Blog

By Ellen Shubart, Class of 2006

It was the era of eating stuffed crust pizza, focaccia, molten lava cake, and Chinese chicken salad. Lunchables, Eggo waffles, and pizza rolls were hits at the supermarket. Tourists were decked out in grunge clothing, crop tops, and baseball hats perched backward on their heads.

Play in the decade was highlighted by Beanie Babies, Game Boys, and Pokémon. Carrie Bradshaw opened up the sex lives of women in New York. For CAF, the 1990s were a swift pace of progress and increased presence in the city’s tourism world and its consciousness.

A New Home

1992 was a stupendous year with a ribbon-cutting ceremony on May 21 when the foundation moved to the Railway Exchange/Santa Fe Building. It was a significant sign that the organization achieved financial stability after a period of uncertainty. And it also was the year of the restoration of the Rookery, a strong symbol of the city’s burgeoning interest in historic renovation and architectural history.

The move to the Santa Fe Building allowed an enlarged bookstore and extended its function with merchandise related to Chicago, architecture, and architects. Tee shirts and baseball caps – worn forward to show the logo — became important revenue products for the Foundation.

In the same year, 1992, the original Loop tour was divided into two – Early Skyscrapers and Modern and Beyond. For two decades, these were the two tours taught to every docent class and the most-taken tours from the Santa Fe Building, or “core” tours.

A new tour was unveiled in 1994: The Loop Tour Train/Round about the Loop, a three-circuit run around the Loop tracks on a train donated by the CTA and the city. On one circuit docents talked about buildings on one side of the train, the second focused on the other side of the train, and the third allowed for general information. When the city dropped its support, the tour morphed into the existing L tour, a single trip around the Loop with stops at several stations.

Tours Galore

By 1994, as many as 11 different tours left from the center in a single day. Docents were adding tours, securing the future of the organization. John Engman of the board of trustees commented, “Our focus has changed from preservation to architecture education. We’re focused on educating people about architecture and urban design.” CAF’s role was to interpret the city as a museum with the docents making the education live. As  noted in Seeing the City: Celebrating 50 Years of The Chicago Architecture Foundation 1966-2016, “Docents had become a force unto themselves.” This is the era when docents organized with self-governing committees and developed the fast-growing catalogue of tours.

Of the 50 or so tours offered by CAF in the 1990s, the River Cruise was among the most popular. In 1993, CAF joined forces with Chicago’s First Lady Cruises to increase the River Cruise profile. Chicago’s First Lady, launched in 1991, was modeled after the USS Sequoia, the yacht used by Presidents, from Herbert Hoover to Jimmy Carter. The First Lady began its life at the dock at the Michigan Avenue Bridge, a change from the North Pier Terminal where the River Cruise originally launched.

A serendipitous event highlighted the River Cruise even further. Geoffrey Baer, class of 1978, gave a River Cruise to a couple he didn’t know. Baer worked for WTTW Channel 11, and the couple was John McCarter, the new chairman of the board at WTTW, and his wife. McCarter acted quickly on what he had seen and assigned Baer to do a documentary that would become Chicago By Boat, first aired in 1995. It began a series of documentaries with Baer featuring the city’s architecture – often backed up with information researched by CAF docents.

1995 marked the final division between CAF and Glessner House, each becoming an independent organization. In the same year, CAF’s website, architecture.org, launched. The domain name was secured by now-docent, and then-staffer, Kelly Jones.

And in 1996 CAF opened the John Hancock Center Shop and Tour Center – a focus for tours along the Mag Mile and the Gold Coast. It was closed after proving to be a financial drain rather than an asset.

Enter Lynn Osmond

But it was the hiring of Lynn Osmond as President and CEO in 1996 that was the highlight of the decade. Osmond was brought in from a position with a California symphony to lead CAF ‘s expectation to become a “premier Chicago cultural institution.” In the following decades, Osmond has done that and more – putting the organization on the map with its museum-center, as well as strengthening the educational aspects of CAF, including work with younger children, summer camps, and educational programming.

In 1998 the Chicago launched Great Chicago Spaces and Places Weekend with CAF as the headquarters’ partner. A precursor to Open House Chicago, Great Spaces and Places sent tourists out from the city center into neighborhoods to visit “overlooked” locations and facilities.

Six docents served as presidents of Docent Council during that era: 1991: Mary Lou Caldwell; 1992: Michael Weiland; 19923-94: Tom Drebenstedt; 1995: Arlene Hausman; 1996-1999: Tori Simms; and 1999-2001: Judith Randall. Three – Weiland, Drebenstedt and Simms – continue as active docents.

It was a glorious decade!

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