Chicago Journal

Part Five: Elk's Memorial, Pride Parade, Taste of Chicago

After going on about how the Garfield Park Conservatory was superior to the one at Lincoln Park, I'm changing my mind (a bit) after recent visits to both. Lincoln Park may be smaller, but the addition of hundreds of hanging vines to their Fern Room and many other general improvements bring them up in my view. The overall design layout at Lincoln Park is inferior, but the plants are better maintained. As a side note, the landscaping at the Lincoln Park zoo is amazingly improved this year.

One Lincoln Park building most Chicago residents are familiar with, yet know almost nothing about is the Elk's Memorial at 2750 N. Lakeview Ave. The unique rotunda and the elk statues in front catch everyone's attention, but few people have gone inside. Actually, I think most people didn't realize it was open to the public. Now, they've put up a welcome sign, so it isn't the secret it used to be. Inside this fascinating building you'll find outstanding murals by Gilbert Brown Wilson and some James Earle Fraser sculptures. They also have a wonderful collection of Elk's Club badges. Excellent free tours are offered upon request. Take the time to descend the marble staircase to see more collections in their deliciously cool basement.

I very much prefer the idea of a parade rather than actually witnessing one. I just don't like standing around with a crowd of people watching cars go by. I usually get bored very quickly. Despite this, I somehow let Sybil coerce me into attending far too many parades, the most recent one being the "Pride Parade", newly shortened from the "Gay Pride Parade" or "Gay and Lesbian Pride Parade". This is possibly the most popular of the city's many parades and certainly one of the most lively. Of course the crowd is a big part of the scene: the G-string clad mooner at an apartment window; the guy with the watermelon sized balloons under his dress; the people in six inch heels and three inch shorts; and the many topless people of all sexes who are wearing only paint and glitter on top when all of them really should have bras on.

Ground zero for the parade is up near Halsted and Newport in Lakeview, home to a large Gay population, but the parade actually starts far south of that. The best and wildest floats are in the rear. Some of the more official entries are fun though. The Sanitation Department's "pick up trash" truck was a crowd pleaser, as was the ROTC rifle twirlers. Once the pretense of police order breaks down, Sybil and I walk against the parade traffic. I think you get the best feel for a parade when you're not stationary.

The best of the other parades include the Puerto Rican Day Parade, the Chinatown Parade and the St. Patrick's Day Parade. The city has recently revved up the Thanksgiving Day Parade but I haven't seen its recent incarnation. The Puerto Rican Day Parade used to be one of the best but I think it lost a lot by being shifted over to Columbus Avenue in Grant Park. I'm sure this was done to reduce crowding and traffic impact. It does both, but spreading the crowd out reduces the parade's impact. The Pride Parade looks pathetic when it starts out to minimal audience, but when it gets into a large concentration of the Gay and Lesbian community, the spirit picks up! I think a parade needs one of two things to work best: either it goes through a busy downtown street (St. Patrick's, Thanksgiving) or it runs through the neighborhood inhabited by the people they are supposed to be celebrating (Pride, Chinatown). Both of these are certain havoc for traffic flow, but I guess that's just the way it goes. As a non-driver, one thing I love about Chicago is the city's willingness to mangle traffic for the sake of an event.

One flaw the parades share with the festivals is a fair degree of homogeneity. Every parade has the same politician cars in front and many of the same corporate floats. On Puerto Rican Day, three women dance behind a life-sized plastic Budweiser Clydesdale. In the Pride parade, transvestites mount this same Budweiser horse.

At the Grant Park festivals (Blues, Jazz, Gospel, Irish, Taste, etc) you'll see basically the same booths at every one -- only the music is changed. All of them attract too many people but the Taste is far and away the biggest draw. I've gone to many Taste of Chicago festivals, even back when they were jammed into Navy Pier, but I've never been a huge fan. It's just too crowded for me. If I'm going to enjoy eating something, I'd rather sit in a quiet spot rather than gobble something down in the midst of a rampaging horde! However, I will say that the Taste is somewhat improved. They've spread it out to take up a larger area in Grant Park, utilizing the large spaces near the fountain. They've tried to expand the types of food offered -- although there's still too much pizza, brats, and fried dough (who would eat this?). The musical entertainment continues to be top notch, but best of all, they've added non-musical entertainment such as cooking demonstrations, wine and beer choosing tips, gardening hints, feng shui, and tai chi. A water slide, performance high divers and a Ferris wheel have been fixtures in recent years.

I still don't like the way you have to buy everything with tickets. I can understand why they do this but the setup isn't to the consumer's advantage. It's just like going to another country and changing money. At the Taste you change money into tickets at a rate of ten for six dollars. They further confuse the process by labeling each ticket "50 cents," so you're paying a ten-cent commission on each ticket. Now you not only have to mentally convert the price of everything, but you invariably wind up with extra tickets or you're forced into buying something you don't really want just to use them up.

 Fourth of July fireworks draw another huge crowd. I think the city almost always does an excellent job at these, but it seems like we get fireworks all the time now. Navy Pier puts on a show twice a week. We had huge fireworks for New Year's and Venetian Night has fireworks at least as extravagant as Independence Day. Makes for a lot of noisy nights for us folks who live downtown but I guess this is good for tourists.

July brings a certain fervency to Chicagoans. We know this is Summer's prime time and everyone wants to make the most of every festival before we have to hole up for the long winter. I think July to mid-October is the best period for visiting Chicago. The festivals may not always live up to expectations but the vibrancy of the city in the summer more than makes up for this.