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San Francisco is one of those places, I didn’t know much about, but always wanted to visit. A day trip was too insufficient to see San Francisco. It was more like introduction to the city. But I am confident about many more visits to the city in future. However, in my very small trip, I noticed a few glaring similarities between San Francisco and Chicago. Here they are..
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San Francisco Flag
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[1] RISING OUT OF ASHES:
San Francisco Fire: 1906
Chicago Fire: 1871
San Francisco: In 1906 a massive earthquake shook San Francisco. Though the quake lasted less than a minute, its impact was disastrous. The earthquake also ignited several fires around the city that burned for three days. The earthquake and fires killed an estimated 3,000 people and left half of the city’s 400,000 residents homeless. San Francisco rose from the ashes of fire and earthquake. The city adopted the phoenix, a mythological bird that arises reborn from its ashes, as its symbol in 1900. The rising phoenix was officially adopted as the flag of San Francisco in 1940.
Chicago: Chicago rose from the ashes of the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, which killed nearly 300 people, left 90,000 homeless and destroyed 17,450 buildings. A star in the flag of Chicago [the second star] stands for the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.
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San Francisco: Palace of Fine Arts
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[2] WORLD’s FAIR:
San Francisco World Fair: 1915 – Only 9 years after San Francisco fire.
Chicago World Fair: 1893 – Only 22 years had passed after the Great Chicago Fire.
San Francisco: By 1915, only nine years after the city was destroyed, San Francisco threw a world’s fair called the Panama Pacific International Exposition, a fantastic city of domes and pastel-colored towers built in the Marina on the rubble of the old city. It showed the world that San Francisco was back. The “Palace of Fine Arts” is one of the few surviving structures from the Exposition, and is the only one still situated on its original site.
Chicago: 1893, the gates opened at the World’s Columbian Exposition, also known as the Chicago World’s Fair. It was to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the discovery of the New World by Europeans. The fair also served to show the world that Chicago had risen from the ashes of the Great Chicago Fire, which had destroyed much of the city in 1871.
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[3] RECLAIMED LAND/ LANDFILL:
San Francisco: large areas made of landfill
Chicago: Large areas made of landfill
San Francisco: Large parts of the city are constructed on landfill. This includes Mission Bay, The Embarcadero, North Beach, The Marina and the Treasure Island.
Chicago: Here too, large parts of the city are made of landfill, which includes Grant Park, Burnham Park, Lincoln Park and Northerly Island.
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Heart sculpture by Tony Bennett in Union Square, San Francisco.
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[4] TAGLINE / CATCHPHASE :
San Francisco: The City that knows how.
Chicago: The City that works.
Both cities hold on to songs by pop-culture icons. San Francisco celebrates Tony Bennett’s 1962 song “I Left my Heart in San Francisco”, whereas Chicago touts Frank Sinatra’s 1964 song “My Kind of Town [Chicago is]”.
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San Francisco: the Golden Gate bridge – was once thought to be impossible to make!
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[5] ACHIEVING SOMETHING CONSIDERED IMPOSSIBLE:
San Francisco: The Golden Gate Bridge opened in 1937
Chicago: Reversed the flow of Chicago River in 1900.
San Francisco: Construction of the Golden Gate bridge in 1937. At the time, experts thought that it would be impossible to build a bridge across the nearly 7,000 foot Golden Gate straight, as extremely strong tides and currents in that area are would make construction extremely difficult and dangerous. To add, the area has strong winds and thick fog. The idea of building a bridge there seemed like an impossibility in the early 1900s.
Chicago: Reversed the flow of Chicago River in 1900. The project seemed impossible at the time. It involved drilling through 28 miles of solid bedrock, that connected Lake Michigan at Chicago with Des Plaines River at Lockport, Illinois. The work started in 1889 and was completed in 1900. The reversal prevented the yearly deaths of thousands of Chicago residents from waterborne diseases such as typhoid and cholera.
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San Francisco: Streetcars
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[6] PUBLIC TRANSPORT:
San Francisco: street cars and cable cars
Chicago: Elevated “L” rapid transit system
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Cupid’s Span – by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen
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[7] MODERN SCULPTURES as SYMBOL of the CITY:
Both cities have modern sculptures as most recognizable symbol of the city.
San Francisco: has”Cupid’s Span” [2002] by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen
Chicago: has the “Cloud Gate” [2004] by Anish Kapoor.
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San Francisco: Undulating cityscape.
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And the biggest difference is San Francisco’s undulating terrain compared to Chicago’s flat prairie landscape.
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References:
San Francisco: The Great Quake.. click here..
San Francisco: Reclaimed Land.. click here..
San Francisco: Golden Gate bridge.. click here..
Chicago: “Urbs in Horto”: .. click here..
San Francisco was rebuilt quickly too quickly, some critics said. The grand plan by Daniel Burnham for a city of sweeping boulevards and monuments was considered briefly and junked. Chicago embraced the 1909 Burnham Plan for the City.
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Related Links:
Home.. click here..
2015 Vacation: Trip to Sacramento, San Francisco, Carson City & Lake Tahoe.. click here..
My Vacations.. click here..
Vacation: USA.. click here..
Vacation: UK.. click here..
Vacation: India.. click here..
UNESCO World Heritage Site.. click here..
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Chicago Art Blogger