Introducing Chicago

The sun dips. Skyscraper lights flicker on, ricocheting around the steely towers. Then Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony fills the twilight air. People on blankets spread as far the eye can see.

They chat, clink beer bottles and hoist burly slices of pizza – a Chicago-style picnic, blending high culture and earthy pleasures. That’s how it’s done here, whether at a free concert by the Grant Park Orchestra or at the Art Institute, where the revered lion sculptures don hockey helmets for the Blackhawks’ Stanley Cup win.

Chicago often gets ‘discovered’ for its cultural cool, perhaps never more so than when a local guy named Barack Obama got elected President of the United States. The spotlight swung to the nation’s third-largest city. ‘Wow,’ visitors said. ‘Look at that high-flying architecture. That blue, sailboat-dotted water stretching over the horizon. That whimsical public art studding the street corners.’

The accolades continued: ‘Hey, there’s a globe-spanning foodie culture. And loads of Beard-award-winning chefs. And the continent’s top restaurant, Alinea, cooks in the Windy City.’

Then the deal sealer: ‘Megabashes like Lollapalooza, Blues Fest and Pitchfork rock downtown almost every weekend in summer, while smaller concerts happen every night at Millennium Park for free!’

Chicagoans shook their heads and smiled, too polite to point out that yes, that’s Chicago, and it has been here – right at the nation’s core – all along.