“Was there something wrong with your service? Cause you kind of stiffed us on the tip.” 

Game 3 of the NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs. The Chicago Blackhawks at Philadelphia with a two game lead in a best of seven series. A semi-filled bar on the northside of Chicago that markets itself as a “Sports Lounge” has both rooms covered in large flat screen televisions showing the game. As I walk in late due to rush hour traffic, but excited none-the-less, to meet a few people, they’ve already ordered the bucket special of beers. It’s 1-0 in favor of the Flyers and the first period is about to end. The Hawks are losing, the beers are running low and the appetites are growing.

“Hey buddy!” … nothing as I try to get the bar keep’s attention.

“Yoohoo hello!” … still nothing.

I let out a whistle … he walks right by us again.

Read More

Dear Cecil: I’m old enough to remember when the CTA rail lines were all renamed with colors rather than proper names (presumably for riders so hopelessly illiterate that they can’t read “Ravenswood” but can still recognize a brown stripe). But I do NOT remember how the colors were selected. Purple makes sense, as the Purple line runs to Northwestern University. And I remember when the schoolchildren voted for Pink. But how about the others? Was there any rhyme or reason to the choices of Red, Brown, Green, Orange, Blue, and Yellow?

— Tim R. Mortiss

I know, this is two train questions in a row. I promise I won’t do it again. But this is a great story. It has everything: Psychological depths, selfless heroism, Faulknerian sweep — and if I can figure out a way to rope in that passion-on-the-Red-Line scene from Risky Business, it’ll have sex, too.

No doubt you were inspired to ask this question by the possibly apocryphal explanation for the color coding of Boston’s four subway lines. Supposedly the Beantown Red Line is so called because it once terminated in Cambridge, home of the Harvard Crimson. The Blue Line passes beneath the theoretically blue waters of Boston Harbor. The Green Line travels past the verdant parks known as the Emerald Necklace, and the Orange Line tunnels under what was formerly Orange Street.

If you want something as simple as that, my friend, I’m sorry. This is Chicago, where nothing is easy.

It all started in 1946. (Well, maybe even earlier, but 1946 is the oldest map I have.) The Chicago Rapid Transit Company, predecessor to the CTA, needed a way to distinguish the Street Street subway, opened in 1943, from El routes on maps. Solution: depict the subway as a red line. Where the tracks emerged aboveground, the line switched to black, just like all the other elevated routes.

Why red? Here we get into the psychological depths. Science tells us that once primitive cultures begin to emerge from the swamps — this is a fair description of Chicago in 1946 — the first color they distinguish other than black and white is red. (You think I’m kidding? Read my disquisition on basic color terms.) In other words, the CRT’s map scribes made that line red because their DNA said they should. In most cities where the train lines are named after colors, in fact, the Red Line is the oldest, busiest, or only heavy-rail line.

But mind you, Chicago’s Red Line wasn’t called that yet. In fact, it didn’t even stay a (lower case) red line. In 1954, by which time the Dearborn Street subway had opened, CTA mapmakers ignored the call of their ids and showed both subways in blue.

In 1958 the rapid transit line in what was then the Congress Expressway opened. Trains now started at Logan Square, wound their way through downtown via the Dearborn Street subway, then headed out to the west side. The once-simple map of Loop El lines had become a tangle. To help the harried traveler trace out the routes, the CTA decided to show Dearborn subway in blue and the State Street subway in red. The El lines remained black.

Why blue? Why red, white, and blue on the flag? Some things just are.

Now it’s 1969. The country is riven by strife, Richard Nixon has become president, and the Dan Ryan line opens. It heads north up Wabash Avenue over the Loop elevated, then makes a left turn and becomes the Lake Street El. To help the populace cope, the CTA puts maps above the doors in El cars. Some of the maps show the stops on that route only. Red and blue are already spoken for, so the Lake-Dan Ryan line, also known as the “West-South” route (nobody but the CTA ever called it that) is depicted in green, the obvious next choice.

You think we’re making progress? It’s an illusion. The above applies only to the maps in the cars. On the maps in thestations, the CTA has gone back to showing the routes in different combinations of black (or blue) and white. Red, green, and blue are used as the map background colors. Red background means “A” station, green means “B” station, and blue means “all stop” station. You never heard of “A” and “B” stations? Don’t worry about it, they’re history. You remember “A” and “B” stations, but never realized the maps were color-coded? I didn’t realize it either. In fact, if you talk to CTA old-timers, you learn they sweated over a vast scheme of colors for maps, signs, and lights that nobody ever noticed. Another subtext of this saga: the vanity of human endeavors.

Back to our story. It was 1976 and the CTA was working on its first full-color map. Somebody decided to go back to assigning colors to lines. Jah be thanked, the map gurus didn’t start all over, but rather stuck with red-blue-green as previously described. (I could make this tale really baffling and point out that the line then depicted in red was not our modern Red Line, consisting of the Howard and Dan Ryan lines plus the State Street subway. Rather, it was the Howard/State Street/Englewood/Jackson Park branches. Never fear, ain’t going there.)

Anyway, the through routes having been addressed, the planners had to come up with colors for the branch lines: Ravenswood, Evanston, and Skokie. Somebody rummaged through the crayon box and came up with the following random assignments: Skokie=orange, Ravenswood=purple, Evanston=brown.

You notice two things: (1) These aren’t the modern designations. I know, I’m getting to that. (2) There’s no yellow.That’s because, sunny and cheerful though it makes our world, yellow as a map color eats. It’s too light and you have to outline it in black, and farsighted CTA management wished to economize. Farsighted, economical CTA management also realized: printing all the colors on this map is going to cost a wad of cash. Luckily, the RTA volunteered to do it and gave the job to Rand McNally, which was looking for something to do now that the gas-station map business had gone south.

For technical reasons that will remain my secret, because if I try to explain them we’ll never get done, the RTA map was printed with a black background for the city, symbolizing the dynamic urban scene, with olive drab elsewhere, symbolizing the tedium of suburban life. A problem soon became apparent: if you print brown for the Evanston line on an olive drab background, it becomes almost impossible to see. The mapmakers concluded they’d have to switch brown with one of the other colors. But which, purple or orange?

Now for the heroic part. The decisive figure appears to have been CTA planner Howard Benn, now an exec with a transit agency in suburban D.C. (The old-timers disagree on some details, but I’m telling the story.) Attuned to the evocative power of color, and cognizant that Illinois license plate colors at the time were sometimes based on those of the state’s universities, Howard realized the same might be done with the El lines. Northwestern’s chief color was purple, so that was one obvious choice. Howard, however, had gone to the University of Illinois, which fielded one of the few teams NU in those days could reliably beat. Illinois’s signature color was … orange.

One imagines the Miltonian battle that raged in Howard’s breast. (One has to imagine it, because he didn’t tell me anything about it. However, I have the columnist’s knack for seeing into a man’s soul.) The good angels whispered:Make Evanston purple — NU fans have so little else to cheer them. But the bad angels meanwhile snickered: Make it orange, and pimp those bastards good.

The good angels won. The Evanston line became purple, and the Ravenswood brown.

The rest of the story can be quickly told. In 1993, with the Midway line about to come into service, the CTA map team concluded: OK, we’ll use yellow, but as little as possible. The two-stop Skokie Swift got the honor, and Midway was awarded orange.

Then, in October 1993, the final step: The lines were officially named after the colors on the maps. The old route names were kept for a time, but by 1995 they were gone, and today young people say, as one might speak of typewriters or eight-track tapes: Ravenswood? What’s that?

As for the future, who knows? With the establishment of the Pink Line, all the obvious color choices have been claimed. One may object: gold! Or silver! The CTA hands tell me it’s not that easy. Metallic colors aren’t easily rendered on maps — gold turns into a muddy yellow, and silver becomes gray. My friend Dennis suggests aqua. (They bought pink, didn’t they?) But then what — puce? Ecru? Luckily, given the CTA’s speed in adding new service, I needn’t be concerned: what we have will last my time.

(Thanks to Roy Benedict, Howard Benn, Dennis McClendon, and Dave Phillips.)

— Cecil Adams

via ChicagoReader

it was around seven o’clock in the evening on an unusually warm election night in november. polls were going to close soon. still feeling sick, i was sitting on my couch in my office awaiting the results. this historic election was going to be over in just a few hours and i was going to be there watching it on television live…by myself. meanwhile across town in grant park, where Obama was holding his post election party, there were thousands of people gathering to watch this historic event. i wanted to be part of this so i went to my computer, logged onto CNN.com and pulled the live stream of grant park. now i had the coverage of the election on my TV and the live video stream of the huge party in grant park on my computer.

seven twenty rolls by and something is itching at me. am i going to live history and be there or am i going to watch history live on tv? so few times can we ever experience something on such a grand scale as a presidential election, there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that i had to be in grant park. sick with a fever the night before, i logged off CNN, shut off my TV, grabbed my iPhone, keys, threw on my shoes and a jacket and drove downtown. i was expecting crazy amounts of traffic, but there were so few people on the road that i was able to make it downtown in just fifteen minutes. great timing.

it’s almost eight o’clock now and as i leave the parking garage and step onto michigan avenue, i see crowds of people walking together towards grant park. it was like lollapalooza all over again, except there were more people and there was a completely different feeling. i thought to myself, there are thousands of people here. they’re all very passionate about Obama. what is it going to be like after the election if he loses?

after arriving to grant park and becoming one of the thousands waiting in anticipation, alongside a very good friend of mine and some of his friends, it felt like i was at a sporting event. cheering and chanting each time Obama won another state. Booing and feeling disappointed each time McCain scored some electoral votes. This game wasn’t close though. Obama was winning and by a large margin. And as soon as Ohio went to Obama, you could feel the excitement grow because this dream, this hope, was about to become a reality!

i remember when CNN came back from their commercial break and and the west coast polls were about to close. they had a countdown that we all counted down and as soon as that ticker reach double zero, it meant that the polls in california, oregon and washington had close, it mean that Obama was now the president elect of our united state of america. and at that time, i just felt myself floating in the air. people carrying me as we all jumped and yelled in unison. it was an amazing feeling. everyone there, cheering and celebrating for the same reason. for hope, for opportunity, for each other, for our futures. this meant so much to all of us.

there was a sea of people around me and camera crews filming us. at one point during this celebratory chaos, i felt an arm wrap around me and pull me in. it was an elderly black couple, man and wife and they were crying as they pulled me in and hugged me. and we lived that moment together, in person, live. not on my couch, in my office, by myself, on two screens. no. i was there.

i was there when Barack Obama became the 44th president of the united states of america.

i’ve been doing a lot of microblogging instead of actually writing in this big white space that has been taken over by videos and photos. but i want you to know that i haven’t forgotten, i just haven’t wanted to write anything as of late. at the same time, i have just become addicted to the twitter machine.

so if you have been paying attention to the tweet updates on the left you’ll know that i was recently in detroit for the chicago bears game at ford field. road tripped it up there with my uncle, cousin and his friend and stayed at the Renaissance center; which is a really nice hotel, apparently the tallest building in all of the detroit metro area as well. and hey, as soon as we got to the lobby we saw a couple bears players walking through. so not bad at all. and across the street or river was windsor which reminded me of days of old when we road tripped it to toronto a few years back. anyhow, detroit is really a blah kind of city with not much going on except for a bears game. 

tomorrow afternoon i’m headed towards new york city. i’ll be there for a week. celebrating a very special birthday. exploring the city. you gotta live life.

school started today. alright it started on monday really. i’ve got a nice balance of classes here with motion graphics, physics, math and effective speaking. i think you can see the two classes i’m most looking forward to. although i’m not sure it’s going to be a cake walk this quarter. first time i’m doing a “full load” with no real interactive design classes. a little different, but i’m willing because it seems like forever since i was last in school even though i took those online courses. it’s just nice to be back in the atmosphere of things and downtown and not in an online cafe in greece. although maybe that wouldn’t be so terrible either. 

i’m a moving machine right now. today was non-stop, this past weekend was non-stop, and i guarantee you that in the city that never sleeps…it will probably be non-stop.

keep an eye out for photos, tweets, stories, etc…