Chicago is definitely one of my very favorite cities. I was first there for a meeting more than a decade ago, when I was on the Board of Directors of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, and was quickly smitten.
The falling-in-love-all-over-again happened this past Thursday when I flew in for a la ida por la vuelta quick trip to do dissertation research at the fabulous Newberry Library.
I arrived at the smallish Midway Airport, where I'd never flown into before, and getting into the city and into my B&B using public transportation was easier than I ever dreamed. The signage is plentiful and easy to follow, especially for chronically-lost-people, like me. Thus, I almost-confidently changed trains at the downtown Loop and headed up on the red line to the stop where the B&B is located, only a few blocks from the gorgeous library building.
When I arrived at the station where I had to change to the red line, though, I was a bit perplexed, and must have shown it. I was expecting a stop such as Park Street in Boston, where you just go to another part of the subway to get on the red line. Not so in Chicago.
When you get off the orange line, which is elevated, you have to walk down to street level into another station and down into the underground subway (all with the same $2 card, which is great!). Noticing my momentary confusion when I got off the first train, a very nice woman approached me, asked if I needed help, and quickly pointed me in the right direction.
I love subways. And I particularly like Chicago's because the elevated portions are long and the trains snake between buildings in seemingly impossible ways. The cars tilt at improbable angles as the train gingerly negotiates corners. I love the roar and the rush of the trains and I really enjoy looking into the offices and apartments that are at eye level with "the L."
Riding the MBTA in Boston has similar sights but I don't recall seeing rooftop apartments whose fences literally abut the train tracks or whose view is basically the train tracks. That's pure Chicago. How cool!, I think as we twist and turn through the city and I see a man watering his rooftop garden, covered with colorful impatiens. I also see sunflowers growing in somebody's kitchen window.
But then a saner part of me reminds me that it's probably not that cool for those who must contend with the high-pitch screeching and the endless chug-chug-chug of the train all day and all night. But, hey, city living doesn't get any city-er than that, does it?, says my less-sane side.
Everybody I met in Chicago, from the woman at the subway station, to the CTA attendants, to the bus drivers, to the B&B host, to the people at the Newberry, was unfailingly polite and helpful. I was truly impressed that almost everyone getting on and off the bus rarely forgot to say their "good mornings" and "thank yous," which I rarely ever hear when I'm on the bus here in Ohio (especially when I'm riding with students in the buses at Ohio State!).
In contrast to other libraries I've visited since starting my dissertation, the library attendants at the Newberry were helpful and nice. Most were young women and I noticed, to my surprise, that I was actually the only woman doing research in the Special Collections Room on the two days I was there.
(I don't want to contribute the bad rap New Yorkers get, but earlier this year, at the New York Public Library, I was scolded by a librarian for getting a bit excited about actually holding Sophia Peabody's Cuba Journal, which dates to the 1830s. I think that if he could've rapped my knuckles with a ruler he would have done so. But instead, in his chilliest tone, he asked me if I'd ever handled old manuscripts before. Talk about a chubasco of ice water.)
At the Newberry, several disheveled and scholarly-looking men intensely discussed and intently examined a very old map, dating from the eighteenth century. One said he was on his way to England in his quest to figure out this map. I was curious and wanted to ask about this apparent mystery, but refrained and kept to my work.
I had my own excitement because I got to handle a few letters by Filipino patriot José Rizal, dating between the 1880s and 1890s. In one letter, he complained that in the Philippine town where he was staying there was no alcohol or glass jars in which to properly keep his collection of animal skulls and skeletons. "They've all succumbed to the mice," Rizal complained.
One of the reasons I simply love archival research is because it functions like a virtual time machine. On this trip, I was able to travel to the nineteenth century and visit with Rizal for a few minutes, without leaving the comfort of my Newberry chair and desk.
I also felt like an adventurer myself as I mapped out my own knowledge of the city. In that pursuit, I decided to take the bus to meet a family friend for breakfast yesterday. I may get lost in Ohio's darned cornfields, but I don't get lost in the city, I told myself self-assuredly. I asked for and got specific directions at the Newberry of how to take the bus, and early on Friday I walked a block to the stop and was promptly on my way.
Because the numbers kept getting bigger, I didn't worry at first. But when I saw that the numbers started getting smaller, I became concerned.
"I'm going to [the address of my friend]," I told the driver. "Am I on the right bus?"
"Yes and no," the driver answered with a smile. "You're on the right bus but going in the wrong direction. You're going south and you need to go north."
I groaned. I had already been on the bus for 20 minutes (what they'd said at the Newberry that it would take for the bus to get to my destination from the B&B) and I was smack in the middle of the city but on the opposite side of where I needed to be.
"Just get off at the next stop, walk east to the parallel street and take this bus going north," he instructed.
Good Puerto Rican that I am, I hate this "east" and "north" business. Just tell me right or left, please, I want to plead! But, of course, I don't.
I did as he said and called my friend to let her know that I would be late. When we had arranged our meeting the day before, she had advised that I take a cab. But I knew that taking the bus was cheaper and since I was on a graduate student grant, the bus it had to be.
Of course, after having to take two different buses instead of one, and another bus to return to the B&B after breakfast (her sister, who had offered to drive me back, could not do so at the later hour), the price tag was probably the same as if I'd taken a cab, like she had suggested.
But I don't count that episode as getting lost, just temporarily disoriented. Once I figured out what I was doing, I took the remaining buses with the confidence of an almost-Chicagoan. When I return to Chicago for a third time, which I hope will be sooner than in another decade, I surely will be rather smug about my well-earned city stripes.
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