Young, Scrappy and Hungry

May 21, 2019











Young, Scrappy and Hungry

Whenever I travel, I really make an effort to pack as much into a visit as possible and this trip to Chicago with my sister Michele was no exception. Our first full day in the city had us heading over early to the Shedd Aquarium in advance of our scheduled visit to the traveling Hamilton exhibit on nearby Northerly Island. The Hamilton exhibit was one of the primary reasons for our trip to Chicago, but we managed to fill almost all our time there with some memorable and fun experiences.







Located on the museum campus on the shore of Lake Michigan, the Shedd Aquarium is always a highlight of any visit to Chicago. It may longer be the largest aquarium in the world, it still remains among the best. With over 32,000 animals on display representing more than 1,500 species of fish, reptiles, amphibians, marine mammals, insects and birds.





The aquarium is divided into various wonderful individual exhibits including Waters of the World, Caribbean Reef, Amazon Rising, Wild Reef, and the Abbott Oceanarium. In addition to these permanent exhibits there is always special exhibits on display and the overall experience is truly overwhelming. Among the cool creatures on hand are Beluga Whales, Pacific White-sided Dolphins and a plethora of really amazing jellyfish as well as all of the fish and sea creatures that you would expect at a world class facility.





The jellyfish were my personal favorites, though there was a great special exhibit about color in sealife. I could just sit and watch the gentle undulations of jellyfish for hours, they are so mesmerizing and beautiful, alas we did not have hours as we had an appointment to keep at the Hamilton exhibit, which was just a short walk from the aquarium.







The highly exalted Hamilton exhibit is built on a huge free-standing, all weather structure the size of a football field that will stay for a limited time in Chicago before touring other cities. The 360-degree immersive exhibition chronicles the history of one of America's Founding Fathers, Alexander Hamilton.







The exhibit is a collaboration between "Hamilton" creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, creative director David Korins, who designed the set for "Hamilton," Yale University professor Joanne Freeman, director Thomas Kail and producer Jeffrey Seller.  The exhibit features narration by Miranda and focuses on the real life Hamilton more than the Broadway play named for him. It is an immersive, 3-D experience that is pretty damn cool.











It was a creative and beautiful exhibit that truly gives the visitor insight into who the man, Hamilton was and also includes a view into what his life and times were like. You need not have experienced the Broadway play to enjoy and appreciate the experience, but I was glad that I had seen it previously. After touring the exhibit, Michele and I headed over to the Berghoff German restaurant for a late lunch.







The historic Berghoff and Adams Street Brewery have been serving classic German food and beer for years in Chicago, but neither of us had been there previously. It was as advertised and we had a delicious meal and some yummy beer as well.  After that we headed back to the Wit hotel, our Chicago home for the trip to get ready to head out in the evening to catch the 7 PM performance of “West Side Story” at the Lyric Opera.





The Opera puts one a single musical each year and this year they picked one of my all-time favorite musicals and Michele and I were happy to be able to attend. It was really a stellar production though we were both a tad disturbed that in what must have been a conscious choice the ending was changed in a slight, but impactful way. The show ended not with the traditional picking up and removal of Tony’s body by members of both the Sharks and Jets, but simply with Maria hovering over his lifeless form.





This seemingly minor change alters the entire meaning of how the two warring sides learn to come together in tragedy and really seems to me to alter the entire point of the show. It was still a great show with some standout performances, but that was a definite downer.







Before heading out of town the next morning, we ventured a couple of blocks from the hotel to visit a museum that I never even knew existed, the American Writers Museum. I was looking for something nearby and worth a visit and this place qualified on both counts. It is really a very cool little museum that honors the written word and those Americans who have made contributions to writing.









In addition to their regular content, they also had a terrific exhibit about Bob Dylan, which to my happiness had been extended from its normal run and was still on display when we visited. It was a truly excellent exhibit and the entire museum is worth a visit. It was especially cool to see that my friend Judy Blume was represented and had visited the museum, which was really cool.











https://www.sheddaquarium.org/

https://hamiltonexhibition.com/
 
https://americanwritersmuseum.org/