Obama's old town

I'm told by tourism authorities that builders simply raise the roofs on skyscrapers to suit the number of flashy condominiums sold. It's easier to increase heights later when the economy picks up. Instead of 80 storeys, they cap the building at 60 and add more floors later.

I don't know what the residents think of the ensuing noise problems but this is the "can do" city and nothing stops growth. The Santiago Calatrava-designed Chicago Spire at 150 storeys and nearly 610 metres has been put on hold, its foundation covered, until the economy improves; but I'm told that it will be built soon enough.

I lose count of the skyscrapers that jut into view, among them the recently finished 92-storey, 360-metre-tall Trump Tower, a gleaming glass super-skyscraper whose top-floor apartments sell for $US15 million ($20.4 million).

Chicago is undergoing a building boom not seen in more than 50 years.

Famous for being the "hog butcher for the world, toolmaker, stacker of wheat, the player with railways," to quote Carl Sandburg, Chicago is equally renowned for its contribution to culture and the arts.

The newest addition to the Art Institute of Chicago, the Renzo Piano wing that adjoins Millenium Park with its stunning Jay Pritzker Pavilion designed by Frank Gehry, officially opened on May 16.

It increases the museum's gallery space by 35per cent, solidifying its position as the nation's second largest after the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Second place again? Yes, but the city is apparently pleased nonetheless.

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Steppenwolf (the best repertory theatre company in the country), Second City Comedy Club, Field Museum of Natural History, John G.Shedd Aquarium (the world's largest indoor aquarium), Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum, Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art and Museum of Science and Industry, among many other fine places of edification, are a salve to sensitive urban egos.

To solidify its claim as an arbiter of sophisticated taste, the former public library has become the Chicago Cultural Centre. It operates as the central tourism headquarters and is essential to a visit here, if only to see the world's largest Tiffany dome. Incidentally, its replacement, the Harold Washington Public Library, is the largest public library in the world.

This is a city of superlatives. It's also a metropolis where big egos, great talents and industrious entrepreneurs thrive concurrently. I find New York brash and occasionally overbearing in its relentless thrum of activity yet I admire Chicago for its mid-west, down-home friendly attitude.

Ask a stranger where to find a shopping bargain and you're likely to be told, if not shown, where to go. Ask a stranger in New York and you're likely to be intentionally misguided in order to keep a location selfishly secret. Hard-earned local knowledge is shared rather than hoarded in Chicago.

I find this laissez-faire approach pleasantly evident in Hyde Park, the south-side neighbourhood where Barack and Michelle used to live until they moved to the White House. During my days in Hyde Park I chatted with so many acquaintances of the Obama family that I was beginning to believe the President really did meet everyone when he worked here as a community organiser.

My walking companion, a long-time resident of Hyde Park, tells me, "Barack Obama sure knows how to work a room." I walk into the Hyde Park Hair Salon (53rd Street near the corner of Harper Street) and find myself talking to Zariff, the President's barber. When I ask the man who cuts the President's hair if he drops in for a short back and sides, he tells me, "No, I go to him." Later I ask Zariff what the White House private residence is like and he tells me that it's nice inside. He enjoys getting out of his little shop from time to time to catch up with the President. It's the kind of surreal conversation one has in Hyde Park when the name Obama is mentioned.

I can get a regular haircut or an Obama haircut here. They each cost $US21. I ask Zariff what the difference is and he tells me that I'll look like Obama if I get an Obama haircut. Customers listening intently to our conversation laugh uproariously. It's a fun place to hang out, just like barber shops used to be. But this is no longer a regular barber shop. The chair where Obama used to sit for his haircut resides in a specially constructed bullet-proof glass case. The President signed the seat shortly after being elected. A local shrine is born.

I wander over to where the Obama family used to live at 5046 South Greenwood Avenue. The quiet, leafy street is closed off at each end but I ask a uniformed member of Chicago's finest, one of a squad maintained by the city permanently on surveillance duty, if I am allowed to photograph it from the other side of the barriers. I'm sure our conversation is being secretly recorded by the FBI but I persist.

The policeman, seated comfortably inside his squad car, looks a bit bored. He extends his hand to flick the ash from his cigar and tells me that I can photograph the house from across the narrow street but can't stay for long. I stand opposite on the steps of one of the oldest synagogues in Chicago for a few moments and take pictures of the President's house. This neighbourhood is not only famous for its Presidential connection. Muhammad Ali owns a house around the corner and Louis Farrakhan owns six, one for him, the others for his sons in the nearby cross street.

Later I have lunch at the Dixie Kitchen and Bait Shop (5225 South Harper Avenue, Harper Court Complex off 53rd Street), where Obama often had lunch or a take-away. An episode of Check! Please, with Obama acting as guest host, was filmed here in August 2001 and has since become a hit on YouTube.

I have an appetiser of fried green tomatoes, a Cajun combination plate and pink lemonade. The kitschy decoration is fun and the atmosphere is surprisingly low key and friendly. To finish off the tour of Obama's favoured local eating spots, I step into the Valois Restaurant (1518 East 53rd Street) where Obama held court with other community organisers when he first moved to Chicago. It's a Greek-owned diner where cash-strapped students and cashed-up professors alike hang out over plates of very basic fare. Pancakes are a specialty.

By the way, it's pronounced val-oyce, not val-wah, if you want to gain street cred.

Without the esteemed University of Chicago, which claims to have more Nobel Prize laureates among its faculty than any Ivy League university in the US, Hyde Park would be just another picturesque integrated community. The enormous Columbian Exhibition of 1893 caused a monumental shebang and put Hyde Park on the international map.

The city needed a boost to remind the world that it survived the big fire of two decades past and a world's fair was deemed necessary to promote its reputation. The term "Windy City" was coined then by international journalists either to describe Chicago's windily loquacious and boastful news reporters or politicians or both, no one is certain now. It had nothing to do with the city's notoriously fickle weather.

About 27 million visitors attended the exhibition during its six-month run, more than half the total population of the US at the time. Unusually for a world's fair, it was also a resounding financial success. The Columbian Exhibition inspired L.Frank Baum to create his Emerald City for The Wizard of Oz, Antonin Dvorak composed his The New World symphony in its honour and Scott Joplin created ragtime music to celebrate its ambient mood.

An extraordinary magical city was created in Hyde Park, albeit a temporary one. All of the buildings save for one the Palace of Fine Arts was constructed of bricks overlaid with stucco in order to protect the valuable paintings inside as fire was still on people's minds were built of simple wood frames and plaster of Paris painted gleaming white.

The White City's fame was universal. The Palace of Fine Arts building was demolished in the 1920s and a permanent structure, a replica of the original built from local limestone with a view towards permanence, was erected in the same position. It's now the Museum of Science and Industry. The only building remaining from the Columbian Exhibition is the Centre for World Religions in Michigan Avenue.

The University of Chicago got its kick-start from the Columbian Exhibition. The fair's Midway Plaisance, its green thoroughfare where P.T.Barnum set up his tent, Little Egypt performed her "hoochie-coochie" dance for thousands of entranced men and Buffalo Bill raked in a small fortune with his Wild West Show, was designated as the grounds for the campus.

I'm impressed by this city's ability to surprise me with its cornucopia of museums. I walk to another gem, the DuSable Museum of African American History (740 East 56th Place), which overlooks a sweep of lawns in Washington Park where the main stadium will be built if Chicago wins the bid to host the 2016 Olympic Games.

It's named after Chicago's founder, Jean Baptiste Pointe du Sable, a black French-American who migrated in the 1780s from Haiti. He founded a trading post at the point where the Chicago River meets Lake Michigan. This small museum provides a sobering and typically illuminating Chicago experience.

My enlightening moment comes while I see an exhibit devoted to Lerone Bennett jnr, the founder of the Johnson Publishing Company, which published seminal black-power magazines such as Ebony and Jet, and the author of the 2002 American Book Award prize winner, Forced Into Glory.

His handsome face is captured in a moving snapshot with Dr Martin Luther King jnr. I can't help but wonder if Hyde Park's most famous son would be where he is today without the sacrifices made by those two men.

Tom Neal Tacker travelled courtesy of the City of Chicago and United Airlines.

FAST FACTS

United Airlines charges $1525 and flies non-stop from Sydney to Los Angeles and then non-stop to Chicago (Melbourne passengers transit in Sydney). Fare is low-season return from Melbourne and Sydney and includes tax.

Chicago's best hotels are in the CBD. I recommend Affinia (166 East Superior Street) $US229 and The James (55 East Ontario Street) $US219 a night for two small boutique hotels with personality, service and excellent dining. The Park Hyatt (800 North Michigan Avenue) has swish rooms in a superb location. The Sofitel Water Tower (20 East Chestnut Street) is in a great central location.

Table Fifty-Two (52 West Elm Street) near the Sofitel Water Tower is an intimate establishment operated by Art Smith, Oprah Winfrey's former personal chef. The Obamas celebrated their Valentine's Day dinner there. Ajasteak (Dana Hotel and Spa, 660 North State Street) does winning wonders with its Japanese-inspired menu. Sushi, sashimi, Kobe beef and killer cocktails make this a hot spot. Bin 36 (Marina City, 339 North Dearborn Street) is a huge wine bar-restaurant owned by one of Chicago's mostinformed winemakers-wholesalers, Brian Duncan. Famed chefs - such as Charlie Trotter at his eponymous restaurant, Rick Bayless's stunning Mexican food at both Topolobambo and the Frontera Grill and Grant Achatz's cutting-edge cuisine at Alinea - take Chicago to even greater heights.

See choosechicago.com.