Something to Declare

Stef and Stan in the Second City, Part 6

August 29, 2026

Last day in Chicago. We’d made a date with Kris (a fellow Road Scholar we met on a tour of southwest France four years ago). Kris, and her husband, Jim, live in a Chicago suburb and agreed to spend the day with us. Stef took this photo of our happy reunion:

We arranged to rendezvous with them at Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA). We walked to a place that looked like a contemporary art museum because of the sculpture right outside:

Wrongo! The piece was entitled “Father, Mother and Child,” completed in 1969 by the sculptor Joseph J. O’Connell, and it was outside the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. (The MCA was up ahead and across the street; oops!).

After we met up with Jim and Kris, we climbed (many) steps to the entrance of the MCA. The first exhibit was an installation of the works of a Brazilian-born Japanese artist Kenzi Shiokava (1928 – 2021), who creates art from discarded materials.

I was convinced that the piece above (top)consisted of dried artichoke leaves, but we found out it was from palm tree bark. Some more Kenzo:

And some other pieces from the MCA:

Stef had already decided that, if we had the time, we would visit the Driehaus Museum.

The museum is housed within the historic Samuel M. Nickerson House, the 1883 residence of a wealthy Chicago banker. Driehaus purchased the Gilded Age mansion in 2003, and commissioned a painstaking restoration involving more than 150 craftsmen and designers before opening it to the public as the Richard H. Driehaus Museum in 2008.

The word “opulent” doesn’t do it justice: check out the ceilings and the grand staircase:

And the rooms themselves:

Instead of a docent-led tour, the Museum locates docents in the rooms, available to answer questions and offer information about the truly breath-taking, spectacular rooms and furnishings on display.

One feature that caught my eye was the restroom:

The Gilded Age “john” came complete with a chain-pull water closet, bearing the name of Thomas Crapper (the inventor of the flush toilet; no, really, that was his name!). The commode itself was a Crapper original, embossed with the title “Venerable,” a term which refers to an iconic, traditional Victorian-style toilet pan. (Travel is so broadening, isn’t it? It’s amazing how much you can learn.)

I found myself really liking Chicago, the friendliness, the cleanliness, the physical open-ness of the cityscape, the pretty neighborhoods, and the incredible architecture. I even thought a bit about, maybe, moving there. But Stef (who has actually lived there) reminded me of the less-than-lovely Chicago winters, which are far colder, grayer and snowier than New York. (Okay, okay, I get it!)

P.S.: What’s coming up? After last winter’s disastrous attempt with my son, Matt, to see the Northern Lights in northern Canada (see previous series of blog posts titled “If Anyone Can, Yukon“), I told Matt that I owed him one. He suggested that the two of us visit Ireland. That’ll be in October, so stay tuned!