This all started innocently with a weekend road trip for a Cincinnati Reds game against the Chicago Cubs.
Yet, it’s really hard to go to Chicago JUST for a baseball game. Especially with Wrigley Field up on the north side of town, at the opposite end from our approach to Chicago.
The road from Cincinnati leads past the Museum of Science and Industry, the Adler Planetarium, Buckingham Fountain, deep-dish pizza, deep-dish pizza and more deep-dish pizza, on the drive to and up The Miracle Mile (aka Michigan Avenue). So many distractions were ready to snare us before we even approached the Lincoln Park Zoo, and FINALLY, Wrigleyville!!
One of the first sights to stop us in our tracks was none other than, yes, scaffolding. Frankly, you can’t miss it in Chicago. Still, stopping and starting amongst blaring taxis, this site caught my attention: the historic Tribune Tower with scaffolding perched just near the top of it.
Barely visible at street level to the typical pedestrian or motorist, it sang out to me, as one whose blood almost runs through scaffolding.
The story of the restoration work that scaffolding supported at the Bodie Island lighthouse opened our eyes to history – both natural and U.S. – that we hadn’t considered before. First, time seems to take on new meaning, when considering that the Bodie Island light had shined steadily for nearly 140 years. The lighthouse first began operating in 1872, and did so day after day, year after year, until 2011, when restoration began.
With summer well underway, it’s fitting that a nostalgic look back at the family road trip is the focus of a newly released book, Don’t Make Me Pull Over. It’s conveniently well-timed for our summer blog series on notable places to visit. “Notable” for us, I admit, in that each has a scaffolding-related story.
No question that Union Terminal has a huge place in history. As a transportation hub, the terminal welcomed soldiers returning home from World War II, and also served victims of that global conflict, Holocaust survivors seeking a new home in the United States.
© 2019 American Scaffolding, Inc.