Neighborhoods: The Loop

It's a little difficult for me to consider the Loop a neighborhood where people live, as opposed to the place everybody travels through. However, there are colleges and apartments there, as well as plenty of people passing through. The Loop gets its name from the CTA trains which run throughout Chicago -- downtown they make a loop which circles the heart of the city. This means that I travel through the loop almost every day, even though I only go above-ground there every few weeks. This also means that, practically speaking, millions of people travel through the Loop every day. The neighborhood is full of commuters, although this means that restaurants there tend to shut down on Sundays when offices are closed.

The Loop is full of skyscrapers and offices. It has plenty of places to go, such as the Art Institute and Harold Washington Library. The Harold Washington Library is a huge favorite with our house. It's eight whole stories of books with an indoor garden on top, all housed conveniently next to the Jackson stop of the CTA. The building also looks like a shrine to Literature, which I enjoy. I've been using the library for months now, and I still have very little idea how to find books -- the catalog will mention which floor to find a novel on, but nothing else. The library also has sections such as "New!" and "Popular!", which make it a great place for browsing and a terrible place to get specific items.

The Loop also has plenty of interesting art exhibits and and

statues, most of which are temporary.

Directly across from the Harold Washington Library used to be a giant eyeball statue. It was part of an exhibit called Eye and Cardinal, completed with banners of cardinals which hung from lampposts. The eye was dismantled and shipped away a few weeks also, which has made orienting myself in the Loop a bit trickier. Giant eyes make for very, very obvious landmarks, whereas little expanses of leftover grass do not.

Both the eye and the library are above the Jackson stop of the CTA, which I pass through almost every day. The Jackson stop, and the surrounding few blocks, are probably my favorite part of the Loop (and definitely my most traversed part of the Loop). I understand that talking about the Jackson stop isn't a very complete view of the neighborhood, but the loop is fairly easy to understand. It's downtown Chicago, pure and simple. There are businesses and government buildings and people all over the place, much like in any healthy city. However, the Jackson stop is one of those singularities that you just don't get in smaller cities.

Both the red line and the blue lines of the CTA have Jackson stops, with a convenient tunnel which unifies the two stations. Since I live off the blue line and Fourth Presbyterian is off the red line, I spend a decent amount of time walking the connecting Jackson tunnel. Both the red line and blue line Jackson stops usually have musicians playing at all hours. There are some regulars and some who show up for a few weeks, such as the doo-wop dance trio that performed at the blue line stop last summer. However, my favorite musician is probably the woman who tap dances, plays the violin, and and the harmonica. She hasn't been around much lately, but her songs are fantastic.

I feel like it's only fair at this point to mention the Smell of the Jackson connecting tunnel. The Smell is pervasive, and by now overly familiar. It's also just barely beyond definition; a mix of way too many people and their takeout and wet clothes. I realize that this sounds unpleasant, but frankly by now it's a part of my daily commute. I would trade not having to find parking in the loop for the smell of the Jackson tunnel any day of the week.