I was wearing a thick black parka, and I was still freezing my ass off standing on a downtown Chicago avenue and staring up at statues and wheat stalks decorating the Board of Trade building. Heavyset and stout, the building symbolized the ability to stand the test of time. No winds of chance were blowing over this stone commodities trading house.
I had joined a free Tours by Foot group to learn about the world’s birthplace of skyscrapers, right here in Chicago. Engineering tall high-rises that were supported by a steel frame instead of bearing weight on a large pedestal requiring six-foot-thick walls was a feat at the time and became the standard globally. The 110-story Willis Tower – locals refuse to call it Willis and stubbornly go by the Sears Tower instead – is the tallest one in the city. Worldwide, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai still holds the record.
But the real stunner on the tour was the art deco lobbies, filled with geometric details of a bygone era in the 1920s. (On the tour, we visited the Rookery, Board of Trade, Monadnock, Federal Reserve, Marquette and Wintrust’s Grand Banking Hall.)
