Blog

By Ed McDevitt, Class of 2010

Well, I wasn’t first, but years from now I’ll be able to say, “I gave the second ‘Chicago Skyscrapers: A Walk Through Time’ tour ever given. So will Lisa Voigt. Last Wednesday, August 8, Lisa and I split the tour group so we could get some practice after the long hiatus between learning the tour and firing it up. We both got great feedback.

More than that, though, it was a thrill and a half to finally walk through the 111 East Wacker doors under the “Chicago Architecture Center” lettering and the big red logo. One docent observed that maybe the big red logo is too big, too garish. I responded that you need to see it from across the river to realize that it’s a powerful statement, and it raises our profile in the city far beyond anything we could have done at our former locations.

Even though the madness of getting things ready continued in the shop and in other spaces on the first and second floors, seeing the new, beautiful box office and our smiling box office people was an uplift all by itself. And the bathrooms!

The day was long: the tour at started at 11:30, and I hung around and wandered the neighborhood until 5 pm when my committee meeting began on the 13th floor. The new Docent Library and the Lecture Hall are not yet ready for use, so there was no place to sit or to park my computer to get ready for the meeting. So instead, I talked to guests as they walked in, spoke at length to a gentleman who wants to become a volunteer, and watched the reactions of people as they stopped to gape at the new place from the outside.

While I stood talking to some fellow docents, our CEO Lynn Osmond stopped to chat; she made us laugh by talking about attempts to remain “strategic” while having to deal with the lack of toilet paper in the public bathroom. Even she was surprised by how really nice and contemporary they are. We discussed how this entire project has been like remodeling your kitchen at home and waiting for the contractor, the delayed shipment, and everything that changes your optimism about getting a project done on the schedule. (Waddya mean, the glass panels will be two weeks late?)

I was standing next to the entrance to the new shop, a beehive of activity what with inventory being brought in and placed, and boxes all over the place. Suddenly I was startled to see, out of the corner of my eye, two feet and two legs, prone on the floor, with two people pulling pants onto the legs. My immediate thought was, “A body in the lobby already?” But it was only the lower half of a mannequin being readied to stand in the lobby window.

At another point, Kathleen Carpenter and I stood at the lobby window looking out toward the view of amazing buildings across the river. Kathleen said she’d been there with some architects this week, and they were all agog about the wonderful location of the new CAC and its site, right in the middle of some of Chicago’s most spectacular architecture—the Wrigley Building, the Tribune Building, the Apple Store, the NBC Tower, and so many others. We agreed that we could stand at the window and do a very cool tour without taking a step. Later in the day Michael Malak took the Tour Committee to see the entire facility, and it was stunning despite the mess of the still ongoing construction.

The new model is a stunner, much expanded, and surrounded by an astonishing array of video cameras that will greatly enhance the viewers’ experience. The entire multimedia exhibit room will be a major improvement over what we had at 224 S. Michigan.

The new Volunteer Library is a great space, substantially bigger and better furnished than our earlier library. It has lockers to hold backpacks, some hooks for coats, enhanced computer access, and plenty of room for a meeting, for just sitting and preparing for a tour, decompressing after a tour, for getting away from working in the shop or greeting visitors for a bit. And here’s the coolest thing: we have a dedicated kitchen with fridge, sink, and microwave!

I’m sure that many of you who attended orientation sessions learned about most of this, but seeing it as it moves to completion makes it all real.

As the Tour Committee left the building to go to dinner, a few of us observed that the owners and property managers probably have no idea what the CAC is going to do for their building and for the Illinois Center as a whole. This is not a new restaurant or boutique shop coming in. Not at all.

Were you a doubter? Were you upset that we moved? Just go to 111 East Wacker. Suspend your skepticism. Just feel the energy of the place itself, notice the people walking by, look out the windows, sit on the wall outside for a while. Soak it all in. Seriously. It’s a quantum leap above where we were. It’s a very 21st Century place and it’s alive with possibility. I’m glad to be a part of it.