Editorial: A city comes alive with Taylor Swift and cancer doctors
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Summer in Chicago invariably arrives after little in the way of spring: all of a sudden, or so it feels, Chicagoans emerge from their homes to remind themselves why so many of us chose to move here.
This past weekend serves as a perfect example. The city was bathed in warmth and sunlight and filled with delighted, delightful Swifties, or Taylor Swift fans, some of whom found themselves jostling for sidewalk space with credentialed and baffled delegates from the American Society of Oncology conference.
Those doctors and drug company executives were meeting at McCormick Place and, on their weekend walks from hotels to downtown restaurants, they could be seen enjoying a vista into life at its most exuberant. One noted it was why they had chosen to do what they do.
In neighborhoods across the city, street fairs cranked up. Downtown, a young man was singing “Maria” at the Lyric Opera of Chicago as “The Who’s Tommy” rehearsed nearby at the Goodman Theatre. In the West Loop, as the sun set, valet parkers looked overwhelmed by the crowds at restaurants.
On the Belmont Avenue bus, two young Irish women fresh from American Airlines and Dublin rode in from O’Hare chattering excitedly about their summer jobs at a Giordano’s pizzeria at Navy Pier, which they had yet to visit. James Beard Award winners hit the bars in celebration. And pedicab drivers had the mother of all weekends.
Chicago has had many rough periods as of late. But let the record show that the first weekend of June 2023, when the sidewalks of the city felt much busier than anytime in the past three years, went very well, considering.
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