HIGHLIGHT OF THE DAY: Getting up Willis Tower even though we saw ZILCH
BUMMER OF THE DAY: Rain rain go away
WORD OF THE DAY: How cold is it????
This was our last full day in the amazing city of Chicago. I still had tomorrow, but we were heading out to the burbs for most part of the day and as all luck has to end at some stage our track of good weather came to an end today with rain when we woke up this morning. This was okay as most of the things we were doing today were indoors, but the only downer is that we may not get to see much from the Willis Tower, but we will just wait and see if the weather has set in or will hopefully just pass us by.
After our vacation day yesterday we woke surprisingly groggy and lethargic. We have had a busy week I must say and with the weather so hot the last few days it just zaps your energy. But we had some exciting things on the boil, so after a few scones for breakfast washed down with some tomato juice we were back on the ‘L’ for the 15 minute ride to the Willis Tower. The Willis tower was the old Sears Tower and United have just moved all the operations departments into the building last week and with a very handy ‘high’ contact in HQ Cheryl was able to get us a walk through the new offices at 12 noon. Willis Tower (formerly named Sears Tower) is a 108-story, 1,451-foot (442 m) skyscraper in Chicago. At the time of its completion in 1973, it was the tallest building in the world, surpassing the World Trade Center towers in New York, and it held this rank for nearly 25 years. The Willis Tower is the tallest building in the United States and the eighth -tallest freestanding structure in the world. The skyscraper is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Chicago. Although Sears' naming rights expired in 2003, the building continued to be called the Sears Tower for several years. In March 2009, London-based insurance broker Willis Group Holdings agreed to lease a portion of the building, and obtained the building's naming rights. On July 16, 2009, the building was officially renamed the Willis Tower. We were 10 minutes early for our appointment so we waited inside to get out of the rain. It was busy inside being lunch hour. People were coming and going, people with lunches in their hands, people in groups heading out to lunch, people umbrellas coming in out of the rain, cleaners trying to clean up the water that people were bringing in on their umbrellas and they have ushers to direct people when they enter the building. Of course I wanted to take a photo and I got into trouble with security being quite tight for one of the most important buildings in Chicago if not all of the Unites States. Our names were on a list where we had to check in and get a visitors pass for access to the ‘inner sanctum’. David, Kent, Cheryl and I were met by the Managing Director of United Airlines a little after 12 noon for our personal tour of the 26th floor. To get to the applicable lifts to get us to the floor, we had to pass through an airport security scanner, our bags had to be scanned and then our pass had to be scanned to be able to pass through the automatic gates. These dudes do take their security seriously and with good reason I suppose.
I knew heading into the areas that we were going that taking was off limits so I didn’t even bother to ask. I was just thankful I had the opportunity to go up and see the whole operation. United moved into the building last week occupying around 12 floors throughout the 120 story building with around 3000 staff now located in Willis Tower. Continental and United merged in October last year making United now the largest airline in the world with the Continental team having moved into their new home yesterday, so it all literally was brand new for everyone. United Continental Airlines moved its corporate headquarters and top executives down Wacker Drive from the United Building to Willis Tower. In space United is the building's largest tenant, occupying about 780,000 square feet or 22 percent of the building, up from about 18 percent currently. After the move to Willis Tower is complete, United expects to employ more than 13,000 people in Chicago. It projects that the rest of the moves will happen over the next 18 months. Eventually, Continental's operations center in Houston will close, with those functions moved to Willis Tower. The combined airline will be run from United's current headquarters in Chicago. United and Continental are now both units of United Continental Holdings Inc., which will continue to run the airlines separately while it combines their operations.
We were in the operations center for just under an hour and with a BIG thank you and a handshake we were taken down in the ‘security’ lift shown some secret passage (not really) to the east entrance of the building and shown to the lift that would take us to the entrance of the Willis Tower Skydeck on the 103rd floor. The weather outside if anything had deteriorated and it was raining quite heavily and was very cloudy. When we bought our tickets the ticket guy said that there was a 1mile visibility which we were fine with. I would prefer to see something and say I had been in once the tallest building in the world till a few years ago rather than not at all, even if we couldn’t see much.
The Skydeck experience is all new from the ground up. Discover the best of Chicago as you make your way up to the 103rd floor. Things on the lower level before getting to the lift include interactive Chicago trivia games; explore Chicago with interactive touch screen activities and exhibits, the Skydeck Theater Experience “Reaching for the Sky”, a fascinating 9-minute movie telling the story of Chicago’s rise to the top of the architectural world. Learn how the tower went from dream to world icon. Compare heights with the tallest structures in the world and see just how many of you it would take to measure up to the height of Willis Tower. It was a pretty good interactive center before getting to the lift to take us up to the 103rd floor at 488m per minute. The tower is a world-renowned building, a Chicago icon. The eighth-tallest building in the world, it remains the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere, standing 1,450 feet and 110 stories tall.
There were so many people up here when we got to the top and most of them school children. The first opportunity we got to see the view out of the windows was not what we had expected which was white. Not a single thing could be seen left, right or center. It was like the whole building was wrapped in a big massive fluffy cloud. When we asked one of the staff about the 1 mile visibility she said that the clouds had just blown in and to give it 15-20 minutes. There is a lot of information on the interior walls of Chicago which are interactive and educational attractions that highlight the iconic building and celebrate Chicago’s sports, architecture, pop culture, history, food, music and people and the famous landmarks that can be seen, well on a good day, from the tower so it was easy to blow some time reading the information boards. The other draw card for the Skydeck was the introduction of The Ledge. The Ledge transforms how visitors experience Chicago. At 1,353 feet up, The Ledge’s glass boxes extend out 4.3 feet from the skyscraper’s Skydeck on the 103rd floor, providing never-before-seen views of the city. The Ledge brings an exhilarating new experience to the tower. Opened in 1974, the Skydeck attracts more than 1.3 million visitors annually who enjoy views of up to 50 miles and four states (not today). The inspiration for The Ledge came from hundreds of forehead prints visitors left behind on Skydeck windows every week. From the memorable scene in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off to curious children going right up to the window, visitors are constantly trying to catch a glimpse below. Now they have a unique and unobstructed view of the city. The Ledge was designed so that the fully enclosed glass boxes retract into the building, allowing easy access for cleaning and maintenance. Each box is comprised of three layers of half-inch thick glass laminated into one seamless unit. The low-iron, clear glass is fully tempered for durability. It was hard to begin with to even get onto one of the 4 boxes as they were filled with school children, but as quick as they had arrived they disappeared and then we pretty much had the whole section to ourselves. No wonder with the view still at ZERO visibility it wasn’t much of a surprise. We waited with baited breath for another 15 minutes, and we did get some cool photos of us on The Ledge, even if you could see ZILCH of the view and we even for some professional photos taken at my insistence, I know shocking right, and they turned out like we were standing in clouds and I knew I was definitely going to buy them when we got downstairs. I even got myself doing a Bernstar jump in one of the ledges, like an air jump in the air and I am not sure many people would have that claim to fame…..
Some interesting facts about the tower and Skydeck:
Willis Tower is 443 meters high - 520 meters including twin antenna towers.
Willis Tower is the eighth-tallest building in the world; it remains the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere, standing 1,450 feet and 110 stories tall.
The Skydeck is 412 meters above the ground.
The combined weight of the building is 222,500 tons - that's 445,000,000 lbs., 201,849,000 kg, or almost 20,000 city buses!
The cost of building Willis Tower was in excess of $150 million.
Willis Tower opened in 1973 and took 2,000 workers 3 years to build. It took the Ancient Egyptians 20 years to build the pyramids at Giza.
The building has 4.5 million gross square feet (418,064 gross square meters) of floor space; or roughly 101 football fields.
On a clear day, you can see four states - Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin and Michigan. Visibility from the Skydeck is approximately 40-50 miles (65 - 80 kilometers).
The average sway of the building is approximately 6 inches (152 millimeters) from true center, but the building is designed to sway up to 3 feet.
Willis Tower has approximately 16,100 bronze-tinted windows.
6 roof-mounted robotic window washing machines clean all 16,100 windows.
Willis Tower elevators operate as fast as 488 meters per minute - among the fastest in the world.
Willis Tower contains 40,223 kilometers of electrical cable.
Approximately 69,200 kilometers of telephone cable runs through the building - enough to stretch across the continental United States 15 times!
Willis Tower was designed for more than 12,000 occupants.
Approximately 25,000 people enter the building each day.
Approximately 1.3 million tourists visit the Skydeck each year.
The Ledge’s glass boxes extend out 4.3 feet from the skyscraper’s Skydeck on the 103rd floor. Each box weights 7,500 lbs.
The Ledge’s glass boxes are comprised of three layers of half-inch thick glass laminated into one seamless unit.
The Ledge’s boxes have a thin film over the top layer of glass that assures a clear view 1,353 feet straight down!
The Ledge’s glass boxes are designed to retract into the building, allowing easy access for cleaning and maintenance.
The Ledge is built to withstand four tons of pressure and can hold 10,000 lbs.!
The Ledge has what is called "heat tracing" to melt snow off the glass.
By this time we were famished and accepted the fact that the clouds were in to stay so we descended the 103 floors, jumped into a taxi (it was still raining) and headed for lunch at Smith and Wollensky. I felt like a steak of some sort and this was the place that was suggested as it was also by the river, but once we got there the bad weather sort of cancelled out the view, but we were inside and starving.
Smith & Wollensky is the name of several high-end American steakhouses, with locations in New York, Philadelphia, Houston, Columbus, Las Vegas, Miami, Chicago, Boston and Washington D.C.. The first Smith and Wollensky steakhouse was founded in 1977 by Alan Stillman, best-known for creating T.G.I. Friday's, and Ben Benson. They are the only national steakhouse to dry-age and butcher on site, fly in lobster daily and make their sides and pastries by hand. So it was a pretty fancy place and the steak on the menu started at 35USD up to 50USD. I felt like steak and if it was dinner, would have been reasonably happy to pay those prices but for lunch it was a little exuberant, even for me. We were told the specials of the day, which included a steak sandwich with mushrooms on it (ughhhhh) along with other meals. So not wanting to pay 35 bucks for a steak I compromised and ordered the 20USD steak off the menu, not the special, and when the steak sandwich came out it looked amazing!!! I got bacon and cheese added to it and it came with a side of onion rings that had been tempura rather than deep fried and it was the best meal I have had for a long time. The steak was divine and was cooked perfectly. With the money I saved on the steak I splurged on a drink and got a French Martini to wash it all down with. After we had all finished the bill come out and my steak sandwich was actually 35USD. Well this was a surprise as we looked back at the menu and it definitely said 20USD, so we called the waiter over and asked him what the go was and he thought I wanted the special of the say sandwich and not the menu sandwich, so it was a little bit of a mix up and he went and saw the manager and said that they will honor the menu price and I did get it for 20 bucks. I felt a little bad and was going to pay the 35USD as the steak was that good, but it all ended well but I can highly recommend Smith and Wollensky if you feel like a steak as it is defiantly worth the money spent.
We said our goodbye’s to Kent here. We had a very important event to attend this evening out in the ‘burb’s. It was David’s nephew Grant’s speech he was giving at the school to welcome the new kids and parents to Middleschool for the start of the next school year in August. Grant had checked a few times over the last few days telling Uncle David to not be late as he was first. So for such an important event, we decided to head straight to David’s apartment catching the L, getting a tour of his home and then getting straight into the car for the hour’s drive (traffic dependent) to get to the school on time. It is funny that now I am making Ethiopia my home just how much things I see relating to my new country. David has Ethiopian parking attendants working in his building. He calls them when he needs his car and by the time he gets to the garage they have pulled out his car for him ready to drive straight out of the garage. There were 2 attendants there when we picked up the car, one was from Bahir Dar (been there) and the other was from Addis. Small world huh, so I said hello in Amharic to them and told then the few words I could remember from my last trip and they looked tickled pink. They wished me the best of luck when I told them that I was moving and we drove out. We passed 4 Ethiopian restaurants on our way out of town and also an Ethiopian supermarket. Who would have thought? David said there is a lot of Ethiopians living in Washington DC which surprised me as well. It is cool though and it makes me proud to be associated with this country.
We drove our way through some pretty amazing suburbs of Chicago including Evanston, Wilmette, Kenilworth and Glencoe. These suburbs are some of the most prestigious in Chicago if not the country and the size of the houses, no mansions, certainly had some WOW factors as we passed them. Some of them were mega homes and hard to picture people living in them, they were homes you see in fancy house magazines. As David said it was a shame it wasn’t better weather as I would have loved to have taken photos of some of them. They were stunning.
WE arrived at the school early, which is better than later, and sat in the entrance till the theater opened for the families to head in. It was like stepping back 20 years to my school days but wonder if we looked that dorky when we were their age and I don’t think we did. We couldn’t have right? But kids were coming and going from basketball practice, band practice etc…. and it was cool to sit and watch the school life pass me by. I had a great school experience. I was probably a little more social than academic but I passed everything with B’s and B+’s so this kept everyone happy and I still have school friends as friends today. We made our way into the gym and got 3rd row seats and David’s family arrived not long after us. The speeches started at 7pm and there were seven children up on stage that each spoke on a topic of the new school year for the new students. These kids are 11 years old and their speeches were amazing. They were all confident, they got laughs from the couple of hundred people in the auditorium, and they held our attention for the hour they were all on stage. I was actually flabbergasted at what a great job they had done as there was no way I could have done what they did now, let alone at the age of 11. We then went out to celebrate at a local Italian Restaurant with David’s parents, brother, Grant, Cheryl and I. It was great to be included in an extended family for the afternoon; an insight to how an American family works and for them to have me join them was very nice of them. I got asked questions about my trip and the meal flowed till it was time for us to hit the road. Another BIG day for us and we were all pooped and Grant still had a day of school left tomorrow.
So that was my second last night in Chicago. It is also the last day of May today. Tomorrow is June and I can now officially say that I am home at the end of the month. I don’t think it really has sunk in yet the next portion of the trip and adventure ahead of me. The main countdown has been for me getting home. Once I am home I can then look forward and really think about the monumental move ahead.
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