Neighborhoods: Millennium Park

Okay, in the spirit of honesty I have to admit that working off of Chicago's official tourism website to find neighborhoods is way too touristy to be accurate. Millennium Park is definitely not a neighborhood. But it is fun to talk about and visit, so I suppose that's fine.

Millennium Park has been in Chicago longer than I have, so sometimes I forget what a strange concept it was a decade ago. The legend goes that Mayor Daley looked out his window during a meeting and was embarrassed that there was a barren stretch of dirt in the heart of Chicago, uglying up the place. He called up enough millionaires (and invested the taxpayers), and in 2004 Millennium Park was completed. The park's existence can be seen as proof that Mayor Daley has the kind of political and financial power to do essentially whatever he wants. Then again, it's also a center of both tourist photo-ops and free concerts, a green space surrounded by office buildings.

Despite being completed four years late, I think the park has proven itself as a worthwhile venture by now. During the summer, there are free concerts during the noon hour, and people in power suits sneak down with their sack lunches to sit on the grass and relax. Although it's getting too cold for concerts now, my roommate Tad and I were lucky enough to be in Millennium Park for the Chicago Music Festival about a month ago. The shows were fantastic, and also a wake-up call -- in Lincoln, more people would have come to a country concert, but no stars that big would have bothered to put on a show in such a small town.

I understand that a lot of people consider The Bean to be the best thing in Millennium Park. The Bean is indeed awesome (no, that's not its real name, but trust me, nobody calls it Cloud Gate), and it's fun to have a giant approachable mirrored statue reflecting skyscrapers and distorting tourists. But my favorite part of Millennium Park is by far Pritzker Pavillion, which was built as a concert venue.

The grassy expanse is big enough that small soccer games break out on its edges in the summer, and there's plenty of room for concert-goers. There's a stage surrounded by metal curling out into the skyline, which reflects the stage lights and makes the place glow at night. There's also a system of criss-crossing poles over the top of the park, laden with speakers and lights. It might seem strange to cover a grassy field with all this metal, but it feels comforting to me. The speaker system cradles the field, blending together the city proper and that little oasis of music. It's probably just because I'm into theatre tech, but looking up through the grid and into the stars is one of the best things to do on a summer night.