We ducked into a Subway restaurant just steps from the station on North Avenue, and after a sumptuous dinner we turned left (north) on LaSalle Drive toward Lincoln Park. (By the way, when does LaSalle Street become LaSalle Drive?)*
The first landmark we encountered was the Moody Church, completed in 1925.
The historic evangelical Christian church, which melds features of both Romanesque and Byzantine architecture, was intended to bridge the gap between the traditional Roman Catholic cathedral and the typical Protestant church buildings of the late 19th century and early 20th century.
The structure seats over 3,700 people and features 36 large stained glass windows, no two of which are alike, around the perimeter of the building.
One interesting tidbit about the church is that when it was originally built, summer cooling was provided by means of a large pit in an alley in back of the building, where large loads of ice would be dumped. Air was then blown over the ice and out of mushroom-shaped vents under the auditorium seats. The system could recirculate the church’s air in six minutes.
Next we saw the Robert Cavelier de La Salle Monument, at the corner of Clark and the La Salle Drive extension.
De La Salle (1643–1687), as every student of Chicago history knows, explored the Great Lakes area, Mississippi River, and Gulf of Mexico in the 17th Century. He is best known for claiming the Mississippi Valley for France, and naming it "Louisiana" for King Louis XIV. La Salle died during an expedition to Canada in 1687, when his crew mutinied and killed him. (I didn't know that!)
Our hearty band of Hikers then turned left (north) onto Stockton Drive into Lincoln Park and almost immediately heard the howls of a pair of coyotes (coyotes!?!) off in the distance near South Pond (is there a North Pond?). We could actually see the critters but I don't think I could have captured them on my iPhone.
According to a segment from Chicago Tonight, there are more than 4,000 coyotes roaming Cook County and they do surprisingly well within the city itself. (I saw one across the street from my building just a week or so ago. Yikes!) From the show:
“The abundance of food is quite high in Chicago and it’s not just human food or garbage, but there’s a lot of natural food available for these animals in many parts of Chicago that you wouldn’t realize,” said Stanley Gehrt, a professor of wildlife ecology at Ohio State University.
Coyotes are both predators and scavengers, eating small rodents, Canadian geese, rabbits, deer, fruits and more.
“Most people think it’s the opposite, but once they learn how to cross roads and avoid cars – the only real threat to them – they do extremely well in the city, much better than out in the country.”
While the original restaurant closed in the 1940s, the Lincoln Park Zoo Society began a $4.2 million restoration project in 1987. The second floor ballroom was renovated so that it could be used for private events, and the first floor was remodeled as a small family restaurant and ice cream parlor.
Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986, Cafe Brauer received Chicago Landmark status in 2003.
At Webster (about the five and a half-mile mark of the Marathon course), four of our group peeled off to catch the bus at Halsted for home. The remaining five of us continued on north, past the Lincoln Park Conservatory, completed in 1895. We turned right (east) on Fullerton, left (north) on Cannon, past the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, which opened in 1999. (In case you were wondering, the North Pond is just behind the museum.)
At Diversey, the course turns right-ish onto Sheridan Road, but that was enough for our intrepid Hikers and we turned left (west) toward Halsted.
The Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Monument pays homage to the famous German writer and philosopher who died in 1832. Completed in 1913, the timing of its dedication a year later was anything but fortuitous: a month before the outbreak of World War I, when admiration for Germany and its people went south dramatically.
The Elks Memorial, a Beaux Arts-style domed building at the corner of Lakeview and Diversey, was built to honor members of their order who had served in World War I. The architect had the unlikely name of Egerton Swartwout and it was completed in 1926. (John and I went inside during Open House Chicago.)
When we turned on Diversey, with the Lincoln Park neighborhood to our left (south) and Lakeview to our right (north), I was struck by how much the street had changed since I had last visited. For those of you familiar with the area, the old Market Place grocery store on Hampden has been torn down in favor of two luxury (what else?) condo buildings. The sign said four-bedroom units are expected to fetch as much as $1.7 million. That's a far cry from when I moved to a studio apartment in Lincoln Park in 1982 for a little over $200 a month!
Another new building is underway on the southeast corner of Clark and Diversey, and I tried to explain to the guys that before the busy intersection of Damen, Milwaukee and North in Wicker Park, this was the place to be for young people back in the 1980s and '90s. All they could remark upon was the abundance of women's clothing stores on that stretch of Diversey.
We finally made it to Halsted and caught the Number 8 bus for home. Next week we'll tackle the fourth leg of the Marathon course, from Diversey and Sheridan, up to almost Wrigley Field, and back down Broadway and Clark. That should get us to about Mile Nine, or about a third of the way through.
* Answer: I think when it crosses the Chicago River.
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