that our students need to know that adults don't just magically know things. And most of the time, we're usually just a few steps ahead of them. And one of my favorite parts of traveling with my students is that every once in a while, I get to stop being a teacher, and I get to be a student right alongside them, and this was one of those moments. If you are planning a trip to Chicago, you will hear the same recommendations over and over again. Millennium Park, the Art Institute, Sears Tower, and they're all incredible. But there was one recommendation that completely caught me off guard because whenever I told people that I was bringing my art history students to Chicago, I'd mention that we had booked the architectural cruise on the river. And if they had taken it, they light up. Oh my gosh, that was my favorite part of Chicago. You have to do it." I heard the same reaction from so many different people that by the time we arrived, I couldn't wait to find out what everyone was talking about. So one afternoon, my students and I climbed aboard a boat with a couple hundred complete strangers and found seats on the upper deck. And as we pulled away from the dock, I remember thinking, "What could possibly make everyone so excited about this boat ride?" But 90 minutes later, I had my answer. When we stepped off that boat, my brain was full. There were so many stories. It felt impossible to take it all in. But then I had this thought, and that's that this is what my students must feel like every time they leave my classroom, and I know they won't remember everything. I don't expect them to. I just hope that one story sticks, and that they leave feeling inspired, and that's exactly what happened to me on this boat. There are only a handful of stories from the afternoon that I actually remember, but those stories unlocked Chicago for me, and it all started right there on the river P A U S E I'm Nicole Benjamin, and this is the Great Travel School Podcast, where we explore art, architecture, history, and culture one city at a time. Welcome to season one, The Windy City, Chicago. Today, we're cruising the river on the Chicago Architecture Tour. But first, I wanted to take just a minute to tell you about the Great Travel School Foundation, because if you don't know by now what we do, please let me tell you. We teach and take foster youth and underserved students traveling on educational experiences that completely change the way they see themselves and the world. Because when a young person steps outside the life and limitations they've always known, something really remarkable happens. I have watched students go from thinking that school and history and life were so boring to standing in the middle of some of the greatest cities, completely blown away by what human beings are capable of creating. And in that moment, something shifts because the opposite of apathy isn't discipline, it's inspiration. Teens stop asking, "Why do I have to learn this?" And they start asking, "What else is out there?" They begin imagining a future that feels bigger than the one they thought was possible. So if this mission speaks to you, let me tell you about just some of the ways you can get involved. You can donate directly. You can sponsor a particular student whose story might resonate with you. You can connect us with organizations or donors whose mission might align with ours, or you can simply share what we're doing. At Great Travel School, we believe that education shouldn't just prepare young people to survive, it should inspire them to thrive. To learn more, please visit us at greattravelschool.org. Of course, today we're gonna talk about skyscrapers. But first, I just wanna talk about the river for a second, because the first thing that my students noticed wasn't the skyline, it was the water. One of them looked at it and said, "Wow, that is beautiful. Is it real?" And honestly, it almost doesn't look real. Instead of that muddy brown you would expect from a city river, it's this incredible blue-green color that almost glows between the buildings. No, Chicago doesn't dye it that color. It's a combination of this surprisingly clean water, sunlight, and the way that the river reflects the sky and the skyscrapers around it. Depending on the light that day, it can look deep blue one minute and almost teal the next, Except on March 17th, because then the city really does dye the river. Every St. Patrick's Day, Chicago turns the entire river a brilliant emerald green. It's one of the city's most famous traditions. Hundreds of thousands of people line the bridges and the riverwalk just to watch it happen. The tradition started in 1962 when plumbers in the city realized that this tracing dye that they were using to find leaks could turn the river green. Today they use an environmentally friendly, vegetable-based dye, but what's in it? Nobody outside the plumbers union knows. Seriously, it's one of Chicago's best kept secrets. So why does Chicago go so hard on St. Patrick's Day? Remember back to episode one when we talked about Chicago's explosive growth during the 1800s? Hundreds of thousands of Irish immigrants made Chicago their home. They helped build the canals, railroads, streets, and neighborhoods, and then they became firefighters, police officers, and yes, plumbers. So every March, when the river turns that impossible shade of green, it's more than just a spectacle. It's Chicago celebrating the people who helped build the city But long before the river became something beautiful to look at, it was the entire reason that Chicago existed at all. You might remember that this little river sat beside a narrow strip of land called the Chicago Portage. Travelers would carry their canoes and cargo across that short stretch of land and then continue down an entirely different river system. That meant that somebody could travel by canoe from the Atlantic Ocean through the Great Lakes, carry their canoe for about a mile, and then keep going all the way to the Gulf of Mexico that tiny strip of land saved hundreds of miles of travel. French explorers realized how valuable this was in the 1600s. Then came traders, and then settlers, businesses, and eventually a city. Before railroads and highways, water was the original interstate system. It moved people, food, lumber, pretty much everything. The Chicago River turned what could have been a small trading post into one of America's great cities. But as Chicago grew, so did one really big problem. The city dumped all of its trash and sewage into this river, and the river emptied directly into Lake Michigan, which also happened to be where Chicago got its drinking water. So yeah, you see the problem. It's not ideal. And as disease spread, city leaders knew that something had to be done. Today, the solution seems obvious. Stop dumping sewage into the river, build a better sewer system, problem solved. But Chicago had a different idea. What if we just changed the direction of the river? It sounds impossible, but that's exactly what they did. Instead of changing the way that people lived, Chicago changed the river. No city had ever attempted anything on this scale before, and engineers spent eight years digging a canal thirty miles long, and this canal was lower than the river itself. And then they stepped back, and they let gravity do the rest. The moment the canal opened, water that flowed into Lake Michigan for centuries quietly changed direction. Just imagine being there the day that happened. One day the river flows east, the next it does not. Okay, enough about the river, because if I'm being honest, the architecture cruise is probably fifteen percent river and eighty-five percent architecture. But it turns out the river is the perfect place to see it. When you are walking through a city, you're mostly looking straight ahead. You're watching for traffic, looking for the next crosswalk, trying not to bump into people. You experience a city one block at a time. But from the river, you step back. You can see entire buildings from top to bottom, and you can see how they all fit together. Suddenly, the skyline starts telling a story By the end of the tour, there were three buildings I couldn't stop thinking about. Their stories completely changed the way I understood Chicago, and building number one has to be the Tribune Tower. This building completely blew me away. Today, it's one of Chicago's most recognizable landmarks, but here's the backstory. In 1922, the Chicago Tribune was celebrating its 75th anniversary, and instead of throwing a party, they announced an international architecture competition with a $100,000 prize, which would be about the equivalent of two million dollars today. The challenge? They wanted these architects to design what they called the world's most beautiful office building. Now, architecture competitions aren't new. Some of Europe's greatest cathedrals, and even the dome of the Florence Cathedral were results of competitions. But this was the first worldwide competition to design a skyscraper. More than 260 architects submitted designs. Some looked futuristic, some looked classical, and some barely looked like skyscrapers at all. But the winning design came from architects John Mead Howells and Raymond Hood. Instead of designing a sleek and modern tower, they looked backward. They borrowed from Gothic cathedrals and crowned the building with what looks like a Gothic bell tower. And this wasn't just for looks. For centuries, church bell towers called people together. They announced important news, and they were the voice of the community, which is exactly how the Tribune wanted people to think of its newspaper. But my favorite part isn't the architecture. But it's what's built into the walls, actual pieces of history. As the tower was being constructed, the Tribune reporters stationed around the world began sending home souvenirs. Today, if you walk around the base of the building, you'll find more than a hundred and fifty fragments embedded into the stone. Pieces of the Great Wall of China, the Taj Mahal, Westminster Abbey, the Parthenon, the Colosseum, even fragments from the Berlin Wall and a rock from the Moon. It feels like someone created a scavenger hunt using humanity's greatest landmarks. Of course, my students immediately asked a question that I might not have thought to ask when I was their age. We just took these things? And honestly, it's a fair question. Today removing pieces from places like this would be unthinkable, but 100 years ago, preservation looked very different. Then we found one more stone, a piece of the petrified forest from Sonoma County, less than 20 minutes from our school, and we couldn't believe it. Here we are standing in downtown Chicago looking at pieces of some of the world's greatest landmarks, and tucked among them was a little piece of home. And I love moments like that because they remind me that while the world is enormous, it's also somehow a lot smaller than it feels. In two thousand and sixteen, the Tribune sold the building to developers. Today Tribune Tower is home to some of Chicago's most sought-after condos, and because I'm me, I looked them up. A two-bedroom starts at around one point four million dollars plus HOA fees that make me laugh out loud. But honestly, can you even imagine walking by pieces of the Great Wall of China and the Taj Mahal every time you go to get the mail? That's basically an art history teacher's dream. The next building is probably the most iconic, but I probably should say buildings because you can't really talk about one without the other. Marina City. Although, like we learned in the last episode, Chicagoans have a habit of ignoring official names. They looked at these towers and decided they looked like corncobs, and the name stuck, which is kinda funny because the architect, Bertrand Goldberg, always said that they were inspired by sunflowers. But honestly, the shape isn't the most interesting part. It's the story. After World War Two, families across America were leaving downtowns for the suburbs. They wanted backyards and garages and more space. And suddenly, cities like Chicago weren't competing with other cities anymore. They were competing with cul-de-sacs. During the day, downtown was packed, but at night, it emptied out. So Goldberg asked a fascinating question. What if you give people everything they love about suburban life without asking them to leave the city? And his answer became Marina City. When it opened in nineteen sixty-four, people had never seen anything like it. Nearly 900 apartments, the tallest residential towers in the world, and what many people consider the first mixed-use development. You didn't just live there, you lived your life there. Your apartment, your car, your grocery store, restaurant, shops, offices, a theater. And there was even a marina where residents could dock their boats. It was really a city within a city. Today, mixed-use developments are everywhere, but Marina City helped prove that the idea could work. Even the building itself was an experiment. Instead of using steel, Goldberg used concrete because it could curve and flow, creating those famous balconies that wrapped around each floor. The elevators and the plumbing were tucked into the center of the corncob, leaving the bedrooms and the living room open toward the skyline, Every apartment fanned out like a slice of pizza. But my favorite part is how they convince people to move in. Remember, nobody had ever lived like this. Living high above the city with sweeping skyline views wasn't something people aspired to. It was something they had to imagine. So the developers built life-size model apartments inside a warehouse and surrounded them with gigantic photographs of the Chicago skyline. They weren't just selling apartments, they were helping people picture an entirely new way of living, and it worked. Turns out people loved the idea. Before the building was even finished, thousands of people had already applied to live there. Marina City didn't just change Chicago, it changed the way cities around the world thought about downtown living The last building I wanna share is one of Chicago's newest icons, Aqua, completed in 2009. One of the things I love the most about this building is that it was designed by a Chicago architect, Jeanne Gang. Aqua was the project that introduced her to the world, and today she's considered one of the most influential architects working anywhere, really. Standing on that boat, it was not hard to see why. At first glance, Aqua barely looks like a skyscraper. Instead of straight lines and sharp corners, the balconies ripple like waves or layers of limestone carved away by thousands of years of wind and water. That was exactly what Jeanne Gang had in mind. But here's what fascinates me. Almost nothing about this building is decorative. Every curve solves a problem. Every single floor is different. There isn't one repeated floor in the entire tower. Those sweeping balconies, they're not just beautiful. They extend further in certain places, creating outdoor spaces that people actually want to use. And this is the genius part. Those constantly changing edges do one more thing. They break up the wind. Instead of powerful gusts that race down the side of a building, the air is redirected, making the balconies far more comfortable. But my favorite detail is how she designed the views. Of course, Gang's team used sophisticated computer modeling, but they also went a little old school. They built a cardboard model of the building in downtown Chicago, And then they stretched pieces of string from the balconies of the model to landmarks throughout the city. It was a simple way to make sure that residents would have unobstructed views of some of Chicago's most iconic landmarks and feel really connected to the city around them. And I just love this idea. One of the world's most innovative skyscrapers fine-tuned with cardboard and string. Before we wrap up, I have to give one honorable mention because there was one building that completely stole my heart, the Carbide and Carbon Building. If you've ever seen it, you know exactly which one I'm talking about. The dark green skyscraper with the brilliant gold top. You guys, I think this building is absolutely stunning. Like, drop-dead gorgeous. It is one of the finest examples of Art Deco architecture anywhere in America, and once you know what the architects were trying to do, you can't unsee it. The entire building was designed to look like a champagne bottle. The deep green exterior represents the glass. The gold crown is the foil wrapped around the cork, and the very top of the building is covered in real gold leaf. Oh my gosh, it's glamorous, it's dramatic, it's unapologetically over the top, which makes perfect sense because it was completed in 1929, right at the height of the Roaring '20s, and then just months later, everything changed. The stock market crashed. America entered the Great Depression. The story goes that desperate people tried climbing the building to scrape the gold leaf from the top. Whether that actually happened or it's simply just one of those stories that grew over time, it almost doesn't matter because it's the kind of story that feels true. People looked up at that shimmering gold tower and they imagined hope. Even today, nearly 100 years later, it's impossible not to look up. I can't quite explain it, but the city feels different after you step off the architecture boat tour. Not because the buildings have changed, but because you're no longer seeing a collection of skyscrapers. You're seeing 150 years of people solving problems, taking risks, dreaming bigger than the generation before them. So no, I don't remember every building or every architect or every date, but I do remember how I felt when I stepped off that boat. So inspired. So yes, I am now one of those people that enthusiastically recommends the architecture tour. Not because you'll remember every story, but because somewhere along the way, one of them will stick with you p a u s e Thank you so much for spending part of your day with me. If you enjoyed this episode, I'd be so grateful if you'd subscribe, leave a review, or share it with somebody who loves history, architecture, and travel as much as we do. And if you'd like to learn more about our educational travel experiences for you and your family, or help us give more students the opportunity to see the world, please visit us at greattravelschool.org